Last I knew it was still considered to be the oldest complete book – some material in Genesis is almost certainly older.
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I have to agree. A good example is my conservation work: when I go out and look over the native trees and bushes I’ve planted that are thriving it makes me happy, but then I can’t look at them without seeing the hundreds of native plants that didn’t make it through their first summer (if every tree I’d planted out there had survived there would be a decent beginning of native forest healthy enough I could leave it do it thing while I started in another spot).
Lots more pays into it, to the point that I mostly can’t say if I’m happy or not, or even if I would recognize it if I were.
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I think Romans 1:22-25 applies to modern-day atheists in a figurative sense - they attribute life on earth to mindless atoms, which may be equated to the “worship” of nature (“birds and animals and reptiles”).
Sounds fair enough. Atheists revere Darwin as a kind of Messianic figure, who revealed the great “truth” of evolution, which supposedly vindicates their godless doctrine.
All the atheist online forums I’ve participated in share a fanatical devotion to evolution and Darwin that could be described as quasi-religious.
God, the author of Scripture, says atheist are “without excuse”, since the existence of a Creator is evident in nature (Romans 1:20).
It seems to me that most atheists don’t want God to exist, so it’s not a matter of evidence - they’re not looking for evidence of God’s existence bcoz they don’t want any such evidence to exist.
Neither are they interested in any alleged evidence presented by Christians - atheists will dismiss accounts of miracles as lies or products of insanity or a vivid imagination, for example.
Other atheists simply don’t care about God, so they’re not looking for evidence of God’s existence either.
I have to admit my experience is limited, as I really do not seek out atheist forums, but do run into quite a few here and there. Everyone I know, Christian or atheist, who is knowledgeable about science and accepts mainline science as true, has respect for Darwin in that he made some accurate connections at a time when little was actually scientifically known, but also accept his limitations and errors, holding him much in the same company as Newton. Those who claim him to be held fanatically and followed religiously are critics building straw men to attack, it seems to me.
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Comparing Darwin to Newton is a bit of stretch ridiculous - it’s a bit like comparing a One-Hit Wonder to the Beatles. Newton was a bona fide genius. Plant and animal breeders had been utilizing the principles of evolution thousands of years before Darwin came along.
People get Charles Darwin tattoos - if that’s not indicative of fanatical devotion, what is it?
Must be a lot of butterfly worshipers out there. True, you can be fanatically devoted to anything, be it butterflies or a particular ideology.
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Expensive gold or silver necklaces with crosses on them? or tattoos of La Virgin de Guadalupe?
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It’s not talking about atheists:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
unless it’s atheists who started out as Christians (or Jews, actually, in context).
Generally, yes.
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Don’t forget theology, magic, and alchemy.
With everyone I’ve ever met who had one, it was satire against in-your-face Christian zealots harping on people’s sins.
I once lost track of where I was supposed to be going when I noticed an absolutely gorgeous butterfly tattoo on the neck of a gal walking in front of me – it was done so that when she moved her neck it seemed to flutter its wings.
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Or–
e^{ i x} = cos x + i sin x
with
e^{ iπ} = −1
and
e^{2iπ} = 1
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Sheilas get butterfly tattoos coz they’re pretty … a tattoo of Charles Darwin … not so much.
I find it challenging to imagine any human getting a tattoo of that mathematical stuff or a necklace of any kind with that equation on it.
Romans 1 applies to anyone who denies the existence of a Creator, which of course includes atheists.
The words “they knew God” (v.21) refer to v.19-20:
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse”.
I can well understand why an atheist disciple of evolution would get a Charles Darwin tattoo.
I’ve met two people with those equations for a tattoo. The first had them on one shoulder, the other had them on his abs, but with a brightly-colored graph of a sin wave with a cosign wave, and around his belly button the circular diagram that goes with the equation.
I’ve never met one of those. I’ve only met people who had them as satire against in-your-face Christian zealots harping on people’s sins.
We live among different classes of people. The kind of guys in my neighborhood who have tattoos look like this:
That’s what I mostly see around here, too. The exceptions tend to be fun.
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I appreciate Randal Rauser’s comments on this passage.
Does Paul’s Epistle to the Romans Imply There are no Actual Atheists? - Randal Rauser
How to Interpret Rom 1:18-20 Charitably (Dr. Randal Rauser) (youtube.com)
Randal Rauser on Doubting - Faith & Science Conversation - The BioLogos Forum
Thanks.
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We have a winner.