|
just to say the obvious, most of christianity is not of the literal interpretation of the bible camp. most accept that the origin story is an allegory or is metaphorical and so can accomodate both an acceptance of one or another notion of biological evolution with belief in a god. the fundamentalist/literal interpretation school has a real problem--which is also why they create such problems when they are politically mobilized & in a position to exercise power---which is that their *particular* and quite odd interpretation of genesis makes god/biological evolution into an either/or. and it is a measure of their political reach that the "issue" is framed in those terms. and it is as an enactment of the effects of that reach that this thread is most peculiar, that the question moved so quickly off the *particular* beliefs and actions of the creationist squad and onto a question that pit science against christianity.
it ain't so simple.
it also ain't so easy to simply assume that folk who accept this nonsense do so because they're stupid people. back in my wayward youth i passed through a charismatic group for a little while and remember great emphasis being placed on "being like unto a child" in matters of faith. personally, i find this emphasis more than a little strange. but in that case it fit in with a system that saw itself as "touched by the holy spirit" and all that, so in a space of direct experience of some manifestation of their faith, one that by-passed mediation. so there's a circuit inside of at least some of the creationist groups that explains how and why their positions are as they are (obviously what i just noted isn't a complete one) that doesn't require you assume people are fucking idiots. i say this because if there is a political conflict here, it makes no sense to underestimate your opponent.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|