Amph I Might Go to Hell for This: A Look at the Bible: Humanity Survives the Flood & Carries On!

Same here. (Nowadays I just consider myself sort of a "vague theist". I believe in a god, but that's about it.)


As for teaching about the Big Bang, I can't see the church rejecting it, considering that the scientist who came up with the theory was a Catholic priest.

Catholicism has never been into Biblical literalism. Actually, that's a fairly recent movement -- 19th century, I believe.

 

I don't think your post says what you meant it to, A_W. Double negatives are bitch, aren't they? (counting fail as a negative, obviously).

 

Some Catholics are creationists, however that is a small minority.I was homeschooled and I used the creationist biology book by Protestants and I hated it. My mother and I used to discuss its errors all the time.

 

Why did you use it?

 

It was part of my curriculum and my mom couldn't find another one.

 

Where are you from?

 

Well,I grew up in New Mexico.

 

Rather surprising that they would have a creationist book in the science curriculum. Not a state I think of as being filled with Bibe-thumpers.

 

The curriculum I used is called Mother of Divine Grace which isn't from NM.I think the lady who wrote it had creationist leanings.

 

I just have to bring up this hilarious gem re: biblical education:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111128215509AAVWQGX

 

I'm not 100% convinced the person asking the question is really serious, but that answer from ms manners frightens the dickens out of me.

 

Yeah, I'm leaning toward "not serious" just a bit.

 

Love the winning answer in any event.

 

Yeah, that top answer was pretty great.

The Christian school I went to did some hardcore Creationist/anti-evolution teaching. I took a course called The Bible & Science and it was extremely anti-evolution/science.

If we're lucky, I'll be getting the next post up tomorrow.

 

I live the 10th grade religion teacher I had at my Catholic high school, Brother Joe (who never held anything back), who said a few times that anyone who has made it to high school and doesn't accept science or the Theory of Evolution is a "moron"

 

We need a thread for best yahoo questions and answers. *off to start one!*

 

Finally had some time to read the first post...


Nice poster, SuperWatto

* I think we already covered the Evolution stuff earlier in the thread, and the true meaning of Genesis being more about how this creation myth is different from its contemporary creation myths (one God, no discord, creation is intentional and good). I may be wrong, but I also think some Muslim scholars (Muslims also use the Bible as one of their holy books) also speculated about evolution several centuries before Darwin.

* Also, as I think most people know by now, I'm a Christian and I'm fine with Evolution and the Big Bang, no contradiction in my mind at all. Many Christians see no problem with them either, as I said in my science/religion thread. The truth is most important. With the way some fundamentalist Christians treat the Bible (the inerrancy view and all that), it's almost like the Bible has become an Idol to them.

* Good on the distinction between divinely-inspired and literal/factual, and on comparing OT stories to the parables of Jesus. I agree that the perspective should basically be "why is this in here, what are we supposed to learn from this?"

* I think you spent way too much time on your views on Evolution, and setting up this whole thread. Everybody knows about the Creation story and the controversy there. I hope this thread talks more about the bits of the Bible that most people don't know about, or the parts people only ever get someone else's summary of and don't know what the Bible itself writes about it.








* Ok, onto Adam & Eve. You say in your post that it's a flashback to the 6th day, but not everyone agrees on that. Some think it's two popular Jewish creation myths passed on orally for generations, and they decided to record both of them in the same book instead of leaving out one or creatively trying to "retcon" them. Though, after the Book of Genesis was written and became widely known among all Jews, they did create their own "retcon" for this: Lillith. Adam's "first wife." Whom he didn't like, didn't want his wife to be his equal, so Eve was created from his rib. I believe the story of Lillith is in some of the Old Testament apocrypha.

* A common mistake, in the first post. God doesn't forbid Adam to eat from the Tree of Life. That's a separate tree. It is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that is forbidden.

* Yup... no one ever said the fruit was an apple. I think people just confused Snow White and Eve or something.

* On the "snake"... it's actually not a snake, but a serpent. Also, as punishment, God forces it to crawl on its belly. Meaning this "serpent" actually isn't anything like what snakes today are like, if it didn't crawl on its belly before. (Perhaps the ancients had found dinosaur fossils, and that's what they thought these pre-snake serpents were like?)

* Also, Jews just believe it was a talking serpent, not Satan. It wasn't equated with Satan until either the Gospels or the Book of Revelation. In fact, the Christian concept of Satan is completely missing from the Old Testament... another retcon.

