While this is often true, I’ve actually had the opposite experience in my very conservative YEC church, but they may be a wildcard. I drive past several churches with the same label on the way to my church, and I think at least some of those would not accept me. But mine has. I’ve spent time talking to elders about what I believe and why. And when the topic comes up with one of the members, I just focus on the fact that Bible and evolution being mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy. It’s been made clear to me that it’s not a salvation issue, and none of my beliefs affect things that they would consider salvation issues. Really, what I get from Genesis 1-11 is largely the same, when looking at what are we supposed to learn from the text, what the overall theological message is.
I coordinate and often teach one of the ladies’ Bible classes. I could teach children if I wanted to, as I used to teach preschool there, but I’ve chosen not to do that for now (still recovering from a bout with atheism a couple years ago). If I do go back to teaching the kids at some point, I would request not to teach Genesis 1-11, since I wouldn’t feel comfortable teaching YEC interpretation, and the kids’ parents would expect that to be taught. It’s not my place to teach their kids something different. My own kids might share it in their classes, but many of the kids attend public school, so I’m not real worried about that.
Now I’m not going around teaching evolution at my church, but I have made it clear to the elders that I will teach that the Bible and evolution being mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy, and that if a member asks me about evolution, I will talk about it. But again, I’m very careful to fix the false dichotomy issue first. If someone believes that false dichotomy, I don’t show them evidence for evolution. It’s the false dichotomy that is dangerous to faith, not evolution.
I would call it empathy and reason, and they exist whether we believe they came from God or not. In my own opinion, we can argue for morality just based on empathy and reason. I have never seen a good moral argument that is made simply by stating “because my chosen religious scriptures say so”.
Indeed, it would. When people try to measure superiority or something akin to that they are using a very subjective set of criteria. There is nothing in the theory of evolution that says one species is superior to another in the way that Spengler and others are claiming. Those are entirely subjective human judgments. There are no objective criteria I know of that shows humans to be superior. There are adaptions humans have that no other species have, but that is true for nearly every single species. We can’t run as fast as cheetahs or swim as fast as dolphins, so are those species superior to us?
Apparently this selectively and conveniently ignores the practice of slavery in half of the United States, which is one of the worst cases of hierarchy and elites in human history.
LOL Yeah they were probably focused on the earliest scientists and since this country is only a couple hundred years old the earliest of anything isn’t going to be found in this country.
But if they were not so focused on early times (and ignoring anyone with Jewish ancestry) they might have shown…
Einstein… American like so many other immigrants.
Nicola Tesla… another American immigrant.
Von Neumann… another American immigrant.
Murray Gell-Mann… American, born from an immigrant family.
Richard Feynman… American, born from an immigrant family.
James Watson… American … discovery of DNA.
I suppose the American inventors are even more famous, but that wouldn’t have happened if Americans shunned science would it?
The American version seems to be based on which ethnic origins immigrated first.
Indeed… Southern Baptist is likely a better example. …such are the more irrational elements of human society.
On a related note, I remember visiting Westminster Cathedral and back in the Poet’s corner was amazed at all the famous authors entombed or honored there. It was like all the famous authors through the years were born and buried in England… then: Duh! They are English authors, of books in the English language.
Actually Josiah Wedgwood was the grandfather of both Charles Darwin and his wife.
I’ll note that a common scientific hypothesis in Darwin’s time (see Agassiz) was that the various human ‘races’ had separate origins (polygenesis). Darwin supported all humans having the same origin. The book
Desmond A, Moore J (2009) Darwin’s Sacred Cause: race, slavery and the quest for human origins. London, UK: Allen Lane
argues that this preconception may have led him to consider his hypothesis and hunt for the evidence to turn it into a theory. It somewhat overstates the case, but, it does have a huge amount of evidence that he and his extended family were anti-slavery and monogenesistic.
So the belongings of the first Christians who held their property in common wasn’t owned by the Church?
Seriously, this is silly. I no longer wish to discuss this. (btw, you know who really was a communist? Helen Keller)
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
33
Cool on Keller. And no, the people using the property ‘owned’ it while they were using it. Otherwise it was in store for the collective. Some remote hierarchy didn’t own it. So yes, the Church owned it, in the people using it. Locally. Immediately. Turn up, give what you can, take or join the queue for what you need. And work.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
35
Acts 2 The Church in increased by two orders of magnitude in a year from the previous two in three. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.
They were inspired, pious, zealous, powerfully led by dedicated servant leaders very mainly from the working class. What else would they do? The had the greatest possible social capital ever seen.
(And they all believed in YEC! There you have it.)
