Hey believer. How have you been? It is true to a certain extent that that is the nature of the debate now. It is only now defined as an interpretation issue, though, because that is really the only argument that IDers (Creationist by another name) have left in their arsenal. They tirelessly spend their time trying to find gaps in scientific research or saying that the interpretation of the dat...more

Hey believer. How have you been? It is true to a certain extent that that is the nature of the debate now. It is only now defined as an interpretation issue, though, because that is really the only argument that IDers (Creationist by another name) have left in their arsenal. They tirelessly spend their time trying to find gaps in scientific research or saying that the interpretation of the data is wrong, but the truth is they are not actually producing any findings of their own.

I understand that this is the only way things can be (after all, if you believe you already possess 100% of the truth, what is left to do besides use your energy to prove wrong anyone who disagrees with that ‘truth’?) But this is precisely why none of the IDers have any credibility when they talk about science. How is a belief in infallible divine revelation reconciled with the scientific method? IDers have a foregone conclusion (the inerrancy of Genesis) that must be upheld regardless of scientific findings. The two are incompatible.less

downtime – Don’t get hung up on the word, ‘myth’. Use the word, ‘story,’ if you like. But the truth of the matter is that the Genesis story is only one of many creation stories that have been found in the near-eastern cultures of that day. The Egyptians had theirs. The Sumerians had theirs. And, not surprisingly, there are striking similarities between them all. This isn’t a su...more

downtime – Don’t get hung up on the word, ‘myth’. Use the word, ‘story,’ if you like. But the truth of the matter is that the Genesis story is only one of many creation stories that have been found in the near-eastern cultures of that day. The Egyptians had theirs. The Sumerians had theirs. And, not surprisingly, there are striking similarities between them all. This isn’t a surprise because anthropology has shown over and over again how religions tend to sprout out of preceding ones. The similarities between the Genesis story and the Egyptian and Sumerian ones make particular sense if the stories of Israelite captivity are true. Do a comparison of the Sumerian creation story, the Enuma Elish, and the Genesis story. It is quite interesting how one parallels the other. Note that the Enuma Elish was penned long before Genesis was.

As to Genesis not being a science textbook, I agree completely. The problem is that it is too specific to write-off as an allegorical story of beginnings. It talks of days (night and morning and then day 2, etc). It goes on to give genealogies from Adam to the time of the Kings, replete with ages of each generation, which is what allowed monks way back when to calculate with a certain amount of accuracy when the first day of creation took place according to the Bible. The problem isn’t that the book isn’t detailed enough; it is that it gives too much detail…enough detail for science to convincingly refute it as an actual account of how the world and the life within it came to be.less

CalvaryPilot – I know I mentioned earlier that I tend to respect fundamentalists more than moderates, but your post and the link to your site are making it monumentally difficult for me to stand by that statement. The fact that you, one person, have cracked the code to countless discrepancies between natural evidence and the Biblical texts and thereby are authoritatively declaring an end to the...more

CalvaryPilot – I know I mentioned earlier that I tend to respect fundamentalists more than moderates, but your post and the link to your site are making it monumentally difficult for me to stand by that statement. The fact that you, one person, have cracked the code to countless discrepancies between natural evidence and the Biblical texts and thereby are authoritatively declaring an end to the debate is comical all by itself. It only gets funnier when one actually follows the link to the one-page, error-ridden website.

The entire premise of your webpage is to attempt to prove that you know something about the meaning of Hebrew verbs and nouns that supposedly the countless other OT scholars do not. Not only do your few paragraphs do nothing to address even one single contradictory finding among the literal mountains of natural and historical evidence, they show your complete lack of knowledge of what that evidence actually says. For example, you state at the beginning that you are attempting to reconcile the Bible with science, which holds that the world is millions of years old. That’s not what scientists say at all. You’re off by orders of magnitude.

