May the other forum members stop feeding you trolls as I intend to with anything other than bible passages which reveal what you represent.

Jhn 5:38 "You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent.

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If god made human from dirt, how come there are still dirt around? ~ [obvious_child]

You know what, Archie is right. Evolution is a total scam. ~ [obvious_child]

If the universe were not as it is, it would be different. ~ [Penfold]

A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it destroys itself from within. ~ Durant

You seem to claim that it’s less satisfactory than “literalists” do, because you interpret it much more loosely. It begins with “In the beginning God created” – the evolutionary concept simply does not follow those words. Isn’t it your claim that was fine in the old days before Darwin, yet now it needn’t be taken as seriously because of what we now know?

If the Bible isn’t about nature, then the scientific community alone gets to make statements about nature, and it makes biological statements about behavior characteristics, so it becomes the sole authority on human nature. Abortion? – no problem. Gay marriage? – no problem. The sacrifice of human interests for microscopic animals? - no problem. There’s more to the Bible than personal spirituality.

The medium by which we’re carrying on this discussion is dependent upon science, not philosophy about billions of years, or thousands of light years. Exactly where the science/philosophy line is drawn cannot be defined to everyone’s satisfaction, as can’t the importance of how speculations of the past relate to scientific accomplishments of today.

That could have been true in the 18th and 19th century, but it’s not true today. Practically all those who support separation of church and state today are the non-religious. Since the religious who DO support separation of church and state basically agree politically with the non religious, it is legitimate to question their religious sincerity.

Yes it has – the sincere theistic evolutionists have lost too. Sincere theistic evolutionists are so uneducated about Christianity, they just don’t realize it yet. Of course the phony theistic evolutionists win big. Militant atheism needs their help, and it’s logical that some atheists masquerade as theistic evolutionists. Do you deny the possibility of their existance?

What can churches accomplish if they are limited within their walls?

Christ’s teachings were about influencing the world, not just about a closet relationship with him. If the ethics of the state aren't religious, in many cases they have to be non-religious. There is often little middle "secular" ground. Legalized gambling is a good example. Either it does exist in a defined area, or it doesn't.

What ages are your students? Have you directed their attention to this discussion you and I are having?

Evolution, atheism, creationism, it’s always about the politics. If this were about nothing but private, personal beliefs, there would be little, if any controversy. It's always about how society is influenced, the culture war, the money.

I’m not grafting them like that – they are grafted like that. Thomas Sowell wrote a book called A conflict of visions – ever hear of it? He leaves religion out of it – he’s not a direct religion advocate. He divides the distinct liberal /conservative, left/right positions as constrained vs unconstrained visions. I’ll attempt to sum up what he says in a few paragraphs, though it’s largely impossible to do, and I might even screw it up! But I think the constrained vision goes along with creationism, and the unconstrained vision goes along with both atheism and theistic evolution. Unconstrained follows the change-aspect of evolution – that there is an untapped, never ending potential of human beings – that man is perfectable, “meaning continually improvable rather than capable of actually reaching absolute perfection”. A constrained vision doesn’t see human nature as something that could or should be changed (or evolved), but only how moral and social benefits desired can be produced within that constraint – that constraint (IMO) being the unchangable sinful nature of humans, and the unchanging God of the Bible.

That is where the political divide is – it’s what separates “fundamentalists” from the unification of atheists and theistic evolutionists.

I recommend that book far more than Winnick’s.

I already have – the unconstrained vision requires elite leaders to a much larger extent than the constrained one does. BIG GOVERNMENT. It’s been made to look very attractive. The dreams of that have been made to look more attractive than have the constraints of Biblical “literalism”.

Uh-oh, I thought you were a Christian.

We were talking about judging books by their covers. Most people don’t form political opinions (or worldviews, in the case of young people) by detailed readings of several books. Quick, drive-by glances in their everyday lives are the important things. I guarantee Stenger’s title of his book has had more influence than its more detailed contents.

I don’t know about that, I guess it’s dependent on ones point of view. I don’t think Coulter has unleashed viciousness on anyone to the extent that Bush 43 or Limbaugh have been on the receiving end of it. I believe they’ve had slow deaths wished upon them, though it’s hard to pinpoint just who says it. But I’ve seen/heard Dawkins, Ed Shultz, James Carvillle, Janeane Garofalo say some pretty vicious things.

I don’t think it takes the reading of an entire book to see where someone’s coming from. A few minutes of Richard Dawkins on a youtube video or the movie “Expelled” can be enough for me.

A lack of strong oppostion can be practically an acceptance of it, when the only two choices are constrained vs unconstrained.

But atheism requires natural science – to be intellectually fullfiled. Natural science is the sub – it does not have the requirements that the worldview (theism/atheism) does.

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When church and state are separated, atheism and state are combined.

