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Belief in God, miracles & heaven declines as Darwin's theory of evolution rises

As a Christian, I am definitely a minority in my belief that Christianity and evolution can co-exist and believe that they do. It's frustrating when other Christians take such a hard line on the Bible and use it as their set of absolute rules. That's not how the Bible was written.

ETA: I'm with Rev on this.
 
york1313 said:
Has anyone's opinion honestly been changed by reading (another) religion thread on the message boards?
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My core opinions or beliefs remain the same but I enjoy reading everyone's opinions and having my own opinions challenged or reinforced in new ways. (I believe in God and I believe in evolution.) I still recall DeacDiggler's post a few years ago explaining the passage about Peter catching 153 fish. Why 153? I looked for some sort of symbolic meaning behind the number, but then I realized the disciples simply counted the fish and it came out to 153. Combine this with RevDeac's earlier post about the difficulty of translating ideas and meanings of words and - for me at least - it is really neat that 153 is always 153 in every language.
 
Most Jews and Roman Catholics believe The Bible is an allegory not an historical document.

for those who believe in a literal Bible, how do you decide which parts to dismiss or which contradictions aren't to be believed?

If you believe there is one God and that he is omniscient, wouldn't that deity understand that people from different cultures would have different cultures and different frames of reference?
 
DG3 said:
As a Christian, I am definitely a minority in my belief that Christianity and evolution can co-exist and believe that they do. It's frustrating when other Christians take such a hard line on the Bible and use it as their set of absolute rules. That's not how the Bible was written.

ETA: I'm with Rev on this.
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I don't understand why this is a such a controversial topic. Seems like a pretty easy explanation if you are smart and Christian.
 
Wait, there are people who think that both can't happen at the same time?

I'm moving to Australia.
 
pourdeac said:
So for me.....it's ironic when evolution zealots attack belief in God..because it was probably required for the evolution they believe in. It's also sort of ironic to me when creation zealots to attack evolution...because IMO belief in God was a huge part of attaining consciousness during the process of evolution.
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pourdeac said:
That doesn't make a lot of sense.
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pour responds to self
 
DeaconBrews said:
Wait, there are people who think that both can't happen at the same time?

I'm moving to Australia.
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Alfred Russel Wallace, one of the co-founders of the theory of evolution along with Darwin (and there is evidence to suggest Darwin actually stole much of this thinking from Wallace to get the lions share of credit), was a convinced Spiritualist who believed the phenomena associated with it "are proved, quite as well as any facts are proved in other sciences."
 
freakadeac said:
My core opinions or beliefs remain the same but I enjoy reading everyone's opinions and having my own opinions challenged or reinforced in new ways. (I believe in God and I believe in evolution.) I still recall DeacDiggler's post a few years ago explaining the passage about Peter catching 153 fish. Why 153? I looked for some sort of symbolic meaning behind the number, but then I realized the disciples simply counted the fish and it came out to 153. Combine this with RevDeac's earlier post about the difficulty of translating ideas and meanings of words and - for me at least - it is really neat that 153 is always 153 in every language.
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I'm not sure I'm following this. So you're saying that the fact that 153 is a number which doesn't change based on the language spoken is helpful? This is a genuine question, how so? Also, I'm fairly convinced that "John" (whoever the author was, especially of chapter 21) wouldn't have included an arbitrary number just because. I'm glad that you find it helpful though, just not sure how.
 
maybe 153 was code word to avoid persecution from the Romans, its meaning lost to us over 2000 years
 
Meaning of 153 fish? How dense are some people? 1+5+3 = 9. 9 is the upsode down version of 6. 69 fish is clearly a symbol of lesbian carpet munching (especially in the age before proper feminine hygiene). Those Apostles clearly loved them some lesbo porn, and therefore so should we all.
 
I mean, there's a plausible reference to Ezekiel when you transcribe Hebrew letters to numbers. But no one knows, and I just don't see how that detail really matters, maybe it's just that I'm not big into numerology.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Meaning of 153 fish? How dense are some people? 1+5+3 = 9. 9 is the upsode down version of 6. 69 fish is clearly a symbol of lesbian carpet munching (especially in the age before proper feminine hygiene). Those Apostles clearly loved them some lesbo porn, and therefore so should we all.
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How long did you have to work on that to figure it out?
 
I understand the theory of divine intervention but at the end other day this was written by men. And let's not forget that one of those very men betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
 
It is astonishing that so many people still believe in the biblical creation story, Adam and Eve were our first parents, there was a talking serpent, they ate the apple and since then man has been in exile from his God. I'm talking about people who have college degrees, and at least, some notion of analytical thinking.

Would someone answer this for me, what gods have there ever been that were not the product of man's imagination?
 
DeaconCav06 said:
I understand the theory of divine intervention but at the end other day this was written by men. And let's not forget that one of those very men betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
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maybe jesus knew he had to be martyred and sanctioned it
 
meandmyuncleDeac said:
It is astonishing that so many people still believe in the biblical creation story, Adam and Eve were our first parents, there was a talking serpent, they ate the apple and since then man has been in exile from his God. I'm talking about people who have college degrees, and at least, some notion of analytical thinking.

Would someone answer this for me, what gods have there ever been that were not the product of man's imagination?
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A lot of it has to do with the idea that "you just can't question faith." So "rational" can have degrees and be reasonably intelligent, but also believe "well, so things we just can't understand because they operate on a level that our brains can't." While I disagree with that (in most instances), I think that's how people believe in Adam and Eve as their biological first-parents, etc.

Regarding imagination, there's always some of that, but also part of what makes Christianity so compelling- God came to earth in Jesus. John 1 talks about the Word becoming flesh. The problem is that when most people think "word of God," they think of the Bible as being supreme, but that's wrong. The Word (capital W) of God is Jesus, and Jesus is God; therefore, the imagination isn't as needed. The Bible is the word (lower case) of God. And confusing the Word with the word has caused a lot of confusion and done a lot of harm.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
maybe jesus knew he had to be martyred and sanctioned it
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And the problem is that this line of thought is pervasive. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is one of the most pernicious in all Christianity. There might be some validity in it, but it's not the whole kit and kaboodle.
 
Rev, I understand the traditional Christian belief that God came to earth in the form of Jesus. This connotes that God and Man are separate. In many of the eastern religions, God is in everyone.

Do we not hear this from Jesus in the Thomas Gospel, to wit: "He who drinks from my mouth will become as I am, and I shall be He". That is basic Buddhism and Hinduism.
 
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