I will say, though, that I do agree with you on one point. The debate has indeed ended among people who have taken the time to objectively look at natural evidence vs. Genesis. The only reason why it is still an issue is that fundamentalists continue to disregard any and all facts inconvenient to their dogma and, despite Federal Court rulings against them, insist upon trying to sneak Bronze Age creation myths back into U.S. science classrooms.less

soulsurvivor - I'm not entirely sure I see what point you're trying to make. That said, to your question: why do some Christians believe in the inerrancy of scripture? I would say that they do this for quite logical reasons: (1) If the Bible is inspired by a perfect god, then how could it contain errors? Furthermore, (2) if a portion of it is proven to be errant – particularly the part about...more

soulsurvivor - I'm not entirely sure I see what point you're trying to make. That said, to your question: why do some Christians believe in the inerrancy of scripture? I would say that they do this for quite logical reasons: (1) If the Bible is inspired by a perfect god, then how could it contain errors? Furthermore, (2) if a portion of it is proven to be errant – particularly the part about our origins and original sin, without which the need for a messiah goes away – then how can we believe any of the rest of it?

Even as an atheist, in a paradoxical sort of way, I have more respect for fundamentalist Christians than moderate ones. Although the fundamentalists’ beliefs look loonier with every passing day in light of our increased knowledge of science and history, at least what is behind their vehement adherence to the faith is an appreciation of the logic of the first paragraph. Like their atheist counterparts, they understand the fact that the writings in the Bible and modern scientific and historical findings cannot be reconciled since they are, in many cases, contradictory. Moderates, to their credit, are more likely to embrace real-world findings; but in doing so they are required to reinterpret scriptures, calling allegory texts that are clearly historical, or worse, having to brush over entire passages where even that cannot be done with a straight face.

My challenge to fundamentalists is to objectively look at the natural evidence and ask yourself if you can honestly continue to claim to believe that the earth was created 6000 years ago, that there was a worldwide flood with a boat that held all living creatures, etc. My question to moderates is: if you’re willing to embrace factual findings and subsequently rewrite divine revelation, how divine can it possibly be?less

ketch22 – Sorry this post is not in the reply section…for whatever reason my submit button isn’t appearing in the reply window. You give a long, general list of defenses to showing how the scripture is true, most of which have to do with fulfilled prophecy and proof of people living at the time of Christ. I’m not certain what the latter proves exactly, as people writing the gospels o...more

ketch22 – Sorry this post is not in the reply section…for whatever reason my submit button isn’t appearing in the reply window.

You give a long, general list of defenses to showing how the scripture is true, most of which have to do with fulfilled prophecy and proof of people living at the time of Christ. I’m not certain what the latter proves exactly, as people writing the gospels of course would write about other contemporary figures to lend credibility to the story (something Luke, for example, goes to great lengths to do). Maybe you can tell me more about what you meant by that.

As to prophecy, ‘fulfillment’ of messianic prophecy in the gospels shouldn’t convince anyone of anything. As writers (and particularly as writers who, all evidence leads us to believe, never met Jesus personally), the authors could make the stories say whatever they wanted them to say. Even the most conservative Bible scholars will agree that each writer had a specific audience and wrote the story accordingly. They not only knew the OT texts, they explicitly set out to show how Jesus fulfilled them. Matthew is a good example. He even, in his zeal to show the Jews of that day that Jesus was the foretold messiah, misplaced one of his OT references.