But it can weed out the fuzzy middle ground, something that both sides often try to appeal to.

When something is being analzyed/interpreted, the actual text of what is being analyzed is very important. If two people are analyzing the statement “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”, person A can go into detail about how much effort he believes the fox put into it’s leg muscles to accomplish this. If person B then says “There was no fox involved”, then that person’s interpretation skill or honesty has to be questioned. Those who actually know Christianity tend to wonder about theistic evolutionists just like they would wonder about person B above. I’m not trying to be offensive, but someone very similar to person B was who I saw in the author of “Finding Darwin’s God”.

So you’re saying Christianity shouldn’t be involved in worldliness? Traditional Christian morals are already involved in a lot of political issues, and if they’re taken away, we’ll have a radically different society than what we have now.

I was a little too brief and careless in making my point. The Gospels were the result of eyewitness accounts, as compiled by the authors. So there were many more than 4 eyewitnessis, with a lot of different times and circumstances involved in compiling it all.

If a “myth” is being put forward, it only makes sense that the person or persons doing it are going to try to make every detail match perfectly, or to make the story as complete as possible. If the gospels all matched perfectly, if every year of Jesus’ life was detailed thoroughly, to me it would make Christianity less believable. (there are practically no records of Jesus’ life from age 12 to age 30) If there were no gaps or questions, it would appear that a person or persons had one organized attempt to put forward a myth. Christianity clearly has no defined earthly organization. The 66 book Bible didn’t come together by any defined organization, except God’s.

Slippery slopes never have to occur, but the likelihood of their occurance is often strong enough that the “have too” occurance is practically a given. History clearly shows us that.

Politics is all there is to it!

I don’t know where to find figures on it either. I’m sure you’d be right if the years were 1950 to 1970, or 1950 to 1985. After that, I’d say there’d be a pretty drastic shift. The logical emergence of ID (a search for design, not a designer) coupled with the continuing inability of the scientific community to explain the origin of the simplest forms of life, has caused the evolution/atheist books/promotion to drastically increase. The most recent promotions are the ones most relevent to current thinking. (politics )

I don’t claim to completely understand it - I don't think anyone can. There are measures of faith in all beliefs. Mine, yours, and atheists too.

You don’t have to personally attack some atheists to be personally attacked by them at 4forums, trust me.

It is a confusing world – some Christians I want nothing to do with, and I know some atheists who are very nice people. Too many people make the mistake of judging Christianity on that, or I should say, making it (actions of people) a central issue of Christianity. It’s not central, Christ and his word are central.

I’m a religious conservative, and I think liberal interpretations and ideas are dangerous. Why that is, should be clear in my opinions about politics, slippery slopes, etc.

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When church and state are separated, atheism and state are combined.

To repeat, I don't claim the Bible is any less satisfactory in terms of spiritual truths.

As far as interpreting it loosely, my view is that it is "literalists" -- i.e., so-called "literalists," for which reason I'm glad you used the scare quotes! -- are the ones whose interpretation is loose. In my experience, they are incredibly dismissive of any textual inconsistencies, know next to nothing about the history of either the texts or the church, and lift passages out of their context routinely.

So what? The Bible also nowhere claims that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. And yet, whether one is a Christian or an atheist or anything else besides, water is made of hydrogen and oxygen.

Evolution is compatible with atheism (at least the non-science-denying varieties). And evolution is also compatible with Christianity (at least the non-science-denying varieites).

If you want to launch a general assault on the viability of science itself, okay -- and it's for this reason, incidentally, that I think conservative Christians have ironically adopted the same epistemology as the very postmodern relativists they decry. But in that event, there are bigger problems.

If you can show me where I claimed that, let me know.

What I would actually claim is that even most of the earliest interpreters of scripture, both Christians of the first few centuries AD and Jews long before that, did not interpret the text literally either. This claim has the virtue of being true.

Moreover, to repeat yet again, I do not think the spiritual message has become any less serious than ever.

And yet, abortion, gay mariage, and conservation do not follow from anything about evolution. You are committing the "naturalistic fallacy" here.

I will happily admit that there are biologists who are also guilty of this fallacy. They, like you, are wrong.

Biology can tell us what the natural basis is for such behaviors. It cannot tell us whether we ought to condone them, morally or legally.

And yet, the reasoning is the same in both cases. Whether designing a microchip or figuring out the age of the universe, one makes an inference based on empirical evidence.

That's simply not true. At politically moderate and liberal congregations all over the country, you can find strong support for the separation of church and state.

And I'm sorry, Marc, but that's where I think you are really crossing the lines of fairness in debate. You are legitimizing charges of guilt by association.

There are non-religious supporters of any number of right-wing causes out there. Shall I question your religious sincerity because you agree with these non-religious people?

