If Adam and Eve were the first then....

[Aidensmom]

how about a law judgment against your religion? :

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Three men who claim childhood sexual abuse by priests can pursue damages from the Vatican in a negligence lawsuit, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II lets the men pursue their claim that top church officials should have warned the public or local authorities of known or suspected sexual abuse of children by priests in the Archdiocese of Louisville.

William McMurry, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said the ruling could open the way to take depositions of Vatican officials and to get copies of church records and documents.

“Our whole purpose is to hold the Vatican accountable,” McMurry said.

Um, if there should be a law against practicing religion because there have been some people who practice a religion that have been child molesters, shouldn't the next logical argument be that there should be a law against NOT practicing religion because there have been some people who DON'T practice a religion that have become child molesters?

Religion doesn't create child molesters, neither does not practicing one. If you want to prevent child molestation, outlawing religion isn't going to help. Your putting your focus in the wrong place.

Same thing with the beer. Religion should be restricted from children because you can't buy beer before a certain time on Sunday? If you want to buy beer at 9am on Sunday, how is restricting the practice of religion going to help? And the time at which you can purchase beer is determined by local law, so would children be able to attend church in one city, but not another?

If you really want beer at 9am on Sunday, focus on changing THAT law. In the mean time, buy it Saturday night.

 

[Cool-Beans]

Um, if there should be a law against practicing religion because there have been some people who practice a religion that have been child molesters, shouldn't the next logical argument be that there should be a law against NOT practicing religion because there have been some people who DON'T practice a religion that have become child molesters?

And a law against teaching children before they are 18. Teachers have molested children.

And a law against playing organized sports. Coaches have molested children.

 

[goofygirl]

I love when people say "ya know they weren't called adam and steve."

some people...

Yeah that makes me LOL because I bet there's a real gay couple named Adam and Steve somewhere!

 

[froglady]

I tend to believe one of my favorite ministers, who once told us that the bible is not a history book, nor a science book, but a theology book that tells us the story of God's relationship with his believers over the centuries.

Obviously not a literalist, but a believer just the same.

 

[Saxsoon]

Huh? Science and religion aren't on opposite sides. Evolution and God aren't on opposite side. They are different subjects altogether. I'm not sure how you can have a middle ground.

Who says such a thing? Maybe you can find one person who thinks that way. But I've been around and studied a ton of scientists, and none think that science proves that God doesn't exist.

I think your views - God and Science - are a lot more common than you have been lead to believe.

Dawkins comes to mind, and correct me if I am wrong, but I have heard of a Stephen Jay Gould.

 

[cgcruz]

I really try to keep my faith, but some things in the bible are too farfetched. Adam & Eve discredits Early Man and Dinosaurs. Then you have Noah's ark. He lived to, what?... 400years old? 2 of every creature in the boat. I believe in a higher being, but I cant definately take everything in the bible as literal.

 

["Got Disney"]

But what about the Buffalo....

 

[salmoneous]

Dawkins comes to mind, and correct me if I am wrong, but I have heard of a Stephen Jay Gould.

I'd never heard of Dawkins. What an idiot. Fortunately, his views represent a tiny minority of scientists.

I will correct you on Stephen Jay Gould. He's much more in the mainstream - perhaps the most vocal proponent of evolution to the non-biology world. He spoke frequently about the "NOMA" principle - Nonoverlapping Magisteria:

The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch cliches, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven.

If you are interested, here's a longer article on the subject he wrote from which that quote is taken: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html.

One last quote from that article:

Just as religion must bear the cross of its hard-liners. I have some scientific colleagues, including a few prominent enough to wield influence by their writings, who view this rapprochement of the separate magisteria with dismay. To colleagues like me—agnostic scientists who welcome and celebrate thc rapprochement, especially the pope's latest statement—they say: "C'mon, be honest; you know that religion is addle-pated, superstitious, old-fashioned b.s.; you're only making those welcoming noises because religion is so powerful, and we need to be diplomatic in order to assure public support and funding for science." I do not think that this attitude is common among scientists, but such a position fills me with dismay—and I therefore end this essay with a personal statement about religion, as a testimony to what I regard as a virtual consensus among thoughtful scientists (who support the NOMA principle as firmly as the pope does).

I am not, personally, a believer or a religious man in any sense of institutional commitment or practice. But I have enormous respect for religion, and the subject has always fascinated me, beyond almost all others (with a few exceptions, like evolution, paleontology, and baseball). Much of this fascination lies in the historical paradox that throughout Western history organized religion has fostered both the most unspeakable horrors and the most heart-rending examples of human goodness in the face of personal danger. (The evil, I believe, lies in the occasional confluence of religion with secular power. The Catholic Church has sponsored its share of horrors, from Inquisitions to liquidations—but only because this institution held such secular power during so much of Western history. When my folks held similar power more briefly in Old Testament times, they committed just as many atrocities with many of the same rationales.)

