I started reading about hominids back when I was 11 or so (the 1977 National Geographic article by Donald Johanson describing Lucy and the First Family was pivotal for me), so I still have a hard time understanding creationists. I couldn't believe it when my sophomore (high school) biology teacher asked us, as an informal survey, to write down our beliefs on creationism vs. evolution on the back of our first test. When he announced the next day that over half of the students were in favor of creationism, I was appalled. These were all girls in a college-prep Catholic school, and we were all very smart 15 year olds. I couldn't believe that they had bought the fundamentalists' fairy tales (as I saw them).
Heck, even in my CCD (Sunday school) classes in 8th grade, the lay teacher taught us that the Bible was being metaphorical, not literal, in Genesis.
I can actually believe in the bible as more literal than you might think, given that things are in pretty much the right order, and the idea that god's time doesn't run like people's time. I guess that makes the day/night part metaphorical. Which is not to say I don't believe in evolution.
I guess that makes the day/night part metaphorical.
This seems so straightforward to me. I mean, then everything works.
Admittedly it's been years since I read Genesis, but it doesn't go into the specifics of how various animals were created like the rib bit with Eve, does it?
I can actually believe in the bible as more literal than you might think, given that things are in pretty much the right order, and the idea that god's time doesn't run like people's time. I guess that makes the day/night part metaphorical. Which is not to say I don't believe in evolution.
Actually, now that I think about it, I believe that's pretty much what the CCD teacher said. But, she did add the caveat that she wasn't a science teacher, but a religion one, and that she didn't think the two had a heck of a lot to do with each other.
I like the part of Inherit the Wind where the Darrow character says during his crossexamination of the opposing lawyer something to the point that, since the Bible says that God didn't create the Sun and the Moon until later in the six days, that the length of "a day" before that could have been longer than the standard 24-hour one, and gets the other lawyer to admit to that possibility.
it doesn't go into the specifics of how various animals were created like the rib bit with Eve, does it?
NSM. Pretty much speaking takes care of things for the most part. However, the day and night was early, and even the sun, moon and stars were before animals, although not before plants.
I still don't personally know many Christians who reject evolution, at least not wholesale.
DH works with a guy who will not let his 8 year old son have dinosaur related toys or ANYTHING because the fossils of dinosaurs were put on this planet to test man's faith. Seriously. He thinks this. And he's an educated man. *shudder*
Hee! I am so going there. Or, I have gone there. Oh, who am I kidding. I probably would be too cheap to go in any time.
Oh, who am I kidding. I probably would be too cheap to go in any time.
I figure it's like paying for breakfast at Milliways -- if I put a penny into a savings account now, by the time time travel has been invented, I will be able to afford to go. Or the other way around.
Now all I need is a way to make sure I live that long...