Give me a break. In my experience, the majority -- the majority -- of Biblical "literalists" know diddly squat about their own religion. They don't know its history, or the history of its holy book. They don't even possess detailed knowledge of what the book says.

Marc, anything is possible. But you have provided absolutely no evidence that any theistic evolutionist is anything but a believer. All you're doing is casting innuendo.

As I noted in an earlier post, I think you've poisoned the well. You simply don't accept their sincerity, so anything they could say to demonstrate their sincerity is just more evidence of how deceitful they are.

Who said anything about limiting churches to what goes on inside them? They can gather outside their walls, their members can evangelize in any peaceable manner they say fit, they can make outreaches to their whole communities, you name it.

I merely used the public display issues you provided. Because I do think it is entirely inappropriate for governments to promote religion that way. But if religions want to promote religion, that's fine. Indeed, that's protected by the First Amendment.

On the contrary, I would say there is often a great deal of middle ground between secular and religious approaches to ethics. "Non-religious" isn't equivalent to "anti-religious."

In my own community, this has been a much debated topic of late. I know religious people and non-religious people who oppose it. I also know non-religious people and religious people who support it.

On matters of widespread moral agreement, both the religious and the non-religious tend to agree. Meanwhile, on matters of hotly contested disagreement, there religious and non-religious advocates on all sides. So what?

Not so. There are also matters of truth to consider. And the truth -- whether scientific or metaphysical -- is not determined by society or money..

No. I've read many of his columns before, though, and have never been impressed by the quality of his reasoning.

So he's an indirect religion advocate? Hm.

As I said in the original post, Gould objected to some of Dawkins's ideas precisely because -- to use Sowell's terminology -- Dawkins thinks our biology "constrains" us. It's not an unconditional constraint, perhaps, but it's extremely strong.

Attempts to divide up the world into opposed categories like liberal/conservative, left/right, constrained/unconstrained typically fail miserably. Reality is more complicated than that.

What constraints? Biblical "literalism" makes up its own version of the Bible to affirm "literally." No constraints whatsoever.

Meanwhile, forgvie me if I find the idea that "the unconstrained vision requires elite leaders to a much larger extent than the constrained one does" a bit silly. When I see various conservative televangelists whipping up stadium-sized crowds, I think it's pretty clear that the crowd is more than happy to put itself in the hands of "elite" leaders.

I was just hinting that I find a great deal of behavior by self-professed "Christians" on this board to be utterly antithetical to Christian ethics.

Give me a break. Coulter once mocked pro-choice doctors' use of terms by saying that someone should "perform a procedure with a rifle" on one of them. Viciousness. I truly cannot think of any conservative pundit I find more offensive to basic decency, or who I take as less indicative of Christian ethics.

Which is saying something, considering that Limbagh once referred to Chelsea Clinton as "the White House dog."

If such things have been wished upon them, that too is deserving of condemnation.

Which excuses what, exactly? My parents had ingrained in me that two wrongs don't make a right before I was ten.

Except that those aren't the only two choices.

And in order to be intellectually fulfilled, I think that Christianity requires natural science, too. Spiritual fulfillment is another matter, of course.

Had a few minutes this morning, so I decided to respond to the second post in full. Hopefully I won't lose this one. (I've deleted the brief response I made following the loss of the original post last night.)

And I think the irony is, it's the black-and-white, no-middle-ground view that exemplifies "fuzzy" thinking. It simply pretends there are no complexities of whatever sort would conflict with its worldview.

I agree! And this is precisely why I find "literalism" ridiculous: it does not pay attention to what it claims to analyze and interpret. Confronted with inconsistencies in the text, it simply ignores them, dismisses them, declares them insoluble mysteries, continues to affirm something other than "the actual text" as "literally" true.

The better to serve various earthly masters, I think, but more on that in a minute.

And I think that when someone decides to dismiss inconsistencies, it is his "interpretation skill" that must be questioned.

No, I'm saying that worldliness has utterly corrupted the church in its "Christian conservative" mode. It's become a tool for worldly power, nothing more.

The hypocrisy, intolerance, and authoritarianism shown by conservatively politicized Christianity has itself done severe damage to traditional Christian morals. If society becomes "radically different" due to a depoliticization of the church, I think that might well be a good thing. And a good thing for the church itself.

Sorry but this still doesn't cut the mustard. The Gospels were not eyewitness accounts, nor were they compilations of eyewitness accounts. If you think otherwise, present your evidence.

On the other hand, you could try to open yourself up to some new perspectives on the text. Check out John Shelby Spong's Liberating the Gospels. He examines the liturgical, not biographical, motivations of the authors of the synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke). Extremely illuminating.

But he's a liberal and a non-literalist, of course.

