Mid-day Finger Rambling
Oct. 6th, 2005 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredericks"Ultimately, creationism is not just bad science to me, it's bad Christianity, it's Bible worship. There's just no reason to look at all these patterns of layered sediment, or the fossil record, or at the stars, and think that what you're seeing isn't what you're seeing. God doesn't require you to be stupid, to deny what you see, to deny what you know." [my italics]
NY TIMES article on creationist and evolutionist views on the Grand Canyon. I was reading the linked-to article this morning and that line stuck with me. My religious leanings have been tenuous since adolescence (par for the course, I suppose), but at the moment I seem to have slipped right back into the relationship. It's comfortable, like putting on a pair of worn jeans (then again, the last relationship I described using those words went to shit shortly thereafter, so...). I find it easy to say I'm a Christian and also not believe that the world is less than 5000 years old. How could you look at all the technology we have dating mineral formations to the millions of years and honestly conclude the Grand Canyon was made 4700 years ago during Noah's Flood? Or say that dinosaurs and man lived together? Too often blind faith is used to justify following word-for-word a document that was penned at a time when it was advantageous for people not to eat certain foods (lack of refrigeration and pasteurization processes) or for a man to dominate a household (he was the sole source of income) or a book that was changed to favor the ruling party (the whitewashing of the actions of the Romans in the story of Christ's life). Sometimes, when I'm flipping through channels and I see things like The 700 Club or catch so-called religious leaders condemning one segment of the population or catch quotes where natural catastrophes are called "God's Judgment on a Sinning People", I get so disturbed - this weird mixture of anger and sadness that I cannot describe any other way - and I wonder what God those people worship.
NY TIMES article on creationist and evolutionist views on the Grand Canyon. I was reading the linked-to article this morning and that line stuck with me. My religious leanings have been tenuous since adolescence (par for the course, I suppose), but at the moment I seem to have slipped right back into the relationship. It's comfortable, like putting on a pair of worn jeans (then again, the last relationship I described using those words went to shit shortly thereafter, so...). I find it easy to say I'm a Christian and also not believe that the world is less than 5000 years old. How could you look at all the technology we have dating mineral formations to the millions of years and honestly conclude the Grand Canyon was made 4700 years ago during Noah's Flood? Or say that dinosaurs and man lived together? Too often blind faith is used to justify following word-for-word a document that was penned at a time when it was advantageous for people not to eat certain foods (lack of refrigeration and pasteurization processes) or for a man to dominate a household (he was the sole source of income) or a book that was changed to favor the ruling party (the whitewashing of the actions of the Romans in the story of Christ's life). Sometimes, when I'm flipping through channels and I see things like The 700 Club or catch so-called religious leaders condemning one segment of the population or catch quotes where natural catastrophes are called "God's Judgment on a Sinning People", I get so disturbed - this weird mixture of anger and sadness that I cannot describe any other way - and I wonder what God those people worship.
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Date: 2005-10-06 05:31 pm (UTC)And unfortunately, since people believe so strongly in this book, others are able to use this book to further their own ambitions (the religious right being the main group in my mind).
I do not consider myself Christian, but I appreciate a lot of what is in the Bible, because I realize the intention of the stories. Just as I realize the intentions of the Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Greeks, Viking, Native American, etc. stories :) The basic thing behind these stories are to be a decent person and reflect that decency on the people, animals, and planet around you.
I'm always amazed at those so-called religious leaders that you mention...because they actually 'preach' the opposite of what God and Jesus were supposed to be about...love, respect, decency, and happiness.
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Date: 2005-10-06 07:12 pm (UTC)Amen. *grin* Christianity is supposed to be based on the works of a guy who was all about loving your friends and those whose opinions may be polar opposites of your own. And the Bible-thumpers in this country are the most ardent haters, because they believe their hate to be God's word. Pretty presumptuous of them, if I do say so myself.
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Date: 2005-10-06 05:48 pm (UTC)Ah Chick tracts. Hilariousness!
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Date: 2005-10-06 07:06 pm (UTC)Even though I too have major issue with Intelligent Design, at least it's an attempt (however misguided) to incorporate the overwhelming evidence out there to the contrary instead of saying it's all bunk. I could (and maybe even have) sit down in a biology class with an IDer and not run into friction, whereas a creationist would run out screaming once the theories on life on the Galapagos Islands are mentioned.
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Date: 2005-10-06 09:23 pm (UTC)Or, as Galileo said, "I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." I've always liked that quote.
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Date: 2005-10-07 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-07 03:36 am (UTC)