@Amoh5,
Amoh5 wrote:
JimmyL, the reasoning that creationists ever use to deny evolution has never been a secret. They want to believe that a great magical being created us and everything else instantly out of thin air without any evolving processes, but its strange that we can notice an evolving process in living things, e.g from a fetus to an adult human being, theres no instant magical outcome. Maybe its their way of escaping from the harsh realities of life? We all like to escape (or forget, get time-out) from the harsh real world we live in now and then. Our way might be watching movies or listening to music etc. Their way might be believing in a magical god, what do you think? Escape to fantasy Island? I think Darwin is in a similar situation as Galileo who called the earth round and was condemned by the Catholic Church. I think maybe sometimes people depend on fantasy in order to cope with reality. Oh and by the way, I'm a Christian, a deist Christian if I may.
It is totally possible that an intelligent god would create a system like evolution for life to work. But it just could be that ancient men interpreted nature incorrectly because they lacked data. I don't see the bible as inspired by god but rather an interpretation of god. Then some scribes to attempt to give more validity to their stories they lied and said they had communion with god.
There was an article I read a few years ago, I wish I would have saved it. Anyway it studied the possibility that many of communion with god were nothing more than brain disorders, like temporal epilepsy was one of the common conclusions. Especially with Mohammad, because he specifically recorded details about what would happen to him before he had his visions. These symptoms he had happen to coincide with people who have temporal epilepsy.
Imagine you are living in a time where medical advances don't exist and the understanding of the functioning of the brain and body are completely unknown. If you have a psychological disorder of some type, having hallucinations can easily be misinterpreted as divine experiences.
Galileo being punished for putting forth the idea that the earth is not the center of the solar system, put the power of the Catholic Church in jeopardy. Of course these priests didn't want their power base threatened. It is an injustice but all things have their price. The power of christianity is waning as scientific advances are made.
But coming back full circle. We experience self and probably are the only animal on the planet who can comprehend our non-existence and that idea is very difficult to grasp. Many people don't like the idea of non-existence, so they find refuge in the idea that they will continue to exist after their body dies.
I think with our current understanding of reality, the ONLY thing you could legitimately come to (in the case of gods) is to be a deist. Christian theology is not validated at all by our current understanding of reality. But that doesn't necessary stop people from ignoring this fact. To be honest you can only really be a deist. You can't know any properties of a god, it's intentions, motivations or concerns. Any attempt to claim that you know this or that, is pure conjecture and wishful thinking.