So it's more compelling because of the inconsistencies?!? "I'm not trying to be offensive," Marc, but that makes no sense.

Keep in mind, the issue is not just gaps or questions. There are outright contradictions between the different Gospel accounts. Try as you might, there is simply no way to reconcile that with your earlier claim -- a claim that's representative of the Biblical "literalist" view in general -- that the Biblical authors' divine inspiration renders their accounts infallible.

That's the real problem with the "literalism." It's they who turn the Bible into nonsense, not the non-literalists.

On the contrary, "history clearly shows us that" there's nothing "given" about them. The very fact that so many interpreters of the Bible have understood the text allegorically, while nonetheless continuing to believe, continuing to practice, continuing to affirm theism in word and in deed, is a refutation of your claim.

Exactly my point! For conservative Christianity, politics really is "all there is to it." Power in this world is the end, and the religious interpretation is nothing more than a useful means. The damage thereby done to the church by the very religious conservatives who claim to support it cannot be overestimated.

Affirming manifest contradictions is not a "measure of faith." The reason why it can't be understood, completely or even minimally, is that such a view is antithetical to our God-given power of reason itself.

Jesus criticizes hypocrisy throughout the Gospels, so I'd say it's a rather central notion. When prominent Christians behave so hypocritically, it's only natural that non-Christians would question whether they really believe what they say. And when that hypocrisy is coupled to do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do authoritarianism in politics, it's hardly surprising that non-Christians find Christianity unattractive.

More emphasis on an ethics of love for the entire brotherhood of man as children of God. Less emphasis on using government and law to impose the behavioral requirements of particular interpretations of Christianity on those who don't share them. That is how to help the faith these days.

And I think it's the conservative positions that have become dangerous, not just to government, but to religion itself.

Perhaps, as I noted earlier, there really is nothing more to say.

What is it that theistic evolutionists try to accomplish with their scrutiny of “textual inconsistencies”? An opposition to literalists, and an alliance with atheists?

It's clear that most theistic evolutionists find literalists to be a greater threat to their earthly lifestyle than they do atheists.

You don’t seem to be thinking about different levels of importance of scriptural text. The words “in the beginning God created” is more general, more central, more important than the details of, for example, the conflict of accounts of the two theives hurling insults at Jesus vs only one.


NOT AN ASSUALT ON SCIENCE, BUT A QUESTIONING OF SCIENTISTS. A questioning of the scientific community as a group.

The “assault on science” straw man is always built by atheists and theistic evolutionists alike, and it never matters how clear the truth is made. If there’s one “same old line re-hashed time and again” thing in creation / evolution debates, that’s it – that anyone who’s not a Geneis disregarding evolutionist is anti-science.

I wish that could be settled once and for all, but it never is. It won’t be any time at all before, somewhere on these forums, a creationist will be accused of being anti-science. It’s emotioal, it can be politically helpful, but it’s always dishonest.

I may be confusing you with Miller, but you’ve given no indication that you disagree with him on much of anything. From page 257 of 'Finding Darwin’s God';

The obvious implication of theistic evolution is that things have changed (evolved) now, that the Bible is to be looked at in a different light now that we know so many scientific things.

If that were true, the original manuscripts would have been lost/disregarded/rewritten to the extent that King James wouldn’t have had anything to work with some 1500 years later.

So a lack of literalism does not sacrifice seriousness? It is less serious if it is increasingly disregarded in the political realm.

Sorry, but it can and does. Scientific “Natural basis for behaviors” can get legitimate consideration in courts of law. If you tell me that it doesn’t, or it doesn’t to any noticable degree, there’s no question that getting it there is one of the strongest political desires of the activist atheist community. And theistic evolutionists don’t seem to mind.

That goes both ways of course – you seem very dismissive of anything a “literalist” would say.

I'm not surprised. Here's how the book starts;

As you've pointed out, there are exceptions to the rule, but that doesn't stop it from being the rule. Evolution seems to be one of the strongest political uniters of today. The gradualism, chance, long periods of time, purposelessness, etc. really seem to bring people together on how people should relate to each other. The unconstrained vision - never ending change.

He leaves religion out of it. It’s possible to do that with the terms constrained / unconstrained. I’m really surprised the terms aren’t used more often in political discussions. Without them, liberals/evolutionists often have the advantage of labeling a constrained view of politics as religious, therefore requiring it to be kept separate (or eliminated) from state. A defined view of imperfect human nature is not necessarily religious. The various speculation of the U.S. founders that resulted in our constitution could actually refer to imperfect human nature (in the Federalist Papers for example) without being accused of establishing religion. They wouldn't be able to get by with it today.

Maybe not the world, but it works pretty well in the U.S. We have Republicans and Democrats. The “religious right” and the non-religious left. The “atheist right” or “religious left” are not common terms in political discussion.

