Because... It Says it in the Bible...
Seriously?
The best line: "All fossils are usually rather boring because they are piles of dead things."
HT: Friendly Atheist
My Groups
-
political Updated: 11 minutes ago
-
Freethinkers Updated: 11 minutes ago
-
Conservative Politics (host) Updated: 23 minutes ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
Comments
And that whole "circular logic" thing was so laughable. It is almost like it is being made up on the spot.
As for dinosaurs, well, the apologetics get apoplectic around them...
John
But let us not focus on that... fossils are rather boring... and just piles of dead things. :)
LMAO! 8:-)
Oh wait... Doh!
Creationists don't typically believe that the Flood killed off the dinosaurs; instead, they hold that dinosaurs lived well past the flood. They cite the dragons of Genesis, the behemoth of Job and interesting oddities such as the dragon carvings at Angkor Wat, the petroglyphs of Australia and the obvious fakes of Texas.
(Hope I got all his links in there right.)
They explain the sharp teeth by invoking the panda [2], which has sharp teeth to crush bamboo but is a vegetarian. Never mind that the surfaces of teeth designed for tearing meat are very different from those designed for crushing veggies - and that this difference is both obvious and evident when examining dinosaur teeth.
It was only after Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil [3] that Yahweh killed an animal to clothe them - and incidentally feed all those poor starving T. Rex-type critters out there...
John
[1] The entry of "original sin" which damns us because of something someone else did, not something that we did. Resolving this concept with a loving god is one of the central problems in Christianity.
[2] And ignore the irony.
[3] Actually, it wasn't eating that that got them kicked out of Eden; it was Yahweh's fear that they would then eat from the Tree of Life and live forever as a god that got them kicked out.
Christianity has a long history of reason and faith working together, it really does. At least, Catholicism does. I consider Catholicism to be mainstream Christianity, and Protestants to be fringe-types. Not in America, though.
The Rapture was invented in the 1800s, so that's not a consideration. Many of these literalists use the KJV of the Bible, which is notorious for its translation problems. There's a whole host of reasons why you should be attacking these people, but I'd say that to really address Christian thought on evolution you'd have to go to current Catholic sources.
Starting in the late 1800's, yes. Before then, not so much...
Odd, the Protestants I know say the same thing about the Catholics. After all, they were here first.
Many Protestant scholars would disagree with you.
Such as this one that says that Creationism is OK with the Catholics? Or this one that says that the traditional Catholic view is for Creationism? Or this one, who thinks that the human body is just too darn complex to have arisen by evolution? Or, well heck - here's a list of them!
John
In one of the links:
"It" being creationism. That is one of the miracles of the Catholic Faith...we never made dogmatic statements about things like the orbit of the planets or creationism. There's room for increased understanding.
I'm not a believer in a micromanaging God. But I do believe that He established certain laws of physics and universal principles, and has taken a hand in subsequent matters. I believe He guides events such as the development of life on this planet.
They might benefit from watching the History Channel. They had a program on it that laid out the development of the idea fairly well.
Cheeky. I like the ones who claim that somehow the Church completely lost its mind after the Apostles died, and it took the awesome divine inspiration of their founder to get things back on track. As if somehow the first 1500 years of the Church were completely misused. That's arrogance worthy of Luther.
Granted, the emphasis on a cordial relationship with science as we understand it has been a recent development. But the Church has nearly from the beginning been influenced by Greek rational thought, which makes it distinct from other Eastern mystic religions. It's a commitment to logic that has caused men of genius to toil in service to the Church, reasoning out the tenets of the Faith.
They could use a little Pope in their lives.
I don't mean to be cheeky myself, but I really do get frustrated when I see folks who don't hold with any religion attacking dorks like the banana guy. I feel like the believer's position isn't being presented at its best...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Eastern Orthodox Church would argue with both of you on who is mainstream Christian. At least, that's what I've been told by the local priests when taking tours of their churches.
John
[1] Thereby one-upping the folks who claim it from Jesus, who was baptized by John...
Actually, the RC has made such statements. That's one of the reasons that was read out when Bruno was burned at the stake - that he believed in a heliocentric universe. And that's why Galileo was forced to recant - because he had evidence supporting Bruno (and made the pope look like a dummy - never a good idea!).
As historical sources go, the History Channel is not the most reliable. Try these, some of which clearly show the concept pre-dating the 1800's.
That and the fact that in many places it was the only game in town...
Or a lot less...Fortunately, not all are judged by the standard of banana guy, just as not all are judged by the standard of Mother Teresa.
John
Galileo was actually supported by the pope, at first.
I knew that History Channel line was going to make me sound ignorant. Did you know that it's just "History" now? No Channel...not sure how I feel about it.
As for Galileo, he wasn't supported so much as tolerated. His work with the telescope promised the Pope victory in the battlefields, which made the Church happy. And Galileo's work with pumps helped keep the Church's mines clear of water, which made them easier and cheaper to work, which again made the Church happy.Had Galileo not made the mistake of putting the Pope's arguments into the mouth of a man named "Idiot", then he might have escaped the Inquisition [2]. But the Pope was more worried about his stature than about the truth, and so had Galileo imprisoned for life
John
[1] A bit stripped, but the essentials are there. There are lots of nuances to their position, but this isn't the place to get into the fine points of dogmatic law over the ages.
[2] Whether his works would still have been forbidden reading for the next 600 years is another question entirely.