I've just read your post Dan S about never hearing from a qualified creationist. The nearest you might get is intelligent design, itself as scientific as creationism.

No, it's unlikely we'll get anyone in a secular forum saying creationism is the 'best' explanation for anything at all. That would be the same as suggesting everything we know that supports evolution - things we've learned about from the atoms to the stars - is all inconsequential.

Creationists do deserve as much right of reply as anyone else but I'll say without reservation they cannot expect to be taken seriously. The prevalence of this belief in America is, well, hard to fathom. Your claim "Scripture has alway encouraged sensible, lucid, and logical thinking" appears contrary to experience. I would suggest it's exactly the opposite.

There are tens of thousands of deities, each of unique origin. There are six billion faiths today, each as certain as the next. There is only one science. Evolution is as much proved (or not) as gravity. Why accept one unblinkingly but not the other?

Bushbasher,
I often read in these threads the accusation that religious people and Christians are guided by voices in their heads. Here, I was referring to the post of JonJ. In fairness to Jon, after reading again what he said, he wasn’t trying to define Christian teaching nor the Christian mindset.

Christians follow the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, in effect, the lessons of the Bible. This is what’s normative for the Christian.

In the case of Abraham, he clearly was not following a whim, a hunch, or a personal vendetta. God had spoken to him uniquely in the history of his communication with mankind. The result was a prophetic picture of the sacrifice Jesus would make on the cross over a thousand years later. The bottom line is that the boy Isaac was not harmed. He was saved from death. Christian Scripture says Abraham believed God could raise the dead, which was also a prophetic insight into Jesus’ resurrection.

My overall point is that Christianity should be judged according to its teaching. The Scripture doesn’t advocate listening to whatever voices enter your head. And, more relevant to this thread, no one has ever got the idea that life evolved over millions of years by reading Genesis, or any other part of the Bible.

Bennie,
You seem to hold the notion that there aren’t any highly qualified scientists who are creationists. Though a minority, they’re not hard to find. I’ve met plenty of them (Aussies).

I would suggest that the reason you say their prevalence is ‘hard to fathom’ is because you haven’t looked into the issue well enough, nor the strength of their arguments.

When I spoke of Scripture encouraging logical thinking, I was thinking of the founders of western science, such as Bacon, Copernicus, Newton, Kelvin, Boyle, Ramsay, Pascal, Mendel, Pasteur, and many, many more. All were solid Bible believers, and accepted its first few pages as straight forward as it is written (as any Hebrew language scholar would agree.)

Evolution is not nearly as defensible as gravity. But you are entitled to your opinion.

Goodthief: “You seem to be saying that humans are a source of value.” Well not quite, I have said they are a source of empathy and compassion from which have flowed morality, equality and justice.

i) “Why – evolution, our track record?” Well yes both. There are some reasonably valid theories for why empathy has developed and evolution certainly has played its part, but our culture has rapidly taken over the reins particularly in the last 8 to 10 thousand years. Even our technology has contributed. I think the photograph from the moon of this vulnerable little orb we call home had immeasurable value in extending human empathy not only to include the entire human race but all life. It punctuates the notion of a world view. As to our track record look at the treatment of women. The cause of the downfall of man, regarded as chattels, spoils of war, periodically unclean, temptresses of Israeli Kings in the old testament to subservant wives, not permitted to speak in churches in the new testament to now, when until a month ago one of them looked likely to assume the highest office in the world’s most powerful nation. The changes even within our own society within the last 5 decades have been remarkable. Humane changes to divorce and custody rules. Police intervention in domestic disputes. Equal pay. All illustrate a positive progression, an ‘evolution’ if I might be cheeky.

ii) “People disagree about a lot of moral questions, so how do we glean something authoritative?” Here I think empathy can again triumph if allowed. Recent changes to laws that discriminated against homosexuals is a case in point. The vast majority of our parliamentary representatives, whenever their moral inclination saw the old laws as wrong. The authority to act came from the people.

iii) ““Most” – majority rule? Can’t the majority be wrong?” Certainly, see an earlier post regarding slavery.

iv) “What’s good about peace and harmony? I see the practical advantages to humanity, but why “should” humanity be advantaged?” Because we are humans and we think we deserve it.

Now goodthief if you would just block your ears….

Hey Dan S,

Just in case you think I’m pissing in davidf’s pocket may I quote and paraphrase some posts I made in February.

Genesis is a story about a God falling in love with a people and a people returning that love. To quote Rabbi Kushner "the Bible tells us that God's love for Abraham and for the Jewish people is, like all love, irrational. It cannot be logically explained or understood. God has at least the same right that we do to fall in love with someone and leave others wondering what he sees in her".

This is certainly the case with Abraham who is far from the most likable of the OT characters.

Abraham so loved his God that he was prepared to give his son, born from the union with Sarah, the woman whom he also loved so much he was prepared to sacrifice his first born.

We see ourselves doing desperately irrational acts when we fall in love and it's a deeply human thing, not always complying with notions of sacred love. What could be more irrational than sacrificing ones child for love, and what does it say about that enormity of that love? Importantly any claims from you or Christian scriptures that Abraham knew his son was going to be raised from the dead are rot and dramatically devalue the narrative.

Possibly it is an intuitive understanding by Christians that they really stand on the periphery of this intense love story, gathering 'crumbs from the table' where they can, that is at least partly responsible for two thousand years of persecution of a God's chosen people.

Genesis is such a marvellously Jewish book, dramatically human, and we in the West are privileged to have been able to adopt it. So let’s have the good grace to refrain from too much retrofitting.

P.S.

When I think of Scripture discouraging logical thinking I think of Galileo, not exactly sure why he was missing from your list.

david f, No need to be so sensitive. Just because I say something you don't like, it doesn’t mean I’m “pontificating”. The Jewish scriptures don’t “connect” the two love commands in the way Jesus did: they were separate, as indicated by your earlier post. “Coming to the Father by me” is not narrow because everyone is invited to do it. Whatever the Jews thought of Gentiles, they still believed in a distinction: Jesus made clear that he saw no distinction. It’s the Christian Church that has constricted things.

Jesus often said things like "It is written that ....., but I say to you ......". This was obviously presumptuous.

“Jews are not a race”. Okay, but not relevant to our discussion.

csteele, I just can’t attach to empathy the kind of significance you do. I see it as merely phenomenal.

I asked why humanity should have peace and harmony. You answer, “Because we are humans and we think we deserve it.” That’s the problem. I’m not concerned with what we think we deserve, but with what is right. We might think we deserve the moon, and yet not deserve it. What do we actually deserve? Evolution has led us to a point where we think things, but it doesn’t mean the things we think are right.

Still, I think we’ve exhausted the topic. Good doing business with you.

By the way, though I was only eavesdropping, I accept much of what you say about the Old Testament/Hebrew scriptures. The NT is a dry read by comparison, or at least seems so. Mind you, it’s written in Greek by different and later people. What I am highly critical of is the way in which Christianity, especially Protestants, has blanched the scriptures. They read passages from the OT in a monotone, which I regard as tragic. They’ve really missed the chemistry that exists between people and God. The Jews have been onto it for ages, while many Christians are still struggling with it: must seem unhygienic, or something.

Pax,

Amazing how many people bring up Abraham's willingness in offering His son Isaac as sacrifice. Of course God did not expect him to go through with it. The clever ones who bring this issue up have no problems with the thousands of babies murdered for convenience in mother's wombs each year. If you want to know about a murder/death culture just look to secular humanism and spare us your pathetic attempts to question the character of your Creator.