* As for why a snake/serpent was chosen... it was a stealthy creature, and highly poisonous. Not much of a defense against it, for our ancestors. In cultues where there are no poisonous snakes, but there are poisonous spiders, the spider usually takes the cultural role that the snake does in the Bible, being the trickster and sometimes the bringer of evil. But for the ancestors of all humans, in modern-day Ethiopia/Kenya/Tanzania, it was snakes. They were likely the biggest cause of death, and therefore fear, out of all other animals (though the big cats and hawks would have been bad too... interesting how the idea of the Dragon combines all 3 of these animals, huh?) I've also always been scared of snakes, but also admired them and their beauty... but man, I must have had over a hundred nightmares of snakes invading my house when I was a kid.

* Very interesting is that many ancient Jews actually believed that both the Adam/Eve story was just a metaphor for what they believed "really happened," and that the Fall of Satan and the Fall of Humanity were actually extremely connected together in one story, and also extremely connected to the Flood story. You see, many ancient Jews actually believed that many Angels, who were given the task by God to watch over and protect humanity, began to fall in lust with human women, and had sex and impregnated human women. Part of this story is still found in the Bible, talking about how the Sons of God laid with the Daughters of Man or something like that. The angels also taught men all about Civilization, and not only arts and sciences but also warcraft (the knowledge of good and evil). The human/angel offspring were the monstrous Giants, or Nephilim. The angels were bound to hell, in the pits of the Earth, when God decided it was time to intervene and end this, and the leader of these lustful Angels later became identified with Christianity's Satan. Many ancient Jews believed the serpent was a metaphor for these Fallen Angels, Eve was a metaphor for all those human women that the Watching Angels slept with, and the "forbidden fruit" was a metaphor for sex. Anyways, back to the story, God discovered that his plan for humanity was almost completely ruined, and that only one family was still purebred humans: Noah's family. So that's where the Flood comes in. But some of these Watchers, these Guardian Angels, who hadn't fallen with the initial rebellion, would later continue to have sex with human women even after the flood. This is where that tribe of humans that God wanted entirely wiped out came from, and Goliath was also a descendent of these human/angel hybrids. Anyways, as for what happened to these hybrids after they died: that's where demons/ghosts/ghouls came from. Paul in the NT also makes a reference to this common belief at the time, when he tells women to cover their heads, or else a lustful angel may see her.

* "Consider that in order to reach the heights, we must be capable of falling to the depths. This is a pretty simple idea, I think. " Agreed.

 

Do believe actually believe most Vatican Catholics, the higher up's that is actually believe evolution doesn't happen. They know damn well its true but they must keep the status quo as usual.

The reason I fee the higher up's in the Vatican don't believe the majority of the things they preach is by how serious they handled the child molestation cases. If Vatican officials truly believed in what they taught and pandered to the masses, the first thing theyd do is send all the pedophiles to jail...

Their actions show me how serious they take their teachings.. Id venture to say they believe in maybe 5-10% what they preach.

 

1. This isn't the thread you're looking for.
2. Your posts would be a lot easier to read if you formed complete and proper sentences.

 

excuse my typos but I was doing a few things at once...

Why isn't it???? You made a post about 3-4 back telling us about brother joe and his take on evolution. I also don't understand how you cannot understand what I posted. The sentences are fine the way they are. I didn't know I was being graded on an internet forum.

 

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying in the previous post, to be honest. Everyone makes mistakes, I do all the time, but I'm honestly not sure what you were suggesting. Was is that the Vatican lies about accepting evolution (why?), or that they actually do believe but don't say it to keep the status quo (not true)?

But anyways, you're getting into the Catholic Church. This thread is about the Bible, like my posts were. And I've got to say, you're not being that constructive with your comments. I know you're new, that's why I'm saying something here, so you learn.

 

I don't want to tar all Catholics with one brush. There are clearly a lot of very sincere and devout Catholics. But the people who cover up things like child molestation . . . I have to agree with Lando on that. I once told a friend of mine that in order to do such things as that, they had to just not believe in God at all. I mean, if you believed there was an all-seeing, all-knowing God who was going to judge you for your actions in this life, how on earth could you take actions to enable countless children to be abused over a period of decades? It's just absurd. I mean, I agree that their actions reveal that many of them don't, in fact, believe the things that they say they believe.

 

All im saying is the Vatican cant believe half the stuff they tell the masses to believe and pray to. Reason being look how serious theyre taking the "words of GOD." Not very serious at all.