Evolution?

[mrs.b]

No, no....I didn't say that religious individuals purport certainty. I said that religion (primarily christianity, for the sake of the creation debate) purports certainty. Genesis clearly explains that the universe was created in 7 days. That is a statement of certainty.

Now, some would say that the creation story is simply a metaphor. But, this leaves a bit of a dilemma, because now we have to go about the business of figuring out what parts of the bible are metaphorical, and what parts are literal.

That is the issue. You cannot lump all Christians into the same category. Some Christians believe the Bible must be taken literally, passage for passage. Some Christians believe some parts of the Bible are written in metaphor, while other parts are literal. Some Christians believe that certain parts applied until the coming of Christ, then the older passages became merely historical record but no longer guideline, where there is then further split as to whether the passages pertaining to after Christ's coming should be taken literally or metaphorically. Some Christians believe the entire Bible is metaphor and should be used as guidelines for behavior only. Still other Christians believe in Christ but feel the Bible has been translated so many times and books hand-picked by men centuries after their writing with other parts discarded that the Bible is not all that useful at this point. Then there are several combinations of the above. The broad label of Christian merely means someone believes in God and Christ. The methods of pursuing that belief differ radically after that point.

Just because it makes the counter-argument neater and tidier does not make such generalizations right, and that is where debates such as this break down. There are atheists that do not believe in God (hence, atheist) but believe in aliens and the possibility that an extraterