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One thing that always bothered me: If Adam and Eve were the first humans in existence, why are they always portrayed as having belly buttons?
It's questions like these that got me kicked out of Sunday School.
-- Sully reader
As if the evolution debate were not dispiriting enough, we now have a little stir in the media over the Adam and Eve question: whether they are an historical couple or not?
That surprised me. But apparently our narrow-reading fundamentalists are holding to the literal truth of this story as well. I wonder if they also insist on the talking snake.
The reason why this issue has flared up is that the scientific work on the genome apprently rules out a literal reading of Adam and Eve as a matter of fact now.
In spite of their appreciable political power, these past few hundred years have been a tough time for our fundamentalists in terms of science and philosophy, and one can appreciate the corner they are in, which I feel is captured well in this exchange:
Our problem, in America at least, is that we have so many of these literalists. Forty percent of Americans beleive in a literal Adam and Eve. It throws a wrench into democratic politics. It's all the worse when our rich folks are able to play them like a violin, enlisting their number to their nefarious plutocratic cause, because apparently Jesus hated taxes and regulations.
.........
"Evangelicals Question The Existence Of Adam And Eve" by Barbara Bradley Hagerty at NPR
"The Bible Is a Library, Not a Book" by Karl Giberson, Ph.D at Huffington Post
It's questions like these that got me kicked out of Sunday School.
-- Sully reader
As if the evolution debate were not dispiriting enough, we now have a little stir in the media over the Adam and Eve question: whether they are an historical couple or not?
That surprised me. But apparently our narrow-reading fundamentalists are holding to the literal truth of this story as well. I wonder if they also insist on the talking snake.
The reason why this issue has flared up is that the scientific work on the genome apprently rules out a literal reading of Adam and Eve as a matter of fact now.
In spite of their appreciable political power, these past few hundred years have been a tough time for our fundamentalists in terms of science and philosophy, and one can appreciate the corner they are in, which I feel is captured well in this exchange:
"This stuff is unavoidable," says Dan Harlow at Calvin College. "Evangelicals have to either face up to it or they have to stick their head in the sand. And if they do that, they will lose whatever intellectual currency or respectability they have."And, of course, the thing about these narrow fundamentalists is that they rather thrive psychologically in the disrespect of the world, as it further validates their worth in God's eyes, so they think.
"If so, that's simply the price we'll have to pay," says Southern Baptist seminary's Albert Mohler. "The moment you say 'We have to abandon this theology in order to have the respect of the world,' you end up with neither biblical orthodoxy nor the respect of the world."
Our problem, in America at least, is that we have so many of these literalists. Forty percent of Americans beleive in a literal Adam and Eve. It throws a wrench into democratic politics. It's all the worse when our rich folks are able to play them like a violin, enlisting their number to their nefarious plutocratic cause, because apparently Jesus hated taxes and regulations.
.........
"Evangelicals Question The Existence Of Adam And Eve" by Barbara Bradley Hagerty at NPR
"The Bible Is a Library, Not a Book" by Karl Giberson, Ph.D at Huffington Post
