Updates:
It has been a busy summer. And it has been an interesting summer too. The big deal was; some people found out my husband didn't see Genesis chapter 2 literally (not actually possible). He is a scientist, would they like him to lie? Fudge his data? Pretend he is wrong? Join them in making up lame conspiracy theories against science (to add to the growing collection)?
Thoughts
I am learning a lot too. There is quite a group of Christians out there who see Adam and Eve as essential to our Christian faith. Now, I am not so clueless as to why this would be - Jesus, according to Paul, came to redeem mankind from Adam's sin. So, just to be crystal clear here - We need to remember that this supposed "original" sin occurred when there was only one man on the earth. Once he sinned, he had some magical power to bring down the entire human race (thank goodness Eve didn't - since she was the original human sinner - the serpent was the original sinner, but I digress). If a Christian says they don't believe in a literal Adam or Eve, the reaction is pretty strong and consistent - that Christian is weak, lacks faith, etc. What is interesting (more on this further down) is that it takes a fair amount of reprogramming and faith to switch to the literal side - yet Christians do it when they convert as adults.
Who are the big pushers of this? Neo-Calvinists, all those who have the Chicago Convention's statement on Biblical inerrancy hammered into their constitutions, everyone who feels they have just been enlightened and figured out why we are all being punished for some random guy's sin. Now, this isn't to say there was no Adam/Eve - their could have been - but it is now realized through Genetics (not Darwinism, or whatever people like to call the fossil record these days) that any first Mother/Father were not alone, our population has always been in the thousands (at least) and we are descended from many different people, not just one couple.
Faith in General
The other thing that has been on my mind is faith and belief. The idea is that when we are saved (if we are not brought up in the church), the Holy Spirit gives us "Spiritual Eyes" or a Spiritual Awakening and we can see that Jesus is our saviour. For many, certain things in our lives just change immediately when this happens - no more taking the Lord's name in vain, no more gossip, people claim addictions just melt away too.
Then we adopt a Christian World-view. Is it because of Adult Sunday School? Social Evenings? I have no idea. But over the course of a few years, most new believers will begin to fit into the Christian culture. This isn't all bad, we do step away from worldly ideas and ideals and this makes us counter cultural. It is nice to have friends who also feel this way too. But... soon after we become believers, we quit questioning everything. I was 12 and I remember being told Evolution was garbage. I just sort of said 'yeah'. OK, so 12 year olds don't spend much time checking out their science textbooks (back in the days before the internet was used, it was the library or school textbook for info) for fact finding. But, and I have done this a few times, I would question my whole faith, or none. It took a while to realize why faith is so difficult to keep believing in sometimes (when we aren't being persecuted, etc.) - because there is so much unnecessary "essentials" tied into our understanding of God.
People may wonder why we have all these pre-human hominoid skeletons lying around, and early ancestors in Africa (despite Eden being the beginning of life), but they have to categorically ignore it all to preserve their faith (or hope Adam gets found soon). Or, like myself, one may try to envision a world where people lived 700 years (how many greats needed to be inserted before grandfather?), Angels came down (not sure where I heard the Son's of Man were Angels, but anyways) and slept with the beautiful women and had hero-kids (like The Incredibles?). Think too much and your head might pop. The safe alternative is - just don't think about it. Claim endless ignorance.
Here is how I deal with it now. Nice Myth. Were Adam and Eve real? Maybe, but if so, there were others around. Why couldn't Adam and Eve be real? Well, it took humans 190,000 years to get agriculture working well enough to abandon hunting, Adam didn't just go an plant a field - he passed enough farming knowledge down to his son, that his son managed to build a city - cities are utterly dependent on agriculture, putting this story in a time and place that doesn't jive with what we know to be true of first humans.
Undoing a part of my belief system and letting it go is great. But, it is NOT easy. From the day you arrive at a Christian institution you are warned that you must hang on to your faith (don't listen to this or that preacher, anti-christian commenter, or science prof) and undoing one part of the Bible will unravel the rest.
But here is the tough question. How much of our faith is from God? It seems that so much of our faith is tied up in the Christian Culture. My husband points out organization after organization gets well funded to fight evolution. Why? because this belief it is essential to being a Christ follower in this day and age. When confronted with something we believe is wrong - we have a strong reaction (some people say they are sensing the evil in it). That strong fear reaction creates a sense of legitimacy to the issue. But few people recognize that fear reaction is what is not Christian - God has won and we can walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
I see people's reactions when you say the accounts of Adam and Eve parallel ancient Mesopotamian myths (tree of life, woman taken from man's rib, woman getting man to eat taboo foods, Noah's boat and the flood in general, extended life-spans, etc.). Their doubt about my faith. But the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, but Myth is one of his genres in a book full of poetry, prose, parables and proverbs. Like poetry, Myth doesn't have to be literal.
I wonder what else is not really a belief in God, but a belief in something I have assigned to God as essential?
