Evolution happens before our eyes, people. And as for taking the Bible literally...wow, what an adventure that will be. The folks who wrote the Bible were not in it for the consistency.
The thing is, this is a dance between science and religion. Religion is very good about making claims that are not falsifiable; they cannot be tested. We can't get God to repeat the experiment. However, there is a lot of evidence to support evolution, and we can test that. There's the research that has taken place on the Galapagos Islands with the finches, for example, where evolutionary change actually happens at a pace we can see within our lifetime. Granted there will be some bugs, but we can continue to get data.
There's a lot to be said for the notion that creationism is simply not testable because it relies on the supernatural rather than the natural.
Of course, many who believe in that supernatural power would say that something doesn't have to be empirically proven in order to believe in it. That's the other dance - believing in something that may not be scientifically proven. Believing because you subscribe to the authenticity of other sources that help to explain the belief - sources that Christians find reliable, such as Scripture, Biblical scholars, and the like.
Yes, yes. There's believing in something without proof, and then there's driving social policy on beliefs that lack proof.
I'm okay with people believing whatever they want up to the point where they want to limit society as a whole based on their unsubstantiated beliefs.
The dialogue between you and nitewind was an interesting one. They do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive, really, unless some folks are taking the bible way too literally. And that's too dangerous, especially since Leviticus(in some translations) says that some people should be "vomited from the earth" for their transgressions. First of all, we have to find the Earth's gag reflex...
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sforzinda
no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 06:28 pm (UTC)How do we test creationism?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 06:49 pm (UTC)There's a lot to be said for the notion that creationism is simply not testable because it relies on the supernatural rather than the natural.
Of course, many who believe in that supernatural power would say that something doesn't have to be empirically proven in order to believe in it. That's the other dance - believing in something that may not be scientifically proven. Believing because you subscribe to the authenticity of other sources that help to explain the belief - sources that Christians find reliable, such as Scripture, Biblical scholars, and the like.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 08:58 pm (UTC)I'm okay with people believing whatever they want up to the point where they want to limit society as a whole based on their unsubstantiated beliefs.
The dialogue between you and nitewind was an interesting one. They do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive, really, unless some folks are taking the bible way too literally. And that's too dangerous, especially since Leviticus(in some translations) says that some people should be "vomited from the earth" for their transgressions. First of all, we have to find the Earth's gag reflex...