As to the fulfilled prophecies of events, are you able to point toward one future event that has been promised in the Bible that I can look forward to see happening and when it will happen? Over the years, hundreds if not thousands of people have claimed that they knew the date of the rapture based on the determinedly vague Biblical prophecies. How many of them have actually been right? That’s right…zero. It’s no different that the people who claim that Nostradamus’s equally vague prophesies foretold the attacks of 9-11. The truth is, had they had any predictive power whatsoever the attacks would have been thwarted. But they weren’t. Why? Because fulfillment of any sort of ‘prophecy’ is nothing more than our reading the words back into historical events in order to prove to ourselves that our pet theories and beliefs are true.less

“’For hundreds of years now science has been successfully informing us about the natural world,’ he insists. Of course, throughout the centuries, many scientific certainties have been embarrassingly overthrown.” There is nothing embarrassing about theories being disproven. On the contrary, that is the entire point, indeed the beauty, of the scientific method. Because when a theory is ...more

“’For hundreds of years now science has been successfully informing us about the natural world,’ he insists. Of course, throughout the centuries, many scientific certainties have been embarrassingly overthrown.”

There is nothing embarrassing about theories being disproven. On the contrary, that is the entire point, indeed the beauty, of the scientific method. Because when a theory is replaced, it is replaced by another that better reflects natural evidence.

“That is nothing less than a manifesto for scientism. Science, as a form of knowledge, is here granted a status that can only be described as infallible.”

This is not even remotely true. No scientist or even any layman with a rudimentary understanding of scientific method would describe science as infallible. It has, after all, as its primary aim the falsifying of existing hypotheses and theories in order to establish new and better ones. The word, infallible, can only be applied to an unalterable declared truth: divine revelation. So, the author is simply projecting here, at best.

Mohler is a well-studied man, so it is difficult for me to believe that he doesn’t make these claims knowing full well that they are disingenuous, only making them to try to win an argument even as he knows that the evidence is overwhelmingly against him. I agree with him wholeheartedly that the Creation-Evolution debate is exceedingly important, but not for the reason he thinks, which is that it threatens the foundations of his faith. No, it is important because we must insist always on finding the truth and, most importantly, teaching only the truth (and not our own pet theories and ideologies) to the next generation.less

How interesting. Yet another book 'uncovering' why people leave the faith written by someone who never has and whose interest isn't the truth, but rather to put them into neat groups in order to identify which ones should be targeted to convince to come back into the fold. Let's set labels aside for moment. Many of the people I know or have read about who, like me, have left Christianity behi...more

How interesting. Yet another book 'uncovering' why people leave the faith written by someone who never has and whose interest isn't the truth, but rather to put them into neat groups in order to identify which ones should be targeted to convince to come back into the fold.

Let's set labels aside for moment. Many of the people I know or have read about who, like me, have left Christianity behind did so because they realized that it wasn't true. Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Wiccans, or whatever we are, we are all hardwired to want to know if something is true or not in order to believe in what is true and discard what isn’t.

In our day-to-day lives, this is little more than an exercise in pragmatism. When we look out the window and the thermometer reads -10, we put on a coat, hat and gloves lest we freeze to death on the way to work. We know, of course, that there is a chance that the scientific instrument called a thermometer may be broken, but the fact that it is January and there is snow on the ground gives our rational minds enough evidence to know we can put some stock in what the thermometer is telling us.

In matters of faith it admittedly isn’t so simplistic, but not because the evidence isn’t there; rather because our commitment to ideologies that we often learn as children won’t allow us to believe in what has convincingly been shown to be true. A study of Bronze-age near-eastern religions shows striking similarities that show how myths were borrowed from one culture to another. Biology and fossil findings show us how humans have been around for 100,000+ years. And even a cursory study of geological findings shows how stories like the great flood could not have taken place.

All these and countless other points of evidence reveal to us what the Old Testament, in particular, is: a first attempt at answering our greatest existential questions. And like most first attempts, it was wrong on many levels and has been improved upon drastically since.

Many of us are not ‘recoiling’ or wanting to live immorally, or anything of the sort. We just followed (and continue to follow) the truth where it leads us. I don’t know if this constitutes a seventh category, but if so, I would imagine that the author would concur that trying to get us back to the fold will likely be a waste of time.less

"You brought up the mosques, now you're conveniently claiming ignorance of any facts to support your point." Think just for a bit about what you are saying here, Clover. Because it is Christian churches that are actually breaking the law here and not mosques, I don't have facts to support my point??? That makes no sense. This should have been obvious, but the scenario about the mosque was a ...more

"You brought up the mosques, now you're conveniently claiming ignorance of any facts to support your point."