Biblical literalists do not make up the ten commandments. They do not make up the need for a savior. They don’t make up a lot of things that theistic evolutionists make up.

You're forgiven, if you'll remember one very important thing; conservative televangelists are separated from state, liberal political leaders are often not separated from state.

And the rude atheists get a free pass?

What did they say about having double standards? About accusing one political side of viciousness, as if the other side didn’t also have it?

Accusing one side of two conflicting groups of behavior that both sides display is an indicator of an earlier alliance with one side. I try to avoid doing it, but I'll admit that I do sometimes. I'll freely admit that I have an earlier alliance with Christianity. Do theistic evolutionists BEGIN with a sympathy towards atheism?

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When church and state are separated, atheism and state are combined.

This goes back to what I said earlier – there has to be a common sense divide between what’s important and what is not. To try to combine them in the hopes of destroying them is what militant atheists do.

What you seem to be saying is that since there are perceived inconsistencies in some text, that it lessens the value of other text, like "In the beginning God created". It doesn't - the way some text relates (or does not relate) to other text is important.

Has it been a good thing in Europe? It’s a fact that Christianity has declined sharply in Western Europe. Any number of analyzations of it don’t indicate that an increased militance from fundamentalist Christians has caused it to happen. Separation of church and state is what has caused it to happen.

USATODAY.com - Religion takes a back seat in Western Europe

(From the link)Secular trend - non Christian trend - that's what separation of church and state does!

I have a King James Bible that has descriptions/ timelines etc. of each book. Here is what it says about Luke;

Where do you get your information that the gospels were not compilations of eyewitnesses? Our discussion may be nearing a close.

From a website that promotes him;

If something is not true, it is false.

Now from a website that questions him

And you accuse literalists of knowing “next to nothing about the history of either the texts or the church, and lift passages out of their context routinely”?

You got that right! Did Jesus have a few girlfriends too - a few illegitimate children as well?

Let me reword the bolded statement above to make it more clear; Christianity’s origins have no defined earthly organization. If there was clearly no earthly organization to put together a myth, it’s perfectly logical to take that as a clear indication that there is no myth! That God has revealed the information he has chosen to, and no more. If one decides to reject it on that basis, he is free to do that.

The real problem with theistic evolutionists is that they join with atheists in making a big deal out of “contradictions”. Militant atheists try to use it to discredit the entire Bible. Theistic evolutionists apparently try use them to show an allegorical Bible that is more powerful than a literal one! I’m afraid the atheists really smoke you in the logic department this time. But they never seem to want to debate it with you.

Or it's an indication that Biblical prophesy about false teachers is coming true.

The difference is, you seem to believe that conservative Christianity is the only one on the offense. It is actually on the defence, as Christianity has declined in western Europe, and is declining in the U.S. As I showed you earlier with the titles of those 15 books, atheism is on the offence.

DID IT WORK IN WESTERN EUROPE?



We can agree on that.

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When church and state are separated, atheism and state are combined.

And what is the problem with that??

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“If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.”
Owen Rowley

Western Europe is working fine. Religion is kept in its proper private personal place, and is not discussed in polite company. What is it that you think is wrong?

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" ... It's not as though he proved anything, he only refuted my evidence. ..." Archangel 04.01.09

" ... this egregiously ignorant christian ... Archangel 03.09.09

“Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil.”

Hi marc,
I'm so happy that you have had this in depth discussion with Matthew. Now you have learned first hand what I realized months ago regarding his version of what defines having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, after my debate with him. He is a secular humanist who is determined to pass himself off as a believer. But sadly, he has no clue what having a true personal relationship with the Lord means or entails at all.

I mean, if he didn't say he was a christian, wouldn't you have to admit that you've heard all of his arguments from atheists and secular humanists numerous times before?

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If god made human from dirt, how come there are still dirt around? ~ [obvious_child]

You know what, Archie is right. Evolution is a total scam. ~ [obvious_child]

If the universe were not as it is, it would be different. ~ [Penfold]

A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it destroys itself from within. ~ Durant

I somewhat agree, but he's a good poster. His reference to John Shelby Spong was an eye opener - a clear source of where this type of thinking comes from. I don't think it's dishonest, it's just sad and wrong, and the Bible warns us about it. I find the following three paragraphs from my above linkto be well written;

"entered the academic world dedicated to destroying superstitious religion" - one of the most important issues of the day, I think. Atheism and state should be separated. Parents of college students today should be watching what's going on.

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When church and state are separated, atheism and state are combined.

Archie's using his Super-Jebus x-faith vision again to see what others believe and judge them unworthy. Oh, the shock.

How 'bout keeping your yap shut and letting Marc and Matthew continue their debate?

