In my opinion, there is only so much one can learn from simply reading the Bible alone. To get real value out of the Bible, you have to participate in a Bible study. Otherwise, it's too easy to cheat. For example, for years I simply ignored verses or whole chapters in the Bible that didn't make sense to me. I didn't want to think about a God who wanted blood rituals or human sacrifices. In fact, I tended to avoid the Old Testament, preferring the personification of God as being the loving, kind, and forgiving Jesus, not the apparently cruel and vacillating Yahweh of the Old Testament. Once upon a time, I was kicked out of one Bible study group after saying that Yahweh and Jesus almost seemed to be two different Gods. But later, in a different, much smaller group that studied the book of Genesis painstakingly line by line, I was forced to confront a chapter than had always bothered me. Bible study inspired me to turn the story into a chapter in my first published book. In Divine Evolution there is a chapter called "Misunderstanding God", which begins by quoting the first verse of Bob Dylan's masterpiece Highway 61 Revisited, which reinterprets the story from Genesis 22: Ah, God said to Abraham, Kill me a son Abe say "Man, you must be puttin' me on." God say, "No." Abe say, "What?" God say, "You can do what you want, Abe, but The next time you see me comin' you'd better run. Well Abe say, "Where you want this killin' done?" God says, "Out on Highway 61." The song gives Dylan's colorful interpretation of the story of Abraham and Isaac -- but the … [Read more...]
Contemplating the crucifixion and resurrection
Unless these are the first words I've written that you've ever read, you probably know that I'm not particularly shy about admitting that I consider myself a Christian. By that, I mean specifically that I believe Jesus really lived roughly two thousand years ago, and was crucified and died on a cross. Furthermore, I believe that God raised him from the grave, and Jesus ascended into heaven, just like the Bible says. And today is Easter Sunday, the holiest day on the Christian calendar. In my opinion, it's not a bad idea to contemplate the resurrection on an Easter Sunday. On the basic points concerning Christian beliefs, I believe it is safe to say that the vast majority of other people who considers themselves a Christian would agree with me about the divinity of Jesus, and that his resurrection really happened. Where we may or may not agree is on the question of why Jesus suffered, died, and rose again. Those who, on faith, accept the Bible is literally true, and without error will assert the answer is original sin -- in other words, it's Adam and Eve's fault for listening to Satan, and partaking from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I will admit that I have my doubts about that particular belief, but I will explain why in a moment. My approach to reading the Bible is rather straightforward -- I assume that what I am reading is true. The problem with that approach, of course, is the content of the Bible itself. How do you reconcile when two accounts contradict each other? There are clearly instances where the same story is told … [Read more...]
Questioning Darwin
This month HBO is airing a program that it promotes as a documentary, called Questioning Darwin. Somewhat predictably, the program paints the picture that Ken Ham and his museum for Young Earth Creationism should be considered the only viable and true alternative philosophy to Darwinism, completely ignoring brilliant thinkers such as John Lennox, Francis Collins, Connor Cunningham, Stephen C. Meyer and Frank Turek, as well as competing ideas such as Intelligent Design and Old Earth Creationism. The documentary dredges up the old, tired creationism versus evolution debate once more, reinforcing many of the known, misleading stereotypes and repeating the same mistaken assumptions that have pretty much been hashed to death already. The narrator begins by claiming that Christians who insist the Bible must be accepted as the literal Word of God are creationists who consider Darwin the antichrist. This was news to me. Based on my limited knowledge mostly gleaned from biographies of his personal life, I was sort of under the impression that Darwin was sort of a spoiled, petulant rich guy who married his cousin and never really had to work for a living. Curiously, the documentary described creationism as a growing branch of Christianity, as if "Creationist" was comparable to Baptist, Lutheran, and Catholic. On the whole, the documentary depicted creationists as stubborn, ignorant and silly deniers of science, while the scientists were portrayed as calm, soft-spoken, rational people. There simply wasn't an option offered that didn't fit those two somewhat … [Read more...]
