A Christian reformer?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: A Christian reformer?

Originally posted by obiwan18
So what do you think? Is Spong's statement so blindingly obvious or are there certain issues Spong has glossed over?

A bit of both.

You have to be (a) in denial, and (b) have an agenda to create a dogmatic alternative and look for "evidence" of any sort (no matter how dodgy) to support your point of view, to deny the overwhelming evidence for evolution, modern physics theories and cosmology.

On the flip side, if any of the Genesis authors had tried to explain DNA, electromagnetic forces, singularities, etc. to a ca 1200 b.c. audience, it wouldn't have gone over real well.

A strict literal interpretation of the Bible is impossible to support outside of absolute faith, and disregard for physical evidence in many respects. The question is how far does Spong want to go in revising anything, as opposed to simply acknowledging that certain explanatory passages (i.e. Genesis creation) were simply allegories presented at a level of understanding of the people to whom they were directed at the time of writing.

[Ted Striker]

I always liked the Gnostic texts, the early Christian works before all fundamentalist the crap was added. The Gospel of Thomas is excellent as well.

[PLATO]

Mtg...I was unaware of any evidence of one species evolving into another species. Evolution within a species is a proven fact. But evolution from one species to another is just a theory without any hard evidence to support AFAIK.

Could you also give me an example of what physical evidence incontovertably disputes biblical text?

[Jon Miller]

science and religion are in two different spheres

the only time religion gets in trouble is when it tries to explain stuff in the realm of science

conversely, when science is misused is when it tries to explain stuff in the realm of religion

Jon miller

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
I always liked the Gnostic texts, the early Christian works before all fundamentalist the crap was added. The Gospel of Thomas is excellent as well.

Word.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by PLATO1003
Mtg...I was unaware of any evidence of one species evolving into another species. Evolution within a species is a proven fact. But evolution from one species to another is just a theory without any hard evidence to support AFAIK.

The difference between "within a species" and "between species" is subjective, since taxonomy at the finest levels of granularity is fairly subjective. i.e. how is a Chihuahua and a Siberian husky the same species, but an Australian dingo is not, and a wolf is a different genus, yet they can interbreed successfully, at least if you get past the snarling and gnashing of teeth.

Evolution of a different species has been (as a result of an initial accident) duplicated and verified in a lab. In this case, the species was a type of amoeba, and the criteria for whether two amoeba are the same species or different is whether you can microsurgically transplant the nucleus from each one to the other. Since amoeba reproduce mitotically, barring mutation, they are genetic copies of each other within the same species, so neucleus transplantation doesn't affect them within the same species.

In this particular instance, a team of microbiologists was preparing for an unrelated experiment, and had a large number of petri dishes with millions of amoeba, and somehow, a small microbial parasite got in and infected the whole batch, killing most of them, and rendering them all useless for the intended experiment. Since a few months work was down the tubes, one of the microbiologists decided to study the infected amoeba and try to determine why some lived and reproduced successfully, while most died, in a population that was genetically identical. When the infected amoeba reproduced, the infectious organism appeared in both offspring, and over time, it killed less and less of them.

Over time, the parasites developed a symbiotic relationship with the new amoeba, such that if you removed the parasites from the new amoeba, it died, while if you introduced the parasites to the original amoeba, they died. Nuclear transplants showed that as a result of interaction with the parasites, the survivors of the original infection had become a new species, by the exchange of nuclear material with the parasites. So transplants between new amoeba worked fine, transplants between old unexposed amoeba worked fine, and transplants between the two were immediately fatal to both.

This is not the same as genetic engineering at all, since the only thing done was to isolate and care for the most robust of the original infection survivors, and to monitor them closely. The process of establishing symbiotic relationships with invading parasites is also the leading model of how eukaryotic cells were formed, and explains why our cells' mitochondria have their own completely distinct DNA sequences.

Could you also give me an example of what physical evidence incontovertably disputes biblical text?

Unless you get into metaphorical interpretations, the physcial side of the Genesis creation story is demonstrably false. We have enough evidence of stellar and planetary formation (observed protoplanetary disks, observed protostars), to confirm the basic model of stellar evolution and planet formation. I.e. the star forms first, then a protoplanetary disk, then planets. So the light preceded the earth, not to mention that there were already stars well before our solar system was formed. (Otherwise, if this was a first generation star, we wouldn't have any elements heavier than iron, since fusion of heavier elements takes more energy than it releases, and requires much higher pressures than occur within our sun or any main sequence star).

We can also demonstrate isotopically that the moon came from the earth, so it could not have been created at the same time as the sun.

[Berzerker]

God as maker of Heaven and Earth? Disputable, but at least the creed doesn´t contain, that he did it 6000 years ago and within 6 days made Earth and everything which lives on it, so it is much more believable that he maybe was involved in the Big Bang and therefore can be considered maker of heaven and earth (whereas all the steps which led to the evolution of the Universe and Mankind involved the Laws of Nature).