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"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."
Isaac Asimov

"Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived"
Oscar Wilde

Spong, like Matthew understand the concept of religion and are discussing that as it applies as a philosophy. And I agree that Matthew defends the concept well. What they both fail to appreciate or comprehend at all is the living, breathing, personal relationship which is made available between God and Man which is entirely due to the personal sacrifice made by Jesus Christ on our behalf as a result of Gods plan for salvation for us, which He envisioned before we even fell from grace via Adam and Eve.

To them discussing God, religion and faith is an intellectual excercise, or should be, to define the part RELIGION plays in mens lives. They have no concept that religion is a man made ritual, but being born again is a God breathed relationship between Him and all who receive Him. That concept seems totally beyond them to appreciate or comprehend. In all of the alleged depth of their opinions, they miss entirely the importance and value of what it means to have a personal relationship with God which is recived through Grace and based on faith in He who is unseen but evident at the deepest level of ones being.

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If god made human from dirt, how come there are still dirt around? ~ [obvious_child]

You know what, Archie is right. Evolution is a total scam. ~ [obvious_child]

If the universe were not as it is, it would be different. ~ [Penfold]

A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it destroys itself from within. ~ Durant

No. I won't presume to speak for all theistic evolutionists, but what I hope to accomplish with my scrutiny of the Biblical text, including but by no means limited to its inconsistencies, is a better understanding of the text, with all its profundities all of its flaws. Doing so has, as I see it, given me a better understanding of my faith and has only ever strengthened my relationship to God.

Not so! I consider literalism a threat to the spiritual, not to the worldly.

And here I must totally disagree. The narrative of the crucifixion and resurrection is the centrally important story of the Christian faith. More important than the birth stories, more importan than the creation. Indeed, even many conservative mainline churches consider the creationism-evolution debate to be a tangential problem, because it's not a salvation issue.

And I think that in order to understand the meaning of salvation and eternal life, we have to explore the differences between the various Gospel narratives. As I said, Christ is depicted as far more serene during the crucifixion in Luke and John than he is in Mark and Matthew. If you think such differences of tone, and the differences of detail by which they are expressed, are unimportant, then I guess all I can really say is, I don't consider that to be a very attentive reading of the scriptures.

But it's far from the entire group that claims evolution supports atheism, so how is it fair to go after them all?

I just read a book on the evolutionary ecology of insect sociality in groups other than the justly famous ants, wasps, bees, and termites, James Costa's The Other Insect Societies. At times geared toward a bit more technically proficient reader than myself, but I still enjoyed the heck out of a it. About 700 pages, with all sorts of discussion of the evolution of social behaviors, and not once -- not once -- did Costa use evolution to bash religion or promote atheism.

This is the reality of how biologists use evolutionary theory, day in and day out. Yes, a handful of them use it to grind metaphysical axes, and yes, they get a lot of publicity. But for reasons that have nothing to do with either supporting or opposing any religious ideas whatsoever, biologists use it as a powerful explanatory tool all the time -- and their writings far outnumber the atheists you are so irritated with.

How is it a straw man? From what I've seen, the basic tenets of not just biology, but also geosciences and physics would have to be altered to accomodate a literal reading of Genesis. (And which of the two Genesis accounts is to be literalized, one wonders?... But I digress.)

The fundamental epistemological point of Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis is no different from that of culturally relativist strands of postmodernism: it's all about using the incommensurability of initial presuppositions to relativize the conclusions derived from them.

Meanwhile, once again, I think you're misrepresenting theistic evolutionists in order to lump them together with atheists. My turn to boldface: Theistic evolutionists do not "disregard" Genesis. They just interpret it differently than you do, as expressing spiritual truths rather than matters of fact.

Why is it dishonest? I honestly think that creationism is anti-scientific. It refuses to allow that any empirical evidence could conflict with a literal reading of Genesis (however that's possible). It starts with a conclusion, and seeks to conform the evidence to that conclusion. This is virtually a definition of "anti-scientific."

Actually, I'm not sure I'd agree with Miller on this entirely. There are legitimate questions about whether even the authors themselves understood what they were doing as historiography.

On the other hand, our technology is far better now than then. What good would it have done to teach people about cells when they had no microscopes to see them? Of course, that just raises the issue of why God wouldn't have magicked up some microscopes for them to use....

The fact is, we do know much more about the natural world now than we did thousands of years ago. We've got much farther to go, but we've come a long way, too.

I hasten to add that this does not mean that ancient peoples were a bunch of know-nothing ignoramuses. The "presentism" of thinking that we're so much smarter than the ancients is one of my pet peeves. But there's a difference between intelligence and knowledge. We may not be much smarter, but we know a lot more.

Not so! This passage indicates the fundamental flaw in your reasoning. You refuse to decouple the expression of spiritual truth from literal truth. Which, of course, has been my point from the beginning.

