Why fight it? Why not just see the Biblical creation story as myth? Does the theory of evolution threaten the validity of the entire Bible?

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InterfaithForums.com-Where your ideas and beliefs count.

I don't see why the two theories cannot be married. They certainly behave like a married couple.

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"There is one thing that organized religion is not qualified to teach and that is an individual's purpose."-GOD

That's odd. Can the divinity of Jesus (the turning of wine into Jesus' blood, virginal birth, and countless other things) be reproduced in a laboratory? I think not. Therefore, Pope Benedict should view the divinity of Jesus with equal incredulity as evolution to be consistent. Or is it that he has higher standards (thus a double standard) of what constitutes proof when it comes to things that shatter his paradigm?

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peace for all
love for all
bliss for all

...may your journey be graceful...

If anything is possible, then the statement, "anything is possible," is possibly false.

Oh, bravo, bravissimo! A hit, a very palpable hit!

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

Yeah, it really does threaten the whole bible. And, I think what the reverend pope is on about is that it should not. Science and story, science and metaphore, science and campfire tales - need a blended relationship that works in every time and for every age.

I do believe that evolution threatens those who take the Bible in a literal manner. But to me it's more disturbing that over 50% of all American adults believe in the literal Genesis creation accounts, but reject evolution.

Sorry for being gone for so long, but I do hope to spend at least some here at Interfaith Forum.

Shalom,
Vern

I do not understand what the big deal is about. I don't care if the world was created or it evolved to what it is today. It does not change my life in any form. I will still be doing what I am doing. The only people who it seems to matter to are people who are trying to gain some sort of power. If the Pope wins, then he has all the popcycles and if the scientists win then they have all the popcycles. Give it up, even if evolution could be reproduced in a lab, religious belief would still have a foothold over the people of the world, and the Church would still be rich beyond imagination.

Welcome back, it is nice to meet you. And I have to agree that it is disturbing that so many can't see the evidence that is right in front of their faces.

It challenges some ideas about our pride of place in God's creation. Barring ecological disaster humans are likely to continue adapting. It exposes the roots of morality. It demonstrates how humans can appear without the need of a God.

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-Scott

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. -- Bertrand Russell

Yes, I like that. Religion does have a tendency to so completely misrepresent our human origins that it tends to result in a very strange combination of servility and solipsism.
That's the problem, don't you see? If we continue to adapt (or rather, it might be better to say as our distant progeny become less like us), then it suggests that we are not the end-point envisioned by God. That's something that many can't deal with at all. And it is, not to put too fine a colour on it, a completely "religious" barrier to acceptance.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.