Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Creation-science vs. Christianity Message-ID: <155@gargoyle.UUCP> Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 15:22:36 EDT Article-I.D.: gargoyle.155 Posted: Fri Aug 16 15:22:36 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 04:34:50 EDT References: <111@gargoyle.UUCP> <1395@uwmacc.UUCP> Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 42 In article <1395@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Risky Rat) writes: > "The" Christian doctrine of creation? Evolutionists tell us too often > that the fundamentalists endorse only one very narrow view of Genesis > and that most denonimations (or schools of thought, or [insert your > own concept used for dividing Christians into categories for > classificatory purposes]) have long ago made their peace with Darwin > (as the phrase usually goes). So what is "the" doctrine? By the Christian doctrine of creation, I mean "I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible." Of course, as Paul implies, there are different interpretations and understandings of this teaching. One modern interpretation (Tillich's) holds that the doctrine is the basic description of the relation of God to the world, and to man in particular. The interpretation of Biblical literalism holds that it describes an event that took place on a certain date, or rather during a certain week. You pays your money and you takes your choice. The sad thing about Biblical literalism, to me, is its perversion of the Christian tradition that in our time has produced such splendid men and women as Bonhoeffer, Dr. King, John XXIII, John Paul II, Mother Theresa, and some of the South African churchmen. Instead, literalism has produced, hmmm, let's see, Jerry Falwell and Oral Roberts (the man who saw a 900-foot Jesus); Francis Schaeffer, a pseudophilosopher; pathetic humbugs like Gish, Morris, and A. Ray Miller; and an infantile belief-system in which all the hard questions have prepackaged answers, just look 'em up in the Book -- and whose hermeneutic principles for interpreting the Book are contradictory and inconsistent, as Charles Blair recently pointed out. Small wonder that much of the strongest opposition to creationism comes, not from atheistic communist scientists, but from the pillars of the Christian churches. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes "So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one." --Hume