Death Before Sin?

An interesting aspect in believing a literal interpretation of the Bible is the curious belief that prior to Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit that there was no death of animals. In Genesis 1:29-30 the Bible states,

Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground -everything that has the breath of life in it- I give every green plant for food' And it was so. "

According to James Stambaugh of the Institute of Creation Research, these versus imply that at the time of creation, no carnivorous animals existed. Actually, the animals existed, but they weren't carnivores yet. Stambaugh uses that interesting premise as actual proof against theistic evolution. He states in an ICR Impact pamphlet;

"This [the biblical concept that all animals were herbivores prior to the fall] raises an interesting for the evolutionist. He must believe that God intended man and animals to be carnivorous, even though God's words are very clear (Gensis 1:29). He must in all reality, call God a liar; he must say that God did not meant what He said. If men and animals were vegetarian, then the possibility of death in the original creation becomes remote."

Wow, harsh words for theistic evolutionists! If you don't believe that if even animals with very specialized physilogies meant to kill and consume other animals, such as Great White Sharks, poisonous snakes, or any other animal that has specialized features for predation, then you're calling God a liar. Simple as that. It's interesting to note that Stambaugh doesn't bother to explain how modern day carnivores like sharks or lions actually ate as herbivores and survived despite having absolutely no physiology to do so. But that's incidental, because after all, the Bible is "clear" that all animals were herbivores at some point and that must be the case because the Bible says so.

I actually agree with Stambaugh's assertion that the Bible clearly means that no animals died prior to the fall of man, but unlike him I just conclude that the Bible is wrong to begin with, and that passage contradicts empirical evidence and even common sense. It's amazing the lengths of mental and logical gymnastics fundamentalist Christians will do to maintain a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Been a while

I took a little hiatus from righting blogs, but hopefully I'll get back into it again.

Institute for Creation Research

Today I took a trip back down memory lane and visited The Institute for Creation Research in Lakeside. I took a quick tour of the museum, and grabbed some brochures. I'll be doing some individual blogs in response to some of the brochures I took.

The contradiction between the Genesis creation narratives and flood narrative with empirical evidence and observation caused me a great amount of dissonance and uncomfort while growing up. I placed so much value and psychic stability on my beliefs that anything seemingly contradicting them was disturbing. I had the mind set that if that part of the Bible was incorrect, then by what authority do I edit it out? And, who gets to decided which parts of the Bible are correct or incorrect? I had an all-or-nothing philosophy; believe in the entire Bible literally, or don't bother believing any of it at all.

Lately, I feel quite secure in believing the earth is far far older than what the Bible or creationists claim, but I am also feeling more secure that I'm not bound to an all or nothing dilemma of believing everything or nothing

Personal HIstory 2

Despite, or maybe because, of my dad's disdain for religion, I took hold of my mother's beliefs very early on. Thanks to my mom's influence I was raised in Lutheran Church and went to the Church's elementary school from preschool onto sixth grade. In the fourth grade I recall sitting at my desk and for the first time comprehending Christ's sacrifice as a substitute for our sins and then asking for forgiveness for my sins.

Christianity and the church became a refuge to my father's irrational anger, constant criticisms, and belittling. Accepting a strict Christian doctrine was my way to rebel from him and find acceptance in something that I wasn't finding from my own father. As time went on and I entered junior high his anger and abuse increased and likewise my faith in God also increased to compensate.

I went to a private junior high that was extremely conservative; believing in a very literal interpretation of the bible and fundamentalist world view. We were frequently indoctrinated in class that the earth was 10,000 years old and that homosexuality was purely a choice. These lemmas were presented to us as crucial to accept otherwise the entire credibility of the Bible would collapse. It was an all or nothing dilemma presented to me; believe in everything in a literal interpretation or you might as well be an atheist.

This dilemma was especially disturbing to me because of the psychological need the church satisfied as a refuge to my father's abuse, but at the same time I knew facts and observations about the world that were not inline with my religious beliefs but nonetheless had to di facto accept. I was coming to release that my hope and concept of the universe was showing some severe cracks in it.

Personal History

I think it's necessary to establish, at least for myself, my personal history to give my current perspectives context, or at least be mindful that my past experiences will of course skew any notion of objectivity I have. But, at least I hope I can be aware of my biases; if I can't see real color through dark sunglasses then at least I'm mindful that I'm not seeing the real picture accurately.

My mom and her side of the family are staunch fundamentalist conservative Christians. Her father was a pastor and then later a professor at Biola college, her mother a school secretary for a Christian high school, her sister married a pastor, one of her 2 brothers is the organist for a mega church, and 3 out of 5 of her aunts and uncles (my great aunts and uncles on my mom's side) were, or, are missionaries. There is no dissenting religious view in my mom's family. My mom still holds onto her Christian beliefs and conservative political perspectives, but is not as vocal about her beliefs as the rest of her family is.

My dad's side of the family is catholic in name only, but for all intensive purposes are atheist and very politically liberal. My father is as staunch an atheist as my mother is a Christian. His grandfather was a German general who defected to the US before World War 1, and like any typical German army officer, that man was a strict authoritarian in all aspects of life. This authoritarian attitude was passed down to his son, my grandfather John who then subsequently passed on his anger and abuse onto my dad and his siblings.

It might seem unlikely that my mom coming from background of piety and religiosity would ever consider marrying someone who would express so much disdain for her primary core belief, but that's before you get to know my dad. He preyed upon her and conned her. While dating he seemed interested in going to church and Christianity and even switched his political parties to make it seem like he was conservative. According to my mom his personality changed drastically immediately after they were married and he let down the empathetic facade in place for his families authoritative demeanor. With in 6 or 7 years of marrying my mom he began to express his more sincere ideological perspectives by switching back to his former political party and becoming extremely vocal in his disdain for church, God, Christianity, et al.

Those circumstances set the stage for a very colorful family dynamic.

Beginning

I'm writing this blog in response to conversations with friends about their religious perspectives, and various books and resources regarding religion and theology. Many of the posts will be in direct response to conversations and postulates my friends and author's have raised, but the purpose of this blog is nonetheless for me and a search for a better understanding of humanity and the universe.

I haven't decided how open I'll make this blog; it could be just a personal journal I use like Dougie Houser did at the end of his episodes. More likely I'll probably let people in to read and comment on my posts so i can learn from them and talk back.