From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Scriptural Authority Re: Does theory of evolution affect belief in God?
Organization: DSG, Stanford University
Date: 16 Apr 92 01:52:56 GMT


	I grow weary of brinkman. I don't understand his problem
with what I said. He is making alot more out of what I said than
anyone else has.

brinkman@edseq4.llnl.gov writes:

>Can you point out to me the Jewish or Islamic Creationists you
>are worried about, because I've never met them.  Of course, without both
>large communities of Jewish and Islamic Creationists, acting in that nasty 
>Creationist way, your entire argument falls, doesn't it?

	Ho Hum, I wasn't saying that all people who have the Near Eastern
religious heritiage are Creationists. What did I say? Go repeat it to
me and get it right! I said that the tendencies that lead to Creationism
are to be found in the core of this heritage. If there are no Creationists
in Islamic states or among Jews in this country or Isreal, it could be
due to many other factors other than whether the values of these faiths
lead to a conflict with science. I don't think that you would get an
argument from a Moslem that the Koran is the word of God.

>>	The pursuit of science is not to asail religion. 

>   I would claim that the point (pursuit, if your prefer) of religion is
>not to assail science.  Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

	Depends on who you are talking to. It also depends on what
point in history you are talking about. There are sects in this
country now that are Christian who are very anti-scientific and very
anti-secular? Are you going to press me for proof, or do you
accept the possibility?

>   Could you please explain why viewing the _Bible_ as a "legal" authority is
>conducive to Creationism?

	If you view the Bible as the source of Truth, as many Christians
seem to, then any idea that seems to contradict it is possibly to be
violently suppressed. If the book is viewed as a high authority than
any calling of parts of it into doubt questions the whole, in the
minds of many Christians, and must be defeated at all cost, even to
the point of lying and destorting what others say. Are you saying
that this cannot be true for some Christians? You seem to be missing
the qualification inplicit in my original statement that not all
Christians behave this way, even though the tendency to fall into
viewing the Bible as some asailable authority is common to all
Christians. I spoke of it as a tendency, not a necessity.

>   Now, you have also brought up that the _Bible_ is also to be taken as a
>literal historical authority.  This is at least related to Creationism 
>(provided one can show this tendency extends to questions of origins), but is
>it true?

	What do you mean "true"? What is to stop millions of Christians from
taking the above course? It seems to me that the Southern Baptist Convention
has embraced Literalism and Inerrancy, and they have a big influience over
about 14 Million Americans.

>  You have glossed over the overwhelming amount of theological 
>thought dealing with the questions of literal versus symbolic interpretation of
>the texts.  Huge segments of the Talmud deal with precisely this question, and
>major contributors to Christian thought also frequently side with allegorical 
>readings (for example see the writings by Thomas Aquinas on the origins of 
>life).

	Right, I have, because there is absolutely nothing in this body
of learned work to prevent any given Christian from becomming a simpleton
and treating the Bible as literally historical.  There is nothing in all
the theology calsses and colleges run by religious sects to prevent
throwbacks to ancient errors, no matter how well refuted. I would guess
that the current Cairasmatic movements in many churches, relying on
emotion as they do, just throw all the intellectual tradition of theology
out the window and revert to the old errors. What is more this infusion
of ador is welcomed by the established churches as a resurgance of faith.

>   In short, you have vastly oversimplified Near Eastern Religious thought on
>this matter by failing to note the counterposing view.

	You are right, but you can't give me any assurance that what you
regard as error, is not the cornerstone of someone else's faith. I dare
say that Literalism and Inerrancy ARE the core of the beliefs of some
people that post here. So, you speak only for yourself, and give no
means to address the error you cite. There is no self-clensing aspect
of religion that there is in science. The errors of religion compound,
especially when people get authoritarian about it, as they do in our
traditions.

Bruce Salem

Xref: sparky talk.origins:4117 talk.religion.misc:6295