In Genesis, "Heaven" and "Earth" are defined, not as the universe or this planet, but as a "firmament" used to separate the waters into the waters above (still ambiguous - metaphor?) and the waters below (the waters used to form the "seas"), and the soil. Genesis has been hijacked by the (willfully) ignorant and deceitful to turn God into an all-powerful, all-knowing prime mover and the overwhelming evidence to the contrary has been ignored or perverted. Anyone can read the first page of Genesis and see the following:

1) Heaven and Earth are references to our little corner of the universe.

2) Earth existed before God's "creation" of the Heaven.

3) Heaven is some kind of barrier or demarcation line separating the waters.

4) The waters, like the Earth, preceded Heaven and God's introduction into the story.

5) The Earth was "created" when God drew the waters below the Heaven together to form the Seas and the "dry land" - the actual definition of "Earth" - was revealed.

6) When these points are considered, Genesis is in agreement with virtually all of the world's creation "myths".

7) When these points are ignored or subverted to make God more than God is, we end up with science and religion in conflict when they actually compliment each other.

8) We have to take the word "create(d)" with a grain of salt since we're told God created the Earth when God merely allowed the Earth - "dry land" - to appear by gathering together the waters below the firmament ("Heaven").

9) No where in Genesis or the OT will we find the claim that God created or made the waters, only references to God creating the "Seas", and we already know God did not create the Seas, just formed them by gathering together the waters.

10) A common metaphor for the planets, especially among the Greeks, was "waters" - celestial waters - since the planets "flowed" thru the sky. Genesis fails to mention the planets per se. Was this because other cultures associated the planets with "Gods" and a monotheistic culture wanted to downplay the planets for this reason? Was this why Genesis makes no mention of other planets but refers to the "waters" above?

[Al B. Sure!]

mtg:

i think the creationist's problem is that very apparent physical evolution has not been proven (nor can it be if you don't accept fossil evidence [which many creationists don't accept] except through watching animals change over millions of years)... scientists say the dolphin evolved from a shore living dog-like creature... it's such dramatic evolution like this that creationists don't believe happened.

but yeah the whole taxonomy is subjective but dramatic gene changes needed to have happened to change a land animal into a dolphin

[Shi Huangdi]

obiwan, I hope you don't take this clown seriously.

Spong is a heretic. The Nicean and Apostolic creeds are absolutely true, part of the continuing of God's revelation through Christian Tradition. God's Holy Spirit has remained with the Church and would have protected us from an errant Church. Not only that, they are also both in line with Holy Scripture.

Don't the Episcopalians have any mechanisms to remove Spong's status as a Bishop?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Albert - the biggest problem in that comprehension, IMO, is really getting a handle on the numbers. If you look at a process that's occurred over 50 million years and 25 million generations of animal, the numbers are staggering.

With humans, if you go back to the beginnings of civilization, when we first started doing agriculture, etc., that's a few hundred generations. And more than half that time has no written history, it's all archaelogical. Our total range of "human" experience isn't even 1/1,000, or in many cases, 1/10,000 of the generational time frame for significant evolutionary changes, so yeah, it's hard to get a grasp of the process.

[Al B. Sure!]

MtG:

yeah so dramatic, 'macro'- evolution as it is called is impossible to prove without a doubt though evolution on a smaller scale (like with those amoeba) has been proved, can be seen, and is completely logical. it's that doubt of dramatic evolution that is what creationists cling on and the scientific camp can not say much to prove.

in any event, what always bothered me is how the creationist vs evolutionist debate is always two sided... what about the obvious middle ground that is something most people can agree on? either divinely guided evolution or the Deist idea of god making scientific laws like evolution and allowing organisms to exist and change within these laws... everytime i see a debate here or hear about the issue of creationism and evolution, all i can ever think is, "Divinely guided evolution people! it's the ****ing perfect solution!"

[Al B. Sure!]

Black Dragon:

Spong is a heretic. The Nicean and Apostolic creeds are absolutely true, part of the continuing of God's revelation through Christian Tradition. God's Holy Spirit has remained with the Church and would have protected us from an errant Church. Not only that, they are also both in line with Holy Scripture.

everytime you talk about something religious, you scare me...

[Berzerker]

it's that doubt of dramatic evolution that is what creationists cling on and the scientific camp can not say much to prove.

"Cling" is the appropriate word. We can see macro-evolution in our own species from the long chain of hominids overs several million years. I've heard Bob Enyart, one of these fundies (and I don't like that term since it implies these people care for some fundamental truth when in reality they ignore the obvious) claim that Neandertals were apes while other fundies claim they were human just like us.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Black Dragon:



everytime you talk about something religious, you scare me...

Then you live a life of fear, the Nicene and Apostolic Creeds are believed in in nearly every mainstream Christian denomination AFAIK

[Berzerker]

But they weren't in the early days of Christianity. It was only after the early purges of "heretics" and gnostics that a "fundamentalism" appeared...