Three Eyed Fish caught at outflow from Nuclear Plant

[metalman]

... and then we get to the old chestnut of: which parts do you take literally and who decides?

If you want a religion that doesn't encourage you to spend a lot of time Bible reading you should become a Catholic

The Pope decides, and provides you with the cliff notes.

Now if you are motivated to read the Bible, well the pope provides a very detailed, Bible reading guide so you won't be misled.

Genesis & the Book of Revelations, and some other Books are considered allegorical, and are omitted from the cliff note version

Catholics use the rule that there can be no conflict between faith and reason, God gave man "reason", and man must investigate God's creation, so since science has proven the earth is older than 5000 years, then the Book of Genesis must be interpreted as an allegory.

 

[metalman]

Your statement is certainly true. Though all Christian schools teach creationism.

Most "Protestant" schools teach creationism, unless you saying Catholics are not Christians.

In doing some research found one of books that the Catholic church banned from being used as a text book in Catholic schools was one on "Intelligent Design" because "it wasn't science"

 

[faethor]

Most "Protestant" schools teach creationism, unless you saying Catholics are not Christians.

In doing some research found one of books that the Catholic church banned from being used as a text book in Catholic schools was one on "Intelligent Design" because "it wasn't science"

Um if you finished reading my statement you'd understand how the Catholics do that too. I'll summarize so you don't have to go back. Catholics do teach God is the reason for evolution, he created it. It's a modified form of creationism. They moved the goalpost. They didn't remove God.

 

[metalman]

It's a modified form of creationism.

Creationism is interpreting the book of Genesis as literal, the Earth is 5000 years old.

 

[faethor]

Creationism is interpreting the book of Genesis as literal, the Earth is 5000 years old.

Creationism is the belief that a supernatural being created the universe and thereby everything in it. Biblical Creationism is the thought that the bible itself holds the description of the creation. Since you favor right-wing thought perhaps the Conservapedia may help here. http://www.conservapedia.com/Creationism

As I define them, and the special conservative version of wikipedia defines it, Catholics are creationists but not biblical creationists.

 

[metalman]

Creationism is the belief that a supernatural being created the universe and thereby everything in it. Biblical Creationism is the thought that the bible itself holds the description of the creation.
As I define them, and the special conservative version of wikipedia defines it, Catholics are creationists but not biblical creationists.

Clearly you are wrong.

The examples in the article are for "Biblical creation" and "old earth creation" e.g. "Intelligent Design", both of which the Catholic church considers "non-scientific" and instructs that evolution be taught in all Catholic schools.

If you read all the way to the bottom of the article you linked, and you will find this quote in the article:

The Roman Catholic Church has a cautiously positive view of the theory of evolution.

 

[faethor]

If you read all the way to the bottom of the article you linked, and you will find this quote in the article: The Roman Catholic Church has a cautiously positive view of the theory of evolution.

I hope you can understand there are different forms of Creationism. While the USA, mainly, deals with the protestant version of creationism there are other faiths, like hindu, which have their own version of creationism. As far as Christian sects it includes both the literal (God works as the bible says) and the allegorical (Stories of old. but now we know more about how God made it work.) versions of Creationism.

I don't think it will surprise you that when people tell me we should teach creationism in schools, cuz afterall it's just another theory, my first question is always which one.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I hope you can understand there are different forms of Creationism.

And so far there is no theory of creation despite much hand waving. No-one has yet proposed HOW this occurred or any means of testing any proposed mechanism. As such, the whole field of creationism is scientifically unuseful.

 

[Robert]

And so far there is no theory of creation despite much hand waving. No-one has yet proposed HOW this occurred or any means of testing any proposed mechanism. As such, the whole field of creationism is scientifically unuseful.

Unuseful?
Is that just a polite way of saying useless?

 

[faethor]

And so far there is no theory of creation despite much hand waving. No-one has yet proposed HOW this occurred or any means of testing any proposed mechanism. As such, the whole field of creationism is scientifically unuseful.

Theory or not? It all depends on the usage of theory. The Creationists use of the word 'theory' is using it not in the scientific definition but as one might use the word 'conjecture' or 'guess'.

In addition, Creationists use creationism to explain everything from the original starting point forward. (In the case of Catholics God was always and decided to push the Universe into existence.) Evolution is that about the evolution of the species. This speaks to life's changes after life began. It says nothing about the origins of the universe or origins of life itself. Likely the origins of the universe...and life will have a relationship to evolution, as all are necessary for life to be here. Science is still working on those origin question, and especially the origin of life.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

In addition, Creationists use creationism to explain everything from the original starting point forward.

I think you mean they use it to NOT explain.

 

[Glaucus]

Wow, I created this big mess that evolved into something totally unexpected and interesting! I totally designed it that way, how god-like of me.

And who knows, perhaps genesis as written in the bible is creationism 2.0. You'd think that after waiting around hundreds of billions of years for the solar systems to be created and the dinosaurs to die off and mankind to start reading and writing, god could have discovered better ways to create all that stuff in just a few days! Now he has a good reference manual for next time.

Seriously, I would say that a big difference between the scientific theory of evolution and whatever the heck Catholics believe is that evolution lead us down the path to mankind by chance, where as Catholics believe mankind was the end goal for evolution. Also worth noting is that the scientific theory of evolution does not rule out more evolution. Mankind could be just a stepping stone to something far greater. Do they teach that in Catholic school?

 

[faethor]

Seriously, I would say that a big difference between the scientific theory of evolution and whatever the heck Catholics believe is that evolution lead us down the path to mankind by chance, where as Catholics believe mankind was the end goal for evolution. Also worth noting is that the scientific theory of evolution does not rule out more evolution. Mankind could be just a stepping stone to something far greater.

It's through our filter of believing us to be the most intelligent animal on the planet (aka speciesism) that God is believed to having built this all for us. That question is likely to come to a head within the next 100 years. Within that time, assuming Moore's law is maintained, computers will be more intelligent than us. If intelligence is really the end game perhaps God's plan was a really nice intelligent self-aware Amiga. All praise Jay Miner!