OK...what is the deal with Creationists and Evolutionists....again??
There is another round of news about some stinking sticker that has been placed on the front of science books in the public schools of Cobb County, Georgia that state that inside the book is the teaching of evolution...a theory, not a fact based in science. Where are these bible thumping conservative idiots educated? In the backwoods of the deep south, for crying out loud?
My first exposure to evolution was as a 14 year old freshman biology student in high school. My biology teacher, taught the "theory of evolution" right beside the Book of Genesis and the Creation story. There was then, and is still, no question in my mind that the evolutionary track and the creation story are both correct. There is no way to reconcile science and religion. There is no way to reconcile archaeology and religion. There is no way to reconcile history and religion. They are all totally different disciplines that require specific levels of absolutism to "prove" the existance of this or that. To prove the existance of a constant in mathematics is a matter of exhaustive investigation by mathematicians in more than one place. There is a large contingent of scientists and mathematicians and historians and biologists from all over the world that spend their professional lives and a fair amount of their personal lives PROVING that this or that is true or not. There is no such process in the religious world...and there is no need for it. Religion is not based in fact and fossils and numbers and processes...it is based in faith. NO ONE has the right or the responsibility to prove or disprove my faith. I firmly believe in the presence of a higher power. God, Yaweh, Allah, Buddha whatever you want to call it. The Great Spirit, Mother Earth, Creator are all acceptable in my opinion...the strange thing about all these different "religions" is that there are striking similarities between them, in the teachings, the stories, the lessons etc. There is a common thread of simplicity that runs deeply through them all.
The Old Testament was written (beginning the oral tradition 6000-8000 years ago) in the 6th century BC during the Babylonian exile and for the first time, was repeatable. Until that time the oral tradition had served the Jewish faith well and the stories and lessons taught were absolutely perfect for the largely illiterate, uneducated, nomadic people that made up the bulk of the Jewish state. The scribes and priests that survived the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC were taken to Babylon into slavery and there they began to commit the story of the Jewish Faith to "paper".
The so-called "Moral Majority" (personally I remain unconvinced that they are Moral, and am certain that they are far from the majority), would have you believe that the Bible is absolute and unerring in its details. Any thinking, intelligent, reasonable person knows (or at least strongly suspects) that the Bible could possibly contain information that is not quite the same as it was "In the beginning". The fact that the Bible was not written in any language that is commonly read outside the scholarly communities (with the exception of the Hebrew parts) means that it has to be translated in order to mean anything to most of the world. The first to do this, was St. Jerome in the 4th Century AD and there continues to this day bitter debate over the correctness of the Latin translation of the original texts.
The Old Testament was conceived as a way to explain the articles of faith to this mostly uneducated population of agrarian nomads, in a manner that made sense to them. There were many things that they did understand...they understood the seasons of the year, the life and death cycle, the reproductive cycles, the daily things that surrounded them and ruled their lives. The concept of 4.5 billion years ago...made no sense...but "in the beginning" was OK. On the first day was much easier to understand for them than something that expressed real geologic time. The slant that the Old Testament was written from was an EASTERN MYSTICAL standpoint. Today, we read the same (supposedly) words from a WESTERN ANALYTICAL mindset. The two do not mesh well....they believed, we try to prove...even as we try to believe. The two do not have to be diametrically opposed.
The order of creation as listed in the Book of Genesis is more or less the actual order of creation as proven by science. The actual creation of life on this planet is pretty much just as the Good Book says it is...sea, air, land....The Leviathans mentioned in the Bible....Perhaps dinosaur bones that were encountered in the desert or along the shores of the lakes and rivers? Whales perhaps viewed from a distance by land based people that had nothing to compare them to? There is no reason for the schools to teach anything other than that which is known...It isn't done with any other subject. Why do we feel the need to justify religion with science and why do we feel the need to discount science with religion. You do not have to prove anything to me...I already believe...I have seen the birth of five children...God does exist, there are miracles...The Theory of Evolution is more fact than fiction and gets more and more factual everyday. I have no need for reconciliation...both are real and both are valid....SHUT UP and LEARN....leave the schools to teach the science and instill faith into your children at home and in church, where it belongs.
I feel another MONKEY TRIAL coming in the future...Oh well, they must have more money than good sense.
