The problem with moderate Christians
The problem with moderate Christians is that they are unwilling to bluntly state that the conservatives are wrong and will hem and haw to avoid bluntly stating that the Bible itself is wrong. If there’s one subject that they clearly show this tendency on, it is evolution.
A simple reading of the bible makes it quite obvious that it states Yaweh created the planet and everything that it is on it. It goes on to state that our species was created “as-is” and that we were given dominion over the earth:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (Genesis 1:26)
As the biblical authors were pretty obsessed with their lineage to such a degree that the bible contains insanely long lists of who “begat” who, one can conclude that all this took place approximately six thousand years ago.
Modern scientists, on the other hand, have generally concluded that the universe came into existence approximately 14 billion years ago and that our planet came into existence a mere 4 billion years ago with life making it’s first appearance somewhere around 1 billion years later.
Furthermore, our species did not appear until 200,000 years ago. We are not a distinct species, but a kind of ape. We are not a result of an alien “making” us nor did some ancestor suddenly spring to life when the same alien breathed upon dirt, we are a product of evolution as are the other species.
One does not have to be a genius to figure out that these two stories are not “complimentary”, but contradictory. The Bible states it went down in a very particular way and gives no evidence that it was not serious about it. In fact, the biblical creation story has been understood to be a factual account since it was written down approximately two thousand years ago.
It has never been understood to be a “timeless truth” and the majority of Americans thoroughly reject such claims with (as of 2006) 55% believing that Yaweh created our species “as-is“. Support for this “as-is” theory has actually increased in the last decade or so from roughly 40 to 45 percent of the population.
So not only are the moderates fudging about what the Bible actually states and what is actually believed by Christians, they are also apparently lying about what what they actually believe because if they did actually accept the conclusions of science and are the alleged majority they claim to be - the percentage of Americans who actually accepted the conclusions of modern science would be higher than it is.
This makes them a problem rather they like it or not for as long they continue to insist that Bible is “complimentary” to reality, the nutballs will continue believing that it is still acceptable to believe the Bible story is a factual account. They will continue to think that “creationism” or “intelligent design” should be taught in our public schools as “science” and more generations will grow up in an education system terrified of contradicting the now absurd and unfounded belief that a “magic man did it” .
The fact of the matter is that moderates have to give up their fairytale once and for all by admitting that the biblical creation story is merely an account that a certain group of humans once believed was a truthful account but is now contradicted by the findings of modern science. It’s the only way we’re going to get out of this mess we’re in here in America.
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I don’t think they will either, but I do think they make the creationist types sound a bit more honest which may be why more Americans appear to be going with straight-up biblical creationism (the god-guided-evolution types have actually dropped in the numbers game as the creationists have increased).
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They aren’t going to do it. The moderates make liberals look hardcore, macho and tough.