 

[LindsayDunn228]

Honstly I am shocked at how many people take Adam And Eve as a literal story.. I was shocked to find out my mother did..When I studied for conversion to Judaism part of the classes were taught By Orthodox Jews, Including Hasidic Jews and they did not believe that Adam and Eve was literal.

Honestly, I am shocked you said that. Why would a person's faith in the Bible shock you? Your mother thinks it's a literal story. What's wrong with that?

Why would anyone begrudge another person's faith? You (generally speaking) don't believe a word of the Bible, that's fine. Let other's believe what they want.

 

[salmoneous]

Why would a person's faith in the Bible shock you?

One can have faith in the Bible without believing that Adam and Eve is meant to be taken as literal truth.

 

[reeeoga]

The earth is packed with evidence that humans have been around a lot longer than the Biblical stories tell us. You need to teach your kids either:

1) The Bible - like Jesus - speaks to us in parables - stories that are meant to teach us lessons, not to be taken literally.

2) God created the Earth 6,000 years ago and left tons of evidence lying around that makes it look like the earth is much older. We don't know why. We can ask when we see Him in Heaven.

For your consideration:
How about this for the second one: God requires Faith in Him from us. To ensure that we have Faith, God placed evidence on the Earth that "disproves" him. Only the Faithful will understand and follow the true path.

I like that, but don't beleive it, I beleive that God created everything over a long period of time (6 days for Him, Billions of years for us). Now He is watching what we do with it.

I also think God is God not a He or She, I used the male form because I'm a Sexist Jerk

 

[Laura]

One can have faith in the Bible without believing that Adam and Eve is meant to be taken as literal truth.

Um, yeah. I was taught as a Catholic that the book of Genesis wasn't to be taken literally. It's an allegory.

 

[JennyMominRI]

Honestly, I am shocked you said that. Why would a person's faith in the Bible shock you? Your mother thinks it's a literal story. What's wrong with that?

Why would anyone begrudge another person's faith? You (generally speaking) don't believe a word of the Bible, that's fine. Let other's believe what they want.

I'm not shocked that people have faith in the Bible..Just shocked that she takes all of it literally..The Catholic Church,which she is a member of,recognizes evolution

edited to add..In response to the "You don't believe a word of the bible" quote. As a Jew ,I believe the Torah (OT) is inspired by G-d but that does not mean I believe it's literall..Judaism maintains that it is full of symbolisim and allegory

 

[JoyG]

I'm wondering if the people who doubt the story of Noah's ark also doubt the miracles of Jesus. I know atheists and agnostics who would probably doubt both stories, but are their christians who doubt one but not the other? If so, I'm curious to know why.

I don't doubt the story of Noah's ark, the parting of the Red Sea, the changing of water to wine, the resurrection from the dead, the feeding of multitudes with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish.....the list goes on....

IMO, they were all examples of miracles. The fact that Noah could fit all those animals into an ark the size of his was simply a miracle.

I do take the story of Adam and Eve literally as well. The only thing I have "wriggle room" on is when it occured. I believe a thousand years is like one day with God so I don't know when in history it happened...but I do believe it happened.

 

[smartestnumber5]

Dawkins comes to mind, and correct me if I am wrong, but I have heard of a Stephen Jay Gould.

I think Dawkins holds something close to the view you're talking about (that science disproves God), but it's importantly different. As far as I understand him (and I haven't read the latest book) he has explicitly admitted that science cannot prove God. I teach philosophy and every semester we do a section on God, and every philosopher we read is always very careful about this point (though I'm sure there are lots of people who aren't careful in this way). What Dawkins and a lot of the philosophers my students read and believe is that science cannot prove or disprove God. But neither can science prove or disprove that little invisible martians are walking through the sewers of NYC right now.

The point that Dawkins wants to make is rather that, from the scientific standpoint, there is no more reason to believe in God than to believe in invisible martians living in the NYC sewers. Therefore, the burden of evidence has to be on the believers. So there is a general principle invoked that says something like "one should tailor one's beliefs to the evidence available" and it's argued that this principle applies just as much to beliefs about religion as to beliefs about maritans in the sewer or that there is another quantum particle in addition to the neutrino (the XYZ), or who believes there is a teacup orbiting the earth. Dawkins is especially critical of the idea that people who don't tailor their beliefs to the evidence when it comes to God should be given a special "get out of criticism free" card. That is, think of what you would say to someone about XYZ or the teacup. We would all feel free to respectfully point out the very deep flaws in those beliefs and would be pretty worried about a society in which most people accepted such beliefs. Dawkins wants to know why religious believers should be treated differently than DNA deniers.