My rant is ended.
Thank you for your rapt attention
PS I know it is rambling...I don't type anywhere close to as fast as I think....I apologize
My first exposure to evolution was as a 14 year old freshman biology student in high school. My biology teacher, taught the "theory of evolution" right beside the Book of Genesis and the Creation story. There was then, and is still, no question in my mind that the evolutionary track and the creation story are both correct. There is no way to reconcile science and religion. There is no way to reconcile archaeology and religion. There is no way to reconcile history and religion. They are all totally different disciplines that require specific levels of absolutism to "prove" the existance of this or that. To prove the existance of a constant in mathematics is a matter of exhaustive investigation by mathematicians in more than one place. There is a large contingent of scientists and mathematicians and historians and biologists from all over the world that spend their professional lives and a fair amount of their personal lives PROVING that this or that is true or not. There is no such process in the religious world...and there is no need for it. Religion is not based in fact and fossils and numbers and processes...it is based in faith. NO ONE has the right or the responsibility to prove or disprove my faith. I firmly believe in the presence of a higher power. God, Yaweh, Allah, Buddha whatever you want to call it. The Great Spirit, Mother Earth, Creator are all acceptable in my opinion...the strange thing about all these different "religions" is that there are striking similarities between them, in the teachings, the stories, the lessons etc. There is a common thread of simplicity that runs deeply through them all.
The Old Testament was written (beginning the oral tradition 6000-8000 years ago) in the 6th century BC during the Babylonian exile and for the first time, was repeatable. Until that time the oral tradition had served the Jewish faith well and the stories and lessons taught were absolutely perfect for the largely illiterate, uneducated, nomadic people that made up the bulk of the Jewish state. The scribes and priests that survived the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC were taken to Babylon into slavery and there they began to commit the story of the Jewish Faith to "paper".
The so-called "Moral Majority" (personally I remain unconvinced that they are Moral, and am certain that they are far from the majority), would have you believe that the Bible is absolute and unerring in its details. Any thinking, intelligent, reasonable person knows (or at least strongly suspects) that the Bible could possibly contain information that is not quite the same as it was "In the beginning". The fact that the Bible was not written in any language that is commonly read outside the scholarly communities (with the exception of the Hebrew parts) means that it has to be translated in order to mean anything to most of the world. The first to do this, was St. Jerome in the 4th Century AD and there continues to this day bitter debate over the correctness of the Latin translation of the original texts.
The Old Testament was conceived as a way to explain the articles of faith to this mostly uneducated population of agrarian nomads, in a manner that made sense to them. There were many things that they did understand...they understood the seasons of the year, the life and death cycle, the reproductive cycles, the daily things that surrounded them and ruled their lives. The concept of 4.5 billion years ago...made no sense...but "in the beginning" was OK. On the first day was much easier to understand for them than something that expressed real geologic time. The slant that the Old Testament was written from was an EASTERN MYSTICAL standpoint. Today, we read the same (supposedly) words from a WESTERN ANALYTICAL mindset. The two do not mesh well....they believed, we try to prove...even as we try to believe. The two do not have to be diametrically opposed.
The order of creation as listed in the Book of Genesis is more or less the actual order of creation as proven by science. The actual creation of life on this planet is pretty much just as the Good Book says it is...sea, air, land....The Leviathans mentioned in the Bible....Perhaps dinosaur bones that were encountered in the desert or along the shores of the lakes and rivers? Whales perhaps viewed from a distance by land based people that had nothing to compare them to? There is no reason for the schools to teach anything other than that which is known...It isn't done with any other subject. Why do we feel the need to justify religion with science and why do we feel the need to discount science with religion. You do not have to prove anything to me...I already believe...I have seen the birth of five children...God does exist, there are miracles...The Theory of Evolution is more fact than fiction and gets more and more factual everyday. I have no need for reconciliation...both are real and both are valid....SHUT UP and LEARN....leave the schools to teach the science and instill faith into your children at home and in church, where it belongs.
I feel another MONKEY TRIAL coming in the future...Oh well, they must have more money than good sense.
My rant is ended.
Thank you for your rapt attention
PS I know it is rambling...I don't type anywhere close to as fast as I think....I apologize