The texts are false, in a literal sense. They are not accurate descriptions of historical events (and for the most part do not even claim to be). But that in no way precludes the texts from expressing spiritual truths.

As I said all the way back when this exchange started, Genesis expresses a number of ideas about God and the creation: that there is such a deity, that the world as a whole and in all its parts -- including human beings -- owe their existence to him, that he exercises providential concern for what he has created in whole and in part -- including the human part -- and so forth. Not one whit of that is undermined by interpreting the creation story (stories... but I digress one more time!) as an allegory, rather than as history.

No, I don't think non-literalism sacrifices seriousness. It is non-literal interpretations that actually take the Bible seriously by paying attention to what it actually says instead of sweeping any problematic passages aside as "not so important."

And again, I worry that you are overly politicizing religion. So what if a religious view has little clout in the world of big-time power politics? When it comes to religion, I'm much less interested in political institutions than in ethical behavior.

And the question is, should it? There are lots of "natural" things that, from a human perspective, are bad and dangerous, like bubonic plague and earthquakes. And lots of "unnatural" things are, in human terms, good and useful, like the the wheel and computers. So the "natural"/"unnatural" issue doesn't decide what ought to be permitted or prohibited. And I don't care which side is using it.

Is it, now? Really? What's your evidence that this is the sort of things atheists are after?

As always, I'll speak only for myself. As the above makes plain, I am not a fan of attempting to derive moral precepts from nature.

I've not dismissed literalism. I've examined it and found it wanting. The evidence isn't there.

Indeed not! And as philosopher Michael Ruse astutely pointed out in Darwinism and Its Discontents, this is one point about which evolution and religion actually agree....

They probably wouldn't get away with some of the specifics, anyway. After all, they for the most part did not consider women to have intellectual capacities equal to men, or non-whites equal to whites. It turns out that some of the things they considered universally "human" were actually not so universal after all. As somebody who has given the history of philosophy a great deal of study, I'm well aware of this problem.

But of course, evolutionary biologists don't deny human nature as such. Heck, evolutionary psychologist Stephen Pinker wrote an entire book, The Blank Slate, criticizing modern thinkers for believing that human nature is so malleable.

You should really read more of what evolutionary biologists actually say. Because very often, I think you're fighting what you think they say instead of what they do.

The "religious left" may not be a common term, but it is a common reality. There are a lot more of us out here than you might think, and we're growing. Heck, ever hear of Jim Wallis?

As to the "atheist right," again don't confuse terminology with reality. They're out there, too.

No, they don't. But they do make up things like a unified Gospel narrative to affirm "literally." It happens every time someone puts on a Christmas pageant or a passion play. In order to render the story consistently, bits and pieces are pulled from the different Gospels, and anything that's inconsistent with whatever has been pulled is simply left out.

And what, pray tell, have theistic evolutionists made up? They no more invented the inconsistencies between the Gospels than the "literalists" invented the Ten Commandments.

I know! Isn't it great? And atheists advocates are "separated from state" in exactly the same sense, while conservative political leaders are "not separated from state."

Marvelous thing, that separation of church and state....

Marc, please understand that I'm not trying to be rude in asking this, but I'm going to put it bluntly. To wit: Would you like to see the United States be an officially Christian nation? a theocracy of sorts?

To me, this is what you and other religious conservatives seem to be after. Perhaps I'm wrong, and you can feel free to explain what exactly it is that you want if I am.

Like I said, apologies in advance if that way of putting it offends. I don't intend it to. I'm just trying to figure out where exactly you're coming from.

Let me put it this way: They bother me less than rude Christians. (Among whom, I hasten to add, I have no reason to number you.)

But of course, the "other side" isn't claiming to represent Christian moral standards. Hence, the reason for my greater botheration.

Not in my case. Like you I was much more heavily acquainted with Christianity at an early age. My father is a Methodist minister.

Of course, he's also a lifelong political liberal and a college biology major who hasn't interpreted the scriptures literally since well before he finished seminary in the early 70's. So my sympathy toward science is also longstanding.

My sympathy toward atheists didn't start until I actually met some in college, and realized that they weren't out to take over the world, but that they were deeply persecuted by many religious believers.

Perhaps. But what non-literalist believers do is try to acknowledge them and understand them.

Marc, I don't know how I could be any more explicit about this than I already have, but I'll try:

I do not think that inconsistencies within the Biblical text lessen the text's value. Nor do I think that inconsistencies prevent that text from expressing spiritual truths. But I do think that they count as evidence against the text's literality. That is all.

I think it comes down to this: Must the Bible be literally true in order to express spiritual truths and have value? I say no. You seem continually to presuppose yes. Therein lies the source of our disagreement.

It's been a decidedly mixed bag. Zealous religious belief has probably looked a lot less attractive all across Europe ever since the Iron Century of 1560-1660, especially 1618-1648.

