All Christians Should Accept EVOLUTION (page 3)

cappytan

If you've seen the debate between Cardinal Pell and Dawkins, you were likely surprised like I was to hear Pell state that the Church's position on Adam and Eve was that it was just a story to explain some nonsense. (Can't remember exactly what his explanation was.)

Doltologist

Cappytan

If you've seen the debate between Cardinal Pell and Dawkins, you were likely surprised like I was to hear Pell state that the Church's position on Adam and Eve was that it was just a story to explain some nonsense. (Can't remember exactly what his explanation was.)

See, that's what I'm talking about. Anyone can claim whatever they want about the babble and god. All claim to know the sky wizard and what he thinks and why he thinks what he thinks and what the babble says and means and why it says it what it says.

So, they've all met the sky wizard and talked to him have they?

Jonathan Drake

If you've seen the debate between Cardinal Pell and Dawkins, you were likely surprised like I was to hear Pell state that the Church's position on Adam and Eve was that it was just a story to explain some nonsense. (Can't remember exactly what his explanation was.)

I just watched the entire thing. Cardinal Pell can't keep his story straight. First he says atheism brings bad to the world, blaming it for Hitler and Stalin, then later in the same hour he says atheists aren't inherently evil and have the same hopes as everyone else.

also I'm sorry, but he's wrong - an allegorical view of Adam and Eve is just a recent act of desperation by the faithful. It has never ever been viewed as any other way than literal until evidence disproved they ever lived. Making it anything but literal completely destroys the entire faith.

Billyblobber

The Flood is worse when it comes to evolution than Adam and Eve, really, since it's much closer in history, and involves some sort of hyper evolution that goes against everything we know about evolution as well as half of the known sciences on top of that. And Jesus quoted it as having happened.

FusionTheism

Adam and Eve (and also Noah's Flood) can simply be a Parable for mankind falling deeply into the sins of murdering, enslaving, raping, stealing, plus greed and selfishness.

And Jesus came to liberate us and elevate from those evil things.

FusionTheism

I find it ironic that atheists are strongly arguing that the Bible must be interpreted literally, even though it's been interpreted allegorically ever since church father Origen, probably before him even.

Atheists WANT the Bible to be interpreted literally so they can have something to attack.

If it's a symbolic parable or allegory, atheists have nothing left to attack.

Quote from Wikipedia.com :

Some Jews and Christians have long considered the creation account of Genesis as an allegory instead of as historical description, much earlier than the development of modern science. Two notable examples are Augustine of Hippo (4th century) who, on theological grounds, argued that everything in the universe was created by God in the same instant, and not in six days as a plain account of Genesis would require;[2] and the 1st century Jewish scholar Philo of Alexandria, who wrote that it would be a mistake to think that creation happened in six days or in any determinate amount of time.[3]

Jonathan Drake

Adam and Eve (and also Noah's Flood) can simply be a Parable for mankind falling deeply into the sins of murdering, enslaving, raping, stealing, plus greed and selfishness.
And Jesus came to liberate us and elevate from those evil things.

Humans don't need an allegorical Jesus to do this; morality is proven also to be naturalistic.

What's more, Jesus can be thanked for the crusades, the holocaust, the current suffering of millions needlessly with disease we COULD cure, the spread of aids by preaching against contraception, and more and more.

There is no moral argument to make FT.

Jonathan Drake

I find it ironic that atheists are strongly arguing that the Bible must be interpreted literally, even though it's been interpreted allegorically ever since church father Origen, probably before him even.
Atheists WANT the Bible to be interpreted literally so they can have something to attack.
If it's a symbolic parable or allegory, atheists have nothing left to attack.

Wrong.

Augustine says: "three general opinions prevail about paradise. Some understand a place merely corporeal; others a place entirely spiritual; while others, who's opinion, I confess, pleases me, hold that paradise was both corporeal and spiritual."
I answer that, as Augustine says: "Nothing prevents us from holding, within proper limits, a spiritual paradise; so long as we believe in the truth of the events narrated as having their occurred." For whatever scripture tells us about paradise is set down as a matter of history; and wherever scripture makes use of this method, we must hold to the historical truth of the narrative as a foundation of whatever spiritual explanation we may offer.
- Aquinus, in Summa Theologica

This is Saint Thomas Aquinas, writing that something set down as a matter of history in the bible should be viewed as historical truth, not allegorical.

When, however, there is a question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism [our descent from ancestors beyond Adam and Eve], the children of the church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.
- Pope Pius XII

Everyone knows popes are infallible right? Someone must have forgotten to tell the pope his views were wrong and get him to read about Origen so that he knew the church doesn't believe in a literal Adam.

You've got it backwards FT. It's not that atheists want the bible to be literal so they can attack it - it's that theists want it to be allegorical so it can't be. The idea that it hasn't been seen as literal for nearly two thousand years, and that its literalization is just a smear campaign is insulting and shows a lack of real knowledge.

nicolaou

The fact that some theologians began to interpret the Bible allegorically a long time ago proves what?

The Biblical account is full of holes snd some smart men began to see it early on. Good for you Fusion that you aren't holding to a literal interpretation of Scripture but you come on here proclaiming your views as though they're the final word!

I have no need for the Bible to be interpreted literally in order to decry it, even as allegory it's a nasty, vicious tome.

You have a long way to go buddy.

OnTheWayOut

I find it ironic that atheists are strongly arguing that the Bible must be interpreted literally, even though it's been interpreted allegorically ever since church father Origen, probably before him even.

Atheists WANT the Bible to be interpreted literally so they can have something to attack.

Atheists do not need a literal Bible to attack. Fine, throw it out. We wish you would. Even throwing out the literalness is a fine start. So where do you draw the line? Was Jesus just a man? Was he born of a virgin like the myth borrowed from false religion? Did he perform actual miracles? Or was that all figurative of a smart guy just like the Buddha? What does the future hold for earth if the Bible is figurative? How do we interpret Revelation, or is that one that doesn't really belong? Why doesn't God just tell us?

Adam and Eve (and also Noah's Flood) can simply be a Parable for mankind falling deeply into the sins of murdering, enslaving, raping, stealing, plus greed and selfishness.
And Jesus came to liberate us and elevate from those evil things.

Then we don't need a redeemer from original sin. The men who wrote the Bible elevated Jesus to a status that doesn't represent what God wants. People really need to lift themselves up to become their own "Jesus" and we can close down all the churches. I assume that you feel that only Christians can avoid falling deeply into the sins of murdering, enslaving, raping, stealing, greed, and selfishness. WHY? And if you don't feel that way, then do all attempted paths of righteousness lead to God?

All Christians Should Accept EVOLUTION

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