Steven,

I find it interesting that you are more than comfortable with "pigeon holing" people and their beliefs when the gauge you use to box them is the beliefs of others that you agree with. Surely the existence of this thread indicates like a full moon in the dark on over an ocean of theology and ideology that "pigeon holing" in such a topic is oxymoronic, at best.

Be curious to know what YOU think, as opposed to what you agree with.

GrahamY: "If this is the case, where does that leave the common protestant stress on the inerrancy of the bible as the received word of God?"

Spirituality is a basic an instinct as sex. You can even add or remove it via surgery:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brain-surgery-boosts-spiritual

Given there are actually parts of the brain devoted to it, it must have some evolutionary benefit, otherwise we would not devote the energy to creating those areas of the brain. Thus it is no different to love, pain, greed and empathy.

This leaves those "common protestants" in the position of following their instincts. Nothing more. Mind you, their are many ways you can follow your instincts, some more productive and some less. In our society those common protestants seem to taking the less productive route.

From page 19 of "Fungi" by Roy Watling:

"The reasons for the lack of scientific knowledge of fungi compared with groups such as mammals, fish, birds and flowering plants originate with the early naturalists. They usually considered the fungi to be connected with the devil, and studying them at all was frowned upon by the church, right up to the 19th century, when the rest of natural history was blossoming. As a result of this taboo, scientific understanding of fungi, and especially their classification, has been hindered so much that it is no exaggeration to say that it lags almost 100 years behind that of many organisms. Thankfully, this unfortunate state of affairs is now rapidly changing as biologists appreciate the importance of these remarkable organisms and are searching for them in previously unexplored habitats."

Dear Graham,

Mainstream Christianity has accepted science at this time. However, in the past it was not safe for a scientist to question religious doctrines.

Michael Servetus (1511–1553) was theologian, physician, cartographer and humanist. He was the first European to describe the function of pulmonary circulation. His interests included astronomy and meteorology; geography, jurisprudence, study of the Bible, mathematics, anatomy, and medicine. He is renowned in medicine and theology. He later developed a nontrinitarian Christology. The Protestant John Calvin had him burned at the stake.

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), was an Italian philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and occultist best known as a proponent of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in identifying the sun as just one of an infinite number of independently moving heavenly bodies. The Catholic Inquisition found him guilty of heresy and had him burned at the stake.

Isaac Newton did not believe in the Trinity either. He was more circumspect in his beliefs than Bruno or Servetus. After his death his heresy was discovered in the writings he left.

Considering that Christian fundamentalists have a strong voice in the US Congress I suspect NASA scientists do not feel free to announce unorthodox religious beliefs.

The problem with Jews and Christians who believe in evolution is that the theory is inconsistent with the account of the origin of species in the book of Genesis.

(But if what the scriptures teach is a matter of 'interpretation', how could the standard of picking and choosing be anything but arbitrary? Since it does not take its authority from scripture, why would any part of the belief system need have any part of its basis in scripture?)

>Because if you don't have an intelligent design gloss (which I don't) where does that leave God?

It leaves God as a disproved or at best unproved hypothesis.

>Does he just light the fuse and walk away - a prime mover, and not much more…

… an explanation that is neither consistent with scripture nor with evolutionary theory.

>Or do we need a different concept of God?

As to the origin of species, you haven’t established that you need any concept of God.

Contrary to popular theological claims, the proposition that God created the world, including all species of life, is a scientific hypothesis, on which the panoply of scientific inquiry is capable of being brought to bear. It’s just that the evidence for it is very thin on the ground, and the reasoning entirely circular, and there are enormous evidentiary difficulties with it.

I have yet to meet a creationist or ‘intelligent design’ist who has actually read Origin of Species. All arguments as to intelligent design that I have seen are basically re-runs of arguments Darwin has refuted, or exploded, in his magnum opus. Its critics should at least read it and have some intelligent response, before trying to re-vivify the dreary corpse of mediaeval theology in modern garb.

If you share my view man invented Gods, do not see it as a weakness.
Or as a need for a reason to live, a crutch or straw to cling to.
See it as I do, proof we want to be better, want rules to live by and while our invention is a crutch for some it is a road map of life for far More.
ABC radio again today on the road heard most of an interesting story about Spanish book burning in the name of God.
Mayan books ,as late as 1970 the surviving few books in print had protection prays in the front, ideas that other Gods may exist was seen as the work of the devil by Catholic Spain.
Evolution in Church's, yes for sure but in my view Church's must continue to update the story because man learns more each day.

You knocked my socks off Belly; my philosophies exactly over past years posing those queries to myself. You are the first person I have come across in life raising and posing these lateral thinking points to raise. Wonderful free lateral thinking, highly intelligent individual.