The analyses, as discussed in the article itself, are entirely inconclusive. Having studied Nietzsche in detail, I can certainly tell you that the world's most in/famous atheist developed his ideas in direct opposition to a late-19th-century Chrsistianity that he regarded as hypocritically self-righteous when it wasn't a matter of empty ritualism.

Ever hear of the fallacy known as "post hoc ergo propter hoc?" It translates as "after the thing, therefore because of the thing." It's very common, and you've committed it here. Even if separation of church and state comes before declining religiosity, that's not sufficient to show that it causes declining religiosity.

And if anything the very example you quoted shows just the opposite! Look at the table. In 1981, 38% of Swedes said they never or almost never attended church. In 2000, 46% of Swedes answered that way. But the formal separation of church from state happened in 2000! What accounts for that 19-year, 8% rise? Certainly not the separation of church from state. If anything, it would appear that the decline of religion in Swedish culture is what caused the separation.

I don't think you're reasoning about this very carefully.

And besides, I would definitely not want to have the state decide that I am, by birth, a member of such-and-such church. That was what was really at issue in the Swedish example. Is it something you find appealing?

With all due respect, I would seriously question how much that editor really knows. Because...

...there are so many sources out there it's difficult to fathom how this sort of thing could be missed. Even among contemporary sources written for the laity, there are authors like Spong (Episcopal) or Armstrong (Catholic) or Ehrman (atheist -- but he used to be an evangelical -- coincidence? hmm...). A quick glance through their bibliographies can point you in a thousand different directions for material from all sides of these debates.

Can't argue with that. But as usual, you seem to be making the mistaken assumption that if something is not literally true, it must be spiritually false.

Yes, I do. Leaving aside the extremely loaded language -- "rotted along with the other corpses," I love it -- this is at best an oversimplification and at times a flat-out dishonest misrepresntation of Spong's views.

It's true, for example, that he doesn't believe Jesus was born of a virgin. Are you aware of all the textual problems there? Did you read the portion of the site addressing the issue? "Alma" means "young woman." The point is not that it could never be used to designate a virgin, but that it never unambiguously connotes viriginity -- not any more than calling someone a "young woman" in English does. If you wanted to make sure that your listeners understood that someone was a virgin, would you describe her as a young woman? I doubt it. So if someone is described as being born of an "alma," there is no reason at all to assume that he is born of a virgin. Whence the mistranslation concerning "parthenos" in the Septuagint and the Matthean gospel, since "parthenos" means "virign." It's a term with a narrower meaning being used to translate a term with a broader meaning.

As to the rape issue, I don't recall Spong ever having raised even the possibility in the books I've read, let alone asserting at as certain. In fairness, I've not read Spong's Born of a Woman, treating the virgin birth at length. But certainly it doesn't arise in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism or Liberating the Gospels. Issues of Jesus' legitimacy arise. For when he is called "the son of Mary" in Mark 6, that's a striking claim. To call a Jewish man the son of his mother, rather than of his father, is to put his paternity into question. (And really, so what? Are lowly origins something a Christian ought to be ashamed of? Please.)

Or on the issue of Jesus' divinity, Spong has said -- accurately -- that the Bible nowhere simply identifies Jesus with God. He is repeatedly characterized as "the Son of God," and as the one in whom God is met. It's all very complicated, certainly more complicated than the author of your link lets on.

Similar cases could be made about the other points raised by the link. Hardly a fair characterization of Spong. And hardly an author who gives evidence of understanding the very text he mocks Spong for failing to understand.

You're acting like Spong is just making this stuff up. I hate to break it to you, but he's not. He's addressing the text with far more seriousness than do Biblical literalists.

Baloney. One might just as well say the same thing of Homer's Iliad.

And of course, you realize that there were a whole series of synods in the first four centuries A.D. making decisions about what was canon and what not, right? Like I said, you would do well to study the history of the compilation of the text.

Exactly! It's just that I don't consider that "joining with" atheists.

How so? Many of them seem to share your premise, that if the Bible is not literally true, it cannot express spiritual truths. As I have said repeatedly, I think that premise is faulty.

You are of course free to disagree. But disagreeing isn't refuting. What exactly is the problem with my rejection of your premise? Or to put it another way, why must I accept that premise as true? That's what you're not arguing yet.

On the issue of literalism, what is there to debate? They don't interpret the Bible literally, and neither do I. Not much to debate on that front.

Again with the book count. For pity's sake, look at the numbers of creationist books that have been coming out for far longer than the last couple years.

I sincerely doubt that the decline in European religiosity is due to some insidious atheist plot. In fact, I would guess that both declining religiosity and increasing atheism are effects -- of causes that occured largely between 1914 and 1945.