Filed in Category Christian Geology
Question Posed – “Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?”
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One is less likely to believe in something that has been discredited, especially if one has first hand experience and knowledge that what is being said is untrue. Thus by association and fear of being tricked into believing something false in which one knows little or nothing about, rejects the entire doctrine. So yes it is true. Believing blindly in what is said and told by others is wrought with pitfalls. With only one point of view, one will surely fall in, but with more opinions and eyes to see from, those traps can be avoided.
As for the comparison between actual experience/knowledge versus blindly believing, there is no questions that reality wins. Everyone takes different levels and types of proof to make them believe something. Religion is faith based. One believes in it for little more reason than they feel it is correct, how it is, and how it will be. On the other hand, geology, Darwinism and other enterprises are observation based. What you see is what you get, hard fact. It would be hard for people who are convinced in opposing trains of thought to take the other seriously, simply because they differ on levels of how they interpret the world. Take a child and give no influences with respect to religion or science and the day to day observations will reign supreme because it is what is known.
Long before Christianity, societies were ruled by star and moon positioning – when to plant, when to harvest etc – people knew what plants were good for healing and eating or could kill you, what animals were where and when etc etc. A huge compilation of knowledge based on observation. Now, did those ‘sacred writers’ discover all of these things on their own, or just draw from the pool of knowledge and say it was a divine spirit’s will? Those who preceded christians were the same people who eventually forged the religion and became them. The facts stayed the same, just the reason for their existence was proposed. Yet this reason has no facts to back it up and one would hope that the vehicle in which all other observable and factual things rides in on can be itself proven.
I think both atheists and fundamentalists need to read, mark and inwardly digest. I don’t hold out much hopes of that happening though.
Ramon Casha:
It comes from “The Literal Meaning of Genesis.” As you can see, he didn’t quite take it literally.
Our atheist friends seem to be strangely silent on this one. I wonder why that could be?
Very prescient.
Absolutely correct, the modern day creationists for example are doing more to damage Christianity than any atheist could ever hope, by saying things which are demonstrably false.
St. Augustine was a wise man – he was right. I guess human behavior hasn’t changed much since when Augustine walked the earth…I think he hit the nail on the head as to why Christians are ridiculed even today.
Peace!
Amen.
I guess you could say it’s “prophetic” in the literal sense of the word.
You can’t even breath without Jesus permission.Best
to be thanking him!
Cool. Do you have a reference for it?
What he said is absolutely true, but on the other hand by the time you have defended the bible by saying this or that wasn’t meant literally to counter every new scientific advancement, or change in society’s idea’s about what is right or wrong, morally acceptable or not, what are you left with? Only a series of moral fables, and fantastical stories about what god did, not to mention some moral guidelines which today are seen as cruel or unjust. In the end, if the only things in the bible that can be made any sense of, are those that can be said to not be meant literally what does that say about it being the word of god? What puts it above any other collection of fairy tails, (which in their original form were just as dark, and just as instructional, rightly or wrongly, on moral matters, even an atheist such as myself can see why there are modern versions of the religion that try to take a stand one way or the other, to say, either you believe this or you don’t, they are trying to stop it’s *power* being watered down by the ever greater tide of knowledge that gainsays any item of *truth* in the bible.