Think just for a bit about what you are saying here, Clover. Because it is Christian churches that are actually breaking the law here and not mosques, I don't have facts to support my point??? That makes no sense. This should have been obvious, but the scenario about the mosque was a hypothetical one in order for us to turn the tables and ask ourselves: if the religion using its pulpit to endorse a specific political party were someone else's, would we not be upset about having to implicitly support that endorsement via a tax-exemption? You say I am 'conveniently' ignoring facts when it is you who doesn't answer the question: if the religion in question weren't your own, would you be defending its tax-exempt status even after it launched a very public campaign to endorse a specific political party knowing full well it was breaking existing tax law?

I'm not saying it's just to Christian churches that this should apply. It should apply to any and all religious organizations that, while enjoying tax-exempt status, ignore tax code and use their organization to campaign for a specific political party. This article shows that some churches are breaking their end of the deal with the IRS in a very public way (which is what the Alliance Defense Fund, which is backing the campaign, wants). You call me naive to think they are the only ones and that other religions are doing the same. If I'm naive about such things, then you must have specific examples of other religions doing the same. Care to tell me about them?less

DP - You're making no sense at all. If not for the exemption, church income would be taxable, just like corporate income is taxable. I'm sorry that you don't think that's is fair, but the truth is the government has every right to determine appropriate taxes on individuals and organizations. And its granting a full exemption to churches while only stipulating that they don't use their religious...more

DP - You're making no sense at all. If not for the exemption, church income would be taxable, just like corporate income is taxable. I'm sorry that you don't think that's is fair, but the truth is the government has every right to determine appropriate taxes on individuals and organizations. And its granting a full exemption to churches while only stipulating that they don't use their religious organizations to campaign for a specific party doesn't seem unreasonable at all.less

Clover - I don't have an example of a mosque losing its tax-exempt status because, as far as I know, none of them are trying to use their organization to campaign for a particular political party. It's the churches that are doing it...not the mosques. But if there were a case, don't you think it would be appropriate that they lose their tax-exempt status? That was my point. As to inciting ji...more

Clover - I don't have an example of a mosque losing its tax-exempt status because, as far as I know, none of them are trying to use their organization to campaign for a particular political party. It's the churches that are doing it...not the mosques. But if there were a case, don't you think it would be appropriate that they lose their tax-exempt status? That was my point.

As to inciting jihad (or even being linked to or funded by organizations that do), we all know that the consequences are much more severe. Namely, they get listed as a terrorist organization and an enemy of the state and shut down. As they should. There are plenty of examples of this post 9-11, but what exactly does that have to do with churches breaking IRS rules?less

I see many people here claiming that the IRS is inhibiting the free speech of Christians. As is the case with most things, turning the theoretical table often helps to clarify emotionally-charged issues. Consider this scenario: a Muslim group creates a tax-exempt organization with the express purpose of holding daily prayer for Muslims in the community. Then, after drawing significant crowd...more

I see many people here claiming that the IRS is inhibiting the free speech of Christians. As is the case with most things, turning the theoretical table often helps to clarify emotionally-charged issues.

Consider this scenario: a Muslim group creates a tax-exempt organization with the express purpose of holding daily prayer for Muslims in the community. Then, after drawing significant crowds, the prayer meetings turn into political rallies where the Imam tells everyone that they all must vote against the Republican party and the funds raised are used to create anti-Republican adverts. How do you feel about the fact that your tax dollars are funding that via the exemption?

Do the people who oppose AU on this actually want the alternative, which is for everyone's tax dollars to fund political campaigns for one particular party? I would hope not. If you want to turn a religious organization into a political one, no one is stopping you...but don't expect to have special treatment that other political organizations don't get.less