From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Some answers for Chuck (on evolution and marriage)
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:46:11 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <BrsMCD.8rp@news.cso.uiuc.edu> maier@romulus (Chuck Maier) writes:
|No virtue - that's just the way it was and is always supposed to be.
|The Lord Himself derived his doctrine from the fact of the original
|created order (Mt 19:4,5; Mk 10:6?).  He did not introduce it as some
|new "Christian" concept.

True, but that remains true whether I believe in a literal Adam&Eve or
not. The moral/spiritual teachings of the Bible do not change just because
we view the presentation context differently.

|On the other hand , if A&E are just a figleaf of our illustration, and
|humans originated from herds of apemen, then it is the natural order of
|things to be polygamous and copulate with anything in heat.

Not necessarily,  You are operating under the misapprehension that polygamy
is the universal rule amoung non-humans.  It is *not*.  In fact some of our
closest relatives in the animal kingdom practice monogamy (gibbons and,
I believe, orangutans take only one mate under normal circumstances). Thus
concluding that 'polygamy' is the 'natural order' of things for humans
is premature, to say the least.

Since almost any mating system can be found *somewhere* in the animal kingdom,
I would say we have no direct way of determining what is natural for humans.
On such issues the Bible is as good an authority as anything else.

|Here's the problem:  I have met at least four people in this city alone
|who claim to be Christians (and they may be), yet they are living in
|SIN (unmarried and cohabiting with the opposite sex). 

Yep, humans do this sort of thing!  They always have.  I can cite such
behaviors amoung supposed christians, even amoung clergy, about as far
back as we have accurate records of such things.  (One pope was even
reputed to have had orgies in the Vatican - read about the Borgias
sometime; or check into the number of catholic priests that had unofficial
'wives' in the early Middle Ages - it became quite a scandal).

This sort of behavior has *nothing* to do with any sort of scientific
knowledge, it is just what The Christ was talking about when he talked
about all people being sinners.

I know it is easier to see the sins and weaknesses of the living, and
there is a tendency towards seeing only the good in the past, but this
is all really only an 'optical' illusion, due to perspective.

|I assume we're in agreement that these things should not be.  However, let's
|say a niece of yours or mine decides to live in SIN.  On what authority are
|we going to say it's wrong?

Well, if they are christians, then I would talk to them about the teachings
of the Bible.   Or I might discuss the value of commitment, and so on.
I would certainly try to come up with reason why the behavior is inappropriate.
[I believe that all of God's moral commandments have reasons based on
human well-being, so there generally should be benefits to obeying his
rules that can be described to people who need them].

|  And if we are going to appeal to the authority of The Lord
|from the Scriptures, it is clear that he taught from the original created 
|order as  fact and foundation for the marital relationship.

Yes, but this is *not* *relevant* to scientific description of origins.
So we are derived from now extinct apes via evolution, this does *not*
say that God didn't create us.  The first talks about *process*, the
second about *intent*; there *is* a difference.

So, one can interpret 'created order' as "the way we were when we first
evolved into our current form".

The analogy I like here is this:

	"General Motors makes cars" is to "Cars are made on assembly lines"
as
	"God created people" is to "Humans evolved from extinct apes".

See the relationship?  All *four* statements can be true simultaneously.
The first and second statement in each pair speak to *different*
*domains*.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com