Why are Creationists so afraid of Evolution?

[Hunter X]

I love that we are arguing the different English translations of the Latin translation of the Greek translation of the original ancient Hebrew....

That's not how Bible translation works...

Although I agree your implication that it would be more helpful to see how ambiguous the Hebrew verb is, rather than go to the English. But even then a semantic argument is missing the point of the larger debate, which is more about genre than verb tense.

 

[Lt. Uhura-Brown]

I love that we are arguing the different English translations of the Latin translation of the Greek translation of the original ancient Hebrew....

You think that God, in all His Glory, could have found a way to keep His Book easy to interpret.

Especially when it can cause distress. Eg. there is no commandant "thou shall not kill", in the Hebrew it is "thou shall not murder". There is a huge difference between killing and murdering - just ask a soldier.

If religious person who literally interprets the bible accidentally kills someone, say in a car accident, the guilt would be bad enough without the thought (and added shame) that they were now a "sinner" because they broke a commandment

I blame the holy ghost writer.

Winner!

I believe "thou shall not suffer a witch to live" is actually a mistranslation of "thou shall not suffer a poisoner to live".

The Latin word Venefica can be used interchangeably for both "witch" and "poisoner" so it's easy to imagine that someone using the wrong definition caused so much misogynistic persecution a few hundred years ago.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Not just a few hundred years ago. 'Witches' are still being burnt alive in some places in the world today and some of those burnings are being done because some Christians still believe in witchcraft (in other cases it is other religious beliefs).

 

[RJDiogenes]

Applied genetic selection is not evolution.

In a sense, it is. It's called Artificial Selection-- it's sort of the technology to evolutionary science. It also demonstrates that Humanity has been aware of evolution to some degree for thousands of years.

Artificial selection vs natural selection is a false dichotomy. They are the same thing biologically and genetically, the only difference is the selective agent (and seeing as humans are part of nature, it could be argued that they are the same)

Yeah, I agree. I make the same argument when people tell me that technology is "unnatural," the prejudice being that any product of instinct is natural but any product of intelligence is unnatural. As if people and intelligence were not a result of the same natural processes as animals and instinct.

One need only to watch Carl Sagan's masterful telling of the Heikigani Crab/drowning warrior story to fully understand this point.

I've always loved that. And I miss Carl Sagan.

 

[Llama]

What people tend to forget is that human evolution is a triangle with biological evolution at one corner, technological evolution in another, and cultural evolution in the third. They are all tied into, and reliant on each other.

If we didn't have our technology (even basic stone tools, clothes and fire) we would be long extinct. Without our thumbs, bipedalism and our big brains we would have no technology. Without our culture (e.g. war, trade etc) our technology wouldn't change, and our technology helps our culture to change too (iPods, iPhones etc). Our biological evolution (big brains, language, reproduction) is the basis for our culture. And our culture also influences our biological evolution, do we let disabled people live and reproduce and keep undesirable alleles within the population or do we let nature select them out of the gene pool? And now our technology is influencing our biological evolution via IVF and genetic screening and maybe one day via direct genetic modification.

 

[JarodRussell]

I love that we are arguing the different English translations of the Latin translation of the Greek translation of the original ancient Hebrew....

You think that God, in all His Glory, could have found a way to keep His Book easy to interpret.

And, at least once every thousand years, could release a new version in the language that the majority of the planet speaks.

 

[Shazam!]

Reboot the bible.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Reboot the bible.

Been done more than DC and Marvel combined.

 

[scotpens]

The real question is why science rejects the idea of God in the first place.

Science doesn't "reject" God any more than it rejects the plays of Shakespeare. To science, religion is simply irrelevant. Science and religion work different sides of the street.

 

[Llama]

And, at least once every thousand years, could release a new version in the language that the majority of the planet speaks.

"You all know the Bible
Is made of Testaments old and new
You been told it's just those two parts
Or only one if you're a Jew

But what if I were to tell you
There's a fresh third part out there
Which was found by a hip new prophet
Who had a little Donny Osmond flair?

...

Wow, so the Bible is actually a trilogy, and The Book of Mormon is Return of the Jedi? I'm interested!"

All-American Prophet from The Book of Mormon

 

[Tora Ziyal]

I love that we are arguing the different English translations of the Latin translation of the Greek translation of the original ancient Hebrew....

That's not how Bible translation works...

