Your view on Creation and the Creator?

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Yeah, I already pointed that out. That's pretty much where this degenerated into petty insults, because someone was left with no rational arguments for claiming that I was not a "real Christian."

I guess that's how your post count got so high.

OK then, participate. What aspect of the debate would you like to revive? I'll let you cherry-pick any issue you feel like discussing in a rational manner.

god you make it sound so bad dude, whatta baby.

your not a real christian, real christians generally accept the idea of the genesis myth story as being factual and happening the way it was written

See several of my previous posts and nominalist's comments. Most Christians are not fundamentalists. Young-Earth Creationism is associated with fundamentalist Christians. Roman Catholicism, the single largest Christian denomination, endorses theistic evolution, meaning they do not accept the idea of the genesis myth story as being factual. My church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) is a very large and well-established mainline Protestant denomination which does not reject evolution. Lutherans do not reject evolution. Anglicans do not reject evolution. In short, you are wrong in your assertion that "real Christians" reject evolution. Get your facts straight before you level accusations of fraud against me.

so dude how do you think man came about? im assuming you dont have the book of genesis in your bible or use it?

Is it even worthwhile to explain this again? The Bible explains why, science explains how. There is symbolic meaning to Biblical stories (meaning they impart a moral lesson without being literally true). I accept modern science's ideas on the origin of man. I read Genesis, and I try to figure out what it could mean metaphorically. Not always easy, as my understanding is limited and I'm no theologian, but I try.
BTW, the creation story is only the very beginning of Genesis, there's a whole lot more to it.

you know what i think? i think your trying to have the best of both worlds now. i dunno dude, EVERY church in america that ive seen takes the book of genesis very literally and doesnt try to impart scientific aspects to it. they really think god spoke to dirt making man

And I think you have a pretty limited grasp of reality. The POPE doesn't take Genesis literally!! ! "Every" church? Maybe that you've seen. I would be glad to invite you to my church if you're ever in the area. Though I'm sure you would decline, and I don't really blame you if you don't believe in God. But, as has been pointed out to you repeatedly, the vast majority of Christian denominations do not take Genesis literally. Those that do tend to be more vocal, though, so you are probably just falling victim to the availability heuristic.

I'm not having the best of both worlds, I just see evolution as theologically irrelevant. Debates over salvation through faith or works, predestination or free will, are more important to me in terms of my religion.

well i dont think the pope is a true christian. the dude is worship like a god and lives in his own palace, (the vatican) all of wich i thought were major no no's in the christian religion, furthermore catholics worship idols and pray to mary. i thought that was also off limits

guess not. either way i'll leave you alone now because i can see your getting abit worked up

I don't agree with all of Catholic theology, but you could have seriously pissed off a lot of people with those comments. You seem to have an extremely narrow view of what constitutes a "true" Christian. Most Christians are more broad-minded- generally, if you believe in God and Jesus as the path to salvation, Christians are willing to consider you on of their own and realize that squabbles over smaller issues don't invalidate one persons interpretation of Christianity.

You also failed to address the Protestant denominations I brought up. Are Presbyterians not real Christians? How about Lutherans and Anglicans? Or are the only "real" Christians Southern Baptist televangelists?

Anyways, I should be doing my Physics homework. Maybe we'll continue this later.

Richard:

Most Christians, globally, do not view the Genesis accounts as a discussion of origins. They treat them as parables or as "morality plays" of a sort.

Fundamentalist Christians, IMO, confuse sacred history with modern concepts of history. There was no such thing as history, in a modern sense, in the ancient world. At that time, people made little or no distinction between parables, morality stories, metaphors, and chronologies. They freely used all of them in their narratives.

Here is a basic definition of sacred history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_history

wow thats pretty suprising then. i didnt know most christians took a scientific approach to the bible at all, or only used it for moral purposes dismissing all the metophorical talk in it

Most Christians, outside of the United States and Australia, are religiously liberal.

That's what I've tried to tell you about a half dozen times now. Kudos to nominalist for apparently being a much better communicator than I am.

Thank you for the link to Dorrien's article on Frei and Lindbeck. Was very interesting.

Believe in a creative, intelligent energy (you can call that 'god' or 'creator' or whatever you really feel like calling it, does it really need a name?) that pervades everything and drives everything forward and onwards...

Why? Because I can feel it, see it in everything, sense it, acknowledge it... to me, religion is just different roads to the same destination; the morals and ideas tend to be fairly similar. I don't subscribe to any in particular because I can't agree with the more earthly troubles with them (war etc). But that doesn't mean I can't subscribe to what I know intuitively and instinctively to be true.

Also doesn't mean I can't or don't read and follow science, as I do very closely. I don't see that they should ever need to conflict, unless that conflict is created out of fear of either faith from the scientific side of the debate, or fear of science from the spiritual side of it.