Well, it would go against what my beliefs are as a Christian, but I'm not sure I've ever met a Christian who believes that the NT is allegory. I wouldn't argue it, I just don't believe that the NT is allegory. If the entire Bible is allegory, then striving to follow Christ's teachings would seem rather futile, yes?
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Theistic Evolution?
- Thread starter Deidre
- Start date
Well, it would go against what my beliefs are as a Christian, but I'm not sure I've ever met a Christian who believes that the NT is allegory. I wouldn't argue it, I just don't believe that the NT is allegory. If the entire Bible is allegory, then striving to follow Christ's teachings would seem rather futile, yes?
Gambit
Well-Known Member
Someone who is Catholic posted in my thread there, and said the most perfectly poignant thing, at least IMO. He/she said ''it's not a matter of creation or evolution but rather creation and evolution.'' In other words, we don't have to sacrifice one 'belief' for another, simply because we identify as Christians. I like that.
But Catholicism does teach that all human beings have descended from Adam and Eve.
Gambit
Well-Known Member
Liberal Christian theologians have definitely taken aspects of the New Testament as myth and interpreted it metaphorically in order to craft a (more compelling or plausible) theology, much like Freud had taken the myth of Oedipus in order to explain a psychological complex.
I believe the teaching is such that the RCC states that it allows for the possibility that physically speaking, our bodies may have come from other life forms, but that there is a special creation of the soul by God. This could be where Adam and Eve come into play, but the RCC may teach that Genesis in large part, was symbolic in context.
Well, many feel that the ''mainstream'' form of Christianity that many practice today, shouldn't even have come to fruition, and that Gnosticism was the actual 'first' Christianity. Of course, it's often referred to nowadays as a 'heretical' movement. lol
I find the varying beliefs to be very interesting, but our human interpretations fall short sometimes of really giving us the full truth. This is why I'm grateful to have had an experience of faith. No matter if anyone believes me or not, I felt it was real and it is what led me back to faith.
Gambit
Well-Known Member
Right. But Catholicism does teach that Adam and Eve were real people, and that all human beings have descended from them.
Gambit
Well-Known Member
Interesting.
“Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study.” - Alfred North Whitehead (source: pg. 12, "The Function of Reason")
Reflex
Active Member
A serious problem with this analogy is that fairies is an infinitely better explanation for the car's existence than unguided mechanism. (Whitehead was right.)
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Why bother to assert it's a problem when you offer no reason or evidence for your assertion?
Do you think so? I stand slightly surprised.
I was raised nominally a Catholic, admitedly in a family that went through the motions without giving them much thought and attempted to syncretize Kardecist Spiritism with that.
I actually went through Eucharisty despite never having thought of myself as a Christian or even a believer. People just did not ask me whether I did. I was simply expected to go through the motions as all good people supposedly did,
I vividly remember that even at my most involved with the Eucharisty teachings I just knew that it was all allegory, parables that people used in order to transmit religious teachings. The idea that someone might take those exotic tales as literal truth and think of believing in them, even establishing them as historical truth simply did not appear at all believable at the time. We do not attempt to believe in Robin Hood or King Arthur, that is not the point. It seemed no different with Jesus. It still does not.
It seems to me that the worth of the teachings is not and in fact can not conceivably depend significantly on the literal accuracy of the tale of how they were transmitted or revealed.
Yes, I know that there are Biblical promises that suggest otherwise. Somehow it just doesn't sound right to take them at their word.
I wonder if the fact that during the same time my community was under the rule of a military junta that suppressed open questioning of authority is related to my surprise. At the time I was quite convinced that people thought things that were at odds with what they said and done all the time, as a matter of course. Because so often they had to in order to be safe.
It's notable that Whitehead was usually above trying to fool fools with semantics.
If you're trying to imply I'm dumb enough to conflate soul and consciousness, just say it.
Necessarily? Perhaps not. "Most often" might be more accurate.
biological organisms adapt to their environment so they are good enough at surviving to sustain their existences. That is it's function or purpose... that's what biological evolution is and what it does (as far as we've observed at any rate).
If you reduce "purpose" to "biological function" then I have no qualms. Of course, we both know almost all "evolutionary theists" see a much greater purpose in evolution than mere biological functions. In fact, I myself have never once heard of a devotee or clergy person gush about the biological "purpose" of evolving aerobic respiration. It just doesn't happen.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
lol ... You are very wrong. In fact, your citation completely agrees with me. If there was verifiable evidence (empirical evidence) for the existence of God, God could be invoked. But, to the best of our knowledge, that doesn't exist.
And, btw, I do believe in Intelligent Design, or at least that it is plausible.
Hehe... I've witnessed things like this happen when I've attended services or participated in other workshops and such.
It's true the purposiveness can go beyond that. I suppose I don't view that as an "imposition" per se. I like to weave tales of greater purpose too (seems a fundamental human impulse, that), but in my mind, I can pretty clearly delineate between where the science ends and my storytelling begins.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Probably not since evolution doesn't explain how the world came to be. It explains the diversity of life on earth.
Jesus casted some demons to some (innocent) pigs causing them to fall down a cliff to drown. As if demons had lungs, lol.
Do you think that this should be read literally?
Ciao
- viole
1 John 4:8
God = Love
the kingdom of love comes from within you.
with the increase of love comes light. you are the light of the world, a city set on a hill cannot be hid.
Revelation 21:23
The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.
http://phys.org/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html