Although I agree your implication that it would be more helpful to see how ambiguous the Hebrew verb is, rather than go to the English. But even then a semantic argument is missing the point of the larger debate, which is more about genre than verb tense.

Agree, but the verb tense is interesting. My best friend happens to be a scripture scholar -- Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible -- so I got on the phone this morning....

What the NRSV (below) translates as "so" at the beginning of 19 is more literally "and then." My friend said that the syntax in the original Hebrew is what confuses some people: He does this. And then he does that. And then he says this. And then... And then... And then. The verbs are all technically present tense, but there's an unambiguous sequence to the actions. It was a common style of story-telling in Biblical times and is still used today.

"18 Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." 19 So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name."

So, yeah, there is a contradiction. In the first chapter of Genesis, God creates plants, then fish and birds, then land animals, and then humanity (both male and female). In the second chapter, God creates a human, then plants, then animals and birds, and then divides the human into two (male and female, but literally husband and wife).

 

[J.T.B.]

The real question is why science rejects the idea of God in the first place.

Yeah! And while we're at it, why does science reject an infinite number of other things for which there is no evidence?

 

[RyanKCR]

I've always read the first two chapers in this way:

I've built the General Lee, then KITT and then I built the Enterprise. I've also built Airwolf, Blue Thunder, the Martian War Machine. I even built the NSEA protector.
I have a new friend and invited him for dinner. I bought all these model kits and built them and showed them to my friend so he can choose which one he would want.

The first part tells what I did in building models. The second part summerizes what I did so that I can tell explain that I offered one of them to my friend that I just met.

I don't see a contradiction.

 

[Avon]

theres a condradiction if people started to literally take every word of that as true. like these bibleists do.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

I've always read the first two chapers in this way:

I've built the General Lee, then KITT and then I built the Enterprise. I've also built Airwolf, Blue Thunder, the Martian War Machine. I even built the NSEA protector.
I have a new friend and invited him for dinner. I bought all these model kits and built them and showed them to my friend so he can choose which one he would want.

The first part tells what I did in building models. The second part summerizes what I did so that I can tell explain that I offered one of them to my friend that I just met.

I don't see a contradiction.

Problem is, your two parts aren't equivalent to the two Biblical stories. The equivalent would be closer to this

I've built the General Lee, then KITT and then I built the Enterprise. I've also built Airwolf, Blue Thunder, the Martian War Machine. I even built the NSEA protector.

and this:

"I built the Enterprise, then the General Lee and the KITT, then the Airwolf, then the Blue Thunder...."

And those details do contradict each other (the sequence, not the eventual end results).

To me, contradictions in the Bible aren't a problem. I find it fascinating to try to understand the different points of view expressed in the details of different stories. But then, I don't believe the Bible is literal, factual history.

To a Biblical literalist, contradictions are necessarily something to be danced around, explained away, and denied at all costs.

 

[Deckerd]

It's fairly safe to say that anyone who thinks the bible is an accurate historical record has never had to think very hard about anything beyond what clothes to wear in the morning.

 

[iguana_tonante]

To a Biblical literalist, contradictions are necessarily something to be danced around, explained away, and denied at all costs.

Do you mean something like this?

I never understood this. There are no different orders of creation listed in Genesis.

I don't see a contradiction.

 

[RoJoHen]

The real question is why science rejects the idea of God in the first place.

Science doesn't "reject" God any more than it rejects the plays of Shakespeare. To science, religion is simply irrelevant. Science and religion work different sides of the street.

Indeed. Science doesn't care about God one way or another. Science can only work with observable evidence, so until God gives us some, Science really can't be bothered to worry about him. If one day we find actual, hard proof of God's existence, that will definitely start being included in our scientific understanding of the universe.

People are free to believe what they want, as long as they acknowledge that it's a belief. No amount of faith can prove the existence of God. Likewise, no amount of science can disprove the existence of God (at least not with our current understanding of how things work).

 

[Amaris]

What really bothers me about the whole Creationism/Intelligent Design issue is that they have to sneak it into schools. They have to gloss over it and present it like you would an infomercial, complete with fake smiles, false dichotomies, and exaggerated numbers.

"Oh, no sir! This isn't pseudoscience cloaked in Christian theology, mercy, no! This is something entirely different! This is Christian theology cloaked in pseudoscience!"

 

[marksound]

Instead of "creation vs evolution," which will never be settled in our lifetimes, why not take a look at a conversation between reasonable people about good vs. evil?

Evil, Religion, and Responsibility