about mcm

[mcm]

Hi my name is Michael, I live in New Zealand and am a trained electrical engineer although have worked for a website design company since graduating. I am a Christian and have been so all my life growing up in a Christian home. Why am I posting in this forum? Mainly it's because I hear quite a lot of misinformation and conflicting information on Evolution and a few here seems more knowledgeable than the average person, in other words I'm too lazy to find out for myself.

[Squid]

Welcome to HAF Michael.  There have been many great discussions on this forum about evolutionary theory, browsing through the archives here can help and I'm sure we can try and address any specific questions you may have.

[mcm]

Thanks, and thanks for the welcome.

[Whitney]

Hi mcm, welcome to HAF.

In my opinion there isn't a reason why someone couldn't accept evolution and god at the same time.  I think the reason why many fundamentalist Christians are so set against accepting evolution is that it conflicts with a literal understanding of the Bible.  

I was raised to view the Bible as something which obviously has some allegorical stories in it; the problem for believers is figuring out which stories might have been meant to be taken seriously since the authors didn't preface any of the books with "let me tell you a story so that you may gain wisdom from it."

On the other hand, there are many non-believers who will argue that evolution being true means the Bible cannot be trusted since if any one part of it is not true then the entire work is questionable.  However, if that is the case then evolution being true should be the least of a Chrstian's worries since there are lots of things in the Bible that are questionable if taken literally.

I think it is problematic that so many Christians are willing to ignore real evidence if they even remotely feel that it might harm their religious views.  To me, it should be the other way around; reality should help to shape their religious views so that they may come closer to the truth for what it is rather than what they want it to be.

Anyway...that my two cents on evolution and Christianity.

I think http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ is a good non-biased source for information on evolution and it has an Evolution 101 section that is pretty quick to read through.

There are also lots of threads on evolution at HAF and feel free to ask questions.

[AlP]

Hello Michael. Welcome to the forum!

[mcm]

Thanks Whitney and AIP for being welcoming, judging from some of the christian posters I've read they could learn a bit from you about respect.

In my opinion there isn't a reason why someone couldn't accept evolution and god at the same time. I think the reason why many fundamentalist Christians are so set against accepting evolution is that it conflicts with a literal understanding of the Bible.

Apart from time scale (6 days seems very short even if we were discover to another system other than evolution) are there other areas that evolution conflicts with a literal understanding? Maybe this should be continued in the Creationism/Intelligent Design forum.

I was raised to view the Bible as something which obviously has some allegorical stories in it"

So was I at least with the creation story in Genesis. But the more bible study I do the more literalist I've become because of things like the family tree account in a couple of places that go right back to Adam.

... there are lots of things in the Bible that are questionable if taken literally.

Can you give a couple examples, excluding prophetical visions.

I think it is problematic that so many Christians are willing to ignore real evidence if they even remotely feel that it might harm their religious views. To me, it should be the other way around; reality should help to shape their religious views so that they may come closer to the truth for what it is rather than what they want it to be.

Agreed, to be honest I think there is very little in the bible that deals directly with science (it's mainly just order of events and maybe time scale). I think if they spend a lot of their time trying to debunk evolution then I think they've missed the main message of the bible.

I think http://evolution.berkeley.edu/  is a good non-biased source for information on evolution and it has an Evolution 101 section that is pretty quick to read through. There are also lots of threads on evolution at HAF and feel free to ask questions.

Thanks, and apologies if I miss a past thread and start a new thread repeating everything that has already been said.

[Whitney]

Can you give a couple examples, excluding prophetical visions.

A whole website full of examples categorized by type:  http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

[mcm]

Thanks, I'm just going through the creation story in Genesis now and the first point it makes is that there are two accounts of creation which are contradictory and from the passages it quotes it would appear so. However, after checking my bible (NIV) I find they're not. So do you know what bible translation the site uses?

[Whitney]

So do you know what bible translation the site uses?

I think it uses the KJV.

It doesn't surprise me that the NIV would correct some of the wording that didn't make sense in earlier translations.  However, with all the different versions it really makes you wonder what the original authors intended to say.

[mcm]

Just found a KJV bible and indeed it looks like it's the translation they've used.

However, with all the different versions it really makes you wonder what the original authors intended to say.

Agreed, although tools like concordance help.

[kelltrill]

Not really participating, just dropping in a rather interesting relevant link.
http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/co ... ngs/27.asp

 

[LoneMateria]

Just found a KJV bible and indeed it looks like it's the translation they've used.

However, with all the different versions it really makes you wonder what the original authors intended to say.

Agreed, although tools like concordance help.

First off welcome to the forum.  When I start getting talking about the various translations of the bible I use a great website to help me out.  

http://www.biblegateway.com/

It has the bible in many languages and it has many translations of it (I think there is 20 total english translations of it).  It's also easily searchable so you can grab a passage and see how the wording differs between all these different translations of the bible.  It might be helpful, if nothing else, for putting into perspective how the bible has been changing over the years.  I was talking to my old Jehovah's Witness friend a while back and she went on a tangent about abortion and I pointed out the bible never mentions it and she corrected me ( I had to look it up) and in her particular translation of the bible it talks about abortion when the NIV, KJV, and another 3 I looked at didn't have it (at least not at that particular passage).  So I hope this website will be helpful ^_^

[mcm]

Not really participating

Fair enough, it was a bit mean of me picking apart Whitney's post that I think was intended to make me feel welcome by not making it an us vs them.

just dropping in a rather interesting relevant link.
http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/co ... ngs/27.asp

Thanks for the link, the part about the relationship between science and God is where I come from in my views. Interesting you're from Cape Town, I have quite a few friends who originate from there as there seems quite a number of white south african families have come out to New Zealand, along with His People (I think now renamed Every Nation) I read you mention in another thread although their tactic here is to attract people to fill out surveys with lollies and only if you tick all the boxes will they start going through the salvation message.

When I start getting talking about the various translations of the bible I use a great website to help me out.

Thanks, I'd heard about the site but haven't looked at it before.

[Renegnicat]

Hi, Mcm. Welcome to the board. In high school, I researched gregor mendel, the father of modern genetics. But aside from that, my evolutionary knowledge is a bit lacking.  

See you around.

[Whitney]

Not really participating

Fair enough, it was a bit mean of me picking apart Whitney's post that I think was intended to make me feel welcome by not making it an us vs them.

I think kelltrill meant he wasn't trying to participate in the current discussion aside from dropping a link.  

I wasn't bothered by you responding to what I said....it was basically just me rambling.