This is a challenge to Steven Jay Gould's idea of overlapping magestries--the idea that there is an empirical realm (about the facts of the universe and how the universe works) and a religious realm (about ultimate meaning and moral value) and these realms are non-overlapping. Dawkin's objection is that almost all religious views make a claim that sounds completely empirical--something like "God--an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient creator--exists." It's hard to see how this claim doesn't count as part of the empirical realm. It says nothing about ultimate meaning or value; it only makes a claim about a fact of existence.

In addition, Gould's overlapping magestries are problematic for another reason--he assigns moral value to religion despite the fact that this goes against almost every contemporary moral philosopher (even religious ones) who reject the idea that morality can come from the supernatural.

 

[justaquestion]

I'm wondering if the people who doubt the story of Noah's ark also doubt the miracles of Jesus. I know atheists and agnostics who would probably doubt both stories, but are their christians who doubt one but not the other? If so, I'm curious to know why.

I don't doubt the story of Noah's ark, the parting of the Red Sea, the changing of water to wine, the resurrection from the dead, the feeding of multitudes with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish.....the list goes on....

IMO, they were all examples of miracles. The fact that Noah could fit all those animals into an ark the size of his was simply a miracle.

I do take the story of Adam and Eve literally as well. The only thing I have "wriggle room" on is when it occured. I believe a thousand years is like one day with God so I don't know when in history it happened...but I do believe it happened.

The Old Testament isn't taken literally. They are meant as "stories" to teach.

The New Testament is about Jesus's life and yes, I do believe in The New Testament and do not take the Old Testament literally.
But I even do question the miracles he performed. I tend to think they may have been embellished upon!

 

[poohs_hunny]

Why did he single out the Dinosaurs and leave them behind? There's no mention of them at all. Was Noah a Dinophobe?

So THIS was how dinosaurs became extinct! Noah took one look at them and said, "Sorry, guys. You're on your own."

 

[justaquestion]

So THIS was how dinosaurs became extinct! Noah took one look at them and said, "Sorry, guys. You're on your own."

well geez, they would have sunk the boat!

 

[smartestnumber5]

Oddly enough this is one of those things that doesn't get much better no matter what you believe. If you back far enough somebody "knew" their brother or sister.

As for cavemen and Noah, IMO it's sad people claim they are 100% literal.

Surely there was probably some inbreeding in our past on any explanation--whether we trace ourselves back in evolutionary terms or tell the Adam and Eve story. I don't think the evolutionary story necessitates inbreeding in the way the Adam and Eve story does though.

And, even if inbreeding is necessary to the explanation for both evolution and Adam and Eve, it seems to bring up two problems for the religious story but not the scientific one. First, why didn't the inbreeding of Adam and Eve and their children bring about a bunch of birth defects in the next few generations? We're not talking about cousin to cousin here as was common in some royal families--we're talking sibling-sibling or sibling-parent with no other genes to throw into the mix. One wonders how with that level of inbreeding the species could even have survived. Second, what about the religious prohibition against incest? Isn't that a pretty big sin according to Christianity? It seems God was kind of counting on Adam and Eve's children to commit the sin of incest to populate the earth. (Didn't God actually command Adam and Eve to reproduce?)

 

["Got Disney"]

I was in a Bible study group for over 4 years...and one thing I learned from that is that everyone interprets the Bible differently. We all take out of it what we need...

We had some very interesting points of view and we ate pizza. There were many things in the good book that were not taken at face value but ment to make one think.

The important thing to remember is not what you believe but that you believe.

God to me is very personal....I do not need a bible to make me believe or not believe...I do because I feel him all around me...

My children believe in God but not as I do...again God is personal and we all talk to him in our own way...do we not!!!!

I do not even have a Bible in my house....I find no need to. I talk to the good lord everyday as if right next to me. I do not even go to church anymore because I do not need to....If my children wanted a Bible I would go get them one....

They take God in as they need him...not as I need him....

As far as the caveman goes...yes I believe ....as far as Adam and Eve and Eve being formed from adams ribs....no I do not.

I always keep in mind that stories have a way of being changed some from one person to the next....so when reading the stories in the Bible I always keep that in mind,

I have also learned that you get no where debating Religion and Politics....both again are very personal subjects...

so be good, enjoy God, and have a blessed day!!!!!!