It has been a busy summer. And it has been an interesting summer too. The big deal was; some people found out my husband didn't see Genesis chapter 2 literally (not actually possible). He is a scientist, would they like him to lie? Fudge his data? Pretend he is wrong? Join them in making up lame conspiracy theories against science (to add to the growing collection)?
Thoughts
I am learning a lot too. There is quite a group of Christians out there who see Adam and Eve as essential to our Christian faith. Now, I am not so clueless as to why this would be - Jesus, according to Paul, came to redeem mankind from Adam's sin. So, just to be crystal clear here - We need to remember that this supposed "original" sin occurred when there was only one man on the earth. Once he sinned, he had some magical power to bring down the entire human race (thank goodness Eve didn't - since she was the original human sinner - the serpent was the original sinner, but I digress). If a Christian says they don't believe in a literal Adam or Eve, the reaction is pretty strong and consistent - that Christian is weak, lacks faith, etc. What is interesting (more on this further down) is that it takes a fair amount of reprogramming and faith to switch to the literal side - yet Christians do it when they convert as adults.
Who are the big pushers of this? Neo-Calvinists, all those who have the Chicago Convention's statement on Biblical inerrancy hammered into their constitutions, everyone who feels they have just been enlightened and figured out why we are all being punished for some random guy's sin. Now, this isn't to say there was no Adam/Eve - their could have been - but it is now realized through Genetics (not Darwinism, or whatever people like to call the fossil record these days) that any first Mother/Father were not alone, our population has always been in the thousands (at least) and we are descended from many different people, not just one couple.
Faith in General
The other thing that has been on my mind is faith and belief. The idea is that when we are saved (if we are not brought up in the church), the Holy Spirit gives us "Spiritual Eyes" or a Spiritual Awakening and we can see that Jesus is our saviour. For many, certain things in our lives just change immediately when this happens - no more taking the Lord's name in vain, no more gossip, people claim addictions just melt away too.
Then we adopt a Christian World-view. Is it because of Adult Sunday School? Social Evenings? I have no idea. But over the course of a few years, most new believers will begin to fit into the Christian culture. This isn't all bad, we do step away from worldly ideas and ideals and this makes us counter cultural. It is nice to have friends who also feel this way too. But... soon after we become believers, we quit questioning everything. I was 12 and I remember being told Evolution was garbage. I just sort of said 'yeah'. OK, so 12 year olds don't spend much time checking out their science textbooks (back in the days before the internet was used, it was the library or school textbook for info) for fact finding. But, and I have done this a few times, I would question my whole faith, or none. It took a while to realize why faith is so difficult to keep believing in sometimes (when we aren't being persecuted, etc.) - because there is so much unnecessary "essentials" tied into our understanding of God.
People may wonder why we have all these pre-human hominoid skeletons lying around, and early ancestors in Africa (despite Eden being the beginning of life), but they have to categorically ignore it all to preserve their faith (or hope Adam gets found soon). Or, like myself, one may try to envision a world where people lived 700 years (how many greats needed to be inserted before grandfather?), Angels came down (not sure where I heard the Son's of Man were Angels, but anyways) and slept with the beautiful women and had hero-kids (like The Incredibles?). Think too much and your head might pop. The safe alternative is - just don't think about it. Claim endless ignorance.
Here is how I deal with it now. Nice Myth. Were Adam and Eve real? Maybe, but if so, there were others around. Why couldn't Adam and Eve be real? Well, it took humans 190,000 years to get agriculture working well enough to abandon hunting, Adam didn't just go an plant a field - he passed enough farming knowledge down to his son, that his son managed to build a city - cities are utterly dependent on agriculture, putting this story in a time and place that doesn't jive with what we know to be true of first humans.
Undoing a part of my belief system and letting it go is great. But, it is NOT easy. From the day you arrive at a Christian institution you are warned that you must hang on to your faith (don't listen to this or that preacher, anti-christian commenter, or science prof) and undoing one part of the Bible will unravel the rest.
But here is the tough question. How much of our faith is from God? It seems that so much of our faith is tied up in the Christian Culture. My husband points out organization after organization gets well funded to fight evolution. Why? because this belief it is essential to being a Christ follower in this day and age. When confronted with something we believe is wrong - we have a strong reaction (some people say they are sensing the evil in it). That strong fear reaction creates a sense of legitimacy to the issue. But few people recognize that fear reaction is what is not Christian - God has won and we can walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
I see people's reactions when you say the accounts of Adam and Eve parallel ancient Mesopotamian myths (tree of life, woman taken from man's rib, woman getting man to eat taboo foods, Noah's boat and the flood in general, extended life-spans, etc.). Their doubt about my faith. But the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, but Myth is one of his genres in a book full of poetry, prose, parables and proverbs. Like poetry, Myth doesn't have to be literal.
I wonder what else is not really a belief in God, but a belief in something I have assigned to God as essential?
