Bible vs Darwin

[AstusAleator]

Alex would you say the Church of England (circa Darwin) had more political power and influence than the Roman Catholic during the crusades and/or inquisitions?

the creation story in Genesis seems to me to be a remarkably accurate (although heavily symbolic) narrative of the evolution of life on Earth.

I won't copy and paste Genesis 1 in here, but I'm having a hard time seeing how;

day 1: light and dark (day and night)
day 2: earth and water seperate
day 3: Vegetation
day 4: Sun Moon and stars
day 5: Birds and fish
day 6: Land animals, humans (As well as God's permission for humans to subdue and have dominion over everything else on earth)
day 7: Phew! Day off from all that hard work.

reflects what most scientists theorize as the sequence of evolution. The part where the sun and moon came into existence after vegetation on earth really doesn't seem to fit. Perhaps you're talking about the second creation story (Genesis 2)? The one where man is made before any other living thing?

I can't help but view it as nothing more than a myth of creation, such as exists in every culture on earth.

Don't get me wrong, I love your willingness to compromise between the two, and I wish more people did so. But I think you're really having to stretch to say that Genesis is an allegory for evolution.

The great rivalry between faith and science is largely a false conflict that has been created and fed by both sides as a ploy for power and prestige.

I agree with this. Well said.


If I could, at this point, direct your attentions to a thread I started in the Off-Topic forum called "Dawkins Reviews "Expelled" by Ben Stein." It discusses this divide between church(es) and science(evolution). And I'm afraid the documentary does nothing but inflame the already divisive atmosphere.
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[alextemplet]

I think one must read the Biblical creation story not so much as a detail-by-detail account of creation but more as an allegory for the creative process. To begin with, it is very easy to understand why the story is written as it is, and it is an almost exact duplication of Sumerian creation mythology. Being a Sumerian himself, Abraham inherited these stories and passed them on to the first Hebrews. The main point of the Biblical creation stories then became to show that it was the Hebrew God, and not some pagan deity, Who alone created the entire universe.

I firmly believe that the Biblical creation story is not a literal account of how the universe came into being, but an allegorical story meant to show everything in existence was created by God. If we accept that the story is mostly symbolic, we can forgive a bit of poetic license on the part of the author if certain details seem out of place to a literal interpretation. That said, there are certain details that seem to hint at an evolutionary process. For example, in both accounts life begins in the water. The first few verses (God said "Let there be light," and there was light.) sounds to me almost like a description of the big bang. And of course, in both accounts humanity is a very recent creation.

A few days ago I was discussing this with a friend of mine, and I asked him how long are the six days of the creation story. He thought they were twenty-four hours. I do not know how long these days are, but I am certain they are not the usual twenty-four hour day we are accustomed to. A day may be twenty-four hours on Earth, but not in other parts of the universe. On Venus, a day is approximately three months; on Mars, twenty-five hours; on Jupiter, only twelve. All these places were created by God, Who exists in Heaven. How long is a day in Heaven? The Bible tells us that a day and a thousand years are the same to God, as each is but a drop in the ocean of eternity. I therefore am convinced that the days of the creation story must represent much longer periods of time.

And therein lies the real heart of the issue, which is the human tendency to interpret God's word in strictly human terms. Perhaps one can be forgiven for thinking only in our own terms, but we must understand that God, being eternal, is not bound by human reasoning. Just as a day to God may be different from our own day, then other certain "inaccuracies" of the creation story may be nothing more than the product of limited human understanding. For example, you mentioned vegetation being created before the sun, which is of course a requirement for vegetation to exist. Perhaps on this day God was creating life not on Earth but on some other planet that already had a star to support it? I of course cannot be certain of this but it's something to think about.

As for your other question regarding the power of churches, yes I do believe the Church of England was more powerful than the Mideval Catholic Church. It is perhaps unfortunate that the Catholic Church is made to shoulder the blame for many things that were not its own doing but instead the work of the various European kings of that time. For example, many of the Crusades were organized entirely by kings acting without or even against the Church's approval; yet although the Church had nothing to do with these events, it is still blamed for them. The same is true of the Inquisition, which was also largely a tool for various kings to oppress their opponents while appearing righteous. No where is this more evident than in the English government's use of the Inquisition to prosecute and execute Joan of Arc, whom the Church had already stated was sent by God an therefore innocent of the charges against her. It is no coincidence that in the years following her death, the Church went to great effort to punish the Englishmen responsible for her death.

The main difference between the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages and the English church of Darwin's day is that the Catholic Church has always been an international organization and thus able to preserve a considerable degree of independence from secular governments. The English church, however, was founded entirely to give the English monarch sole control over the spiritual lives of the English nation. Since the head of the church was also the head of state, the English church was thus little more than a tool for royal policy. Unlike the Catholic Church, it had no power of its own to stand against the government when the government became tyrannical; instead, it could only play along, as it was itself but a tool of government policy. Perhaps it is not right to describe the English church as powerful in its own right, but as a pawn of the government acting behind it, it was certainly a force to be reckoned with.

[AstusAleator]

Who needs history textbooks when we have alex?

Thanks for your informed response.

My brother is a person that believes in literal creation, as put forth in Genesis. I don't want to get in a big argument with him. I tell myself it's not really worth discussing, or that there's nothing wrong with him believing that. But when it comes down to it, he and others that believe the same way, may be the ones voting against evolution being taught in schools. Or, similarly, voting to force teachers to pass things like ID off as science in the classroom.

I wish there was a way I could get him to see that they really don't need to be mutually exclusive, within a person's life.

[alextemplet]

Astus, if you can convince your brother to read it, Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller is a great book about the subject of harmony between faith and science. I used to have trouble myself seeing the two as compatible, but Miller's book convinced me otherwise.