I read a report on MSNBC today on the "attacks" on the theory of evolution as it is currently taught in schools by "creationists". It got me thinking *DANGER, I'VE BEEN THINKING*. The following is the result.
For the record, I am Mormon and thus a "creationist" by definition. I diverge from standard Mormons and Christians in general when I say that Genesis is NOT the whole story. I believe through my own research that the creation spoken of by Moses in that holy book speaks of the spiritual creation. I believe the Earth, the rock we stand on now, was created physically first millions, perhaps billions of years ago. I also believe not all life on earth was created by God. As a Mormon I believe God himself has a Father and that we all have the opportunity to become like God. Just as a child grows like their parents, we can grow to be Gods. Many Mormons don't take the doctrine that far. I on the other hand take it further. For me there is a part of the story missing in Judeo-Christian theology. Why are we here going through all this hardship to "prepare" us for life in Heaven if it is all sunshine and roses. What if this is basic training for a much larger war against evil. This is where I start weirding people out. Have you ever seen the Archangels in anything but battle dress in scripture? Why is that? Add to that the Book of Enoch speaks of a race existing on Earth before man named Nephilim that supposedly fathered the giants by mating with the daughters of men. They were the "Men of Old,or Men of Renown" spoken of in Genesis. Enoch clearly states that these Nephilim were "Fallen" and "not of God". Could he mean they were not his creations in the first place? Also, one must ask how creation accounts for dinosaurs and the monstrous beasts roaming the earth long before the "time of Adam". There are gaps in the scriptural record which allow room for interpretation. I think once those gaps are filled, we just might find out that both evolution and creation occurred. To think that this many genetic variances could have occurred from one set of parents as recent as 10,000 years ago just doesn't add up. To think we came from apes also doesn't quite add up. There has to be a place where science and religion meet.
Or maybe I'm just full of crap.
2 comments:
Hey,
I saw your post over on JC today and had to check you out, very nice blog!
I wanted to talk a little about the whole Nephalim / book of Enoch thing. It seems to me that just about every culture has a story about the first people who were giants / titans etc. I'm not what you'd call religous, so I have read a lot of different religious and mythical texts, and while I respect the insights I glean from them, I believe that "scriptures" no matter how holy people take them to be, did not arrive in a vaccum, but were written by men. Sometimes these men were passing on ancient stories, sometimes just trying to vilify their opponents, but where there are similarities, I like to look for a reason.
The story about the "first men" or the "giants" or "titans" is common, it is always race that came before us, and was despised by God or the gods and was destroyed, sometimes they mated with men and sometimes not. (sometimes they were made of straw, and the cookpots rebelled against them -Popol Vuh)
I wonder why? A symbolic meaning perhaps, maybe something freudian, (the elder, stronger brother always loses, like Esau and Jacob) or maybe (my favorite) a distant memory of lving together with the giants (neandertal?), whom the gods abandoned (died out/ bred into homo sapien sapien?)
It would not be surprising to me if there were two different species of hominid living at the same time, given the fossil evidence from early human / human like creatures. And wouldn't they each say the other was "not of God?" I can look at free republic and find the same thing said today about Hugo Chavez (by wagglebee.) Chavez is not a member of another species, just a different political persuasion, how much easier would it be to believe this about another species!
Imagine today's freeper server being found intact and read by our descendants in five thousand years. Would Wagglebee be taken seriously?
thanks for your post at JC, and come back soon!
You make a good point. The same can be said for Dragons and, like giants, we have found little to no fossil evidence to support their existance. At least not on the grand scale that legends paint a picture of.
For me I am trying to find that place where my faith and my scientific mind can meet. Genesis describes an earth created in six days. Any scientific mind will immediatly reject that unless it is just a metaphor. This would not be the only one in scripture or legend.
Could the Being we call "God" be merely a being whose knowledge surpasses ours and his science is something we try to explain in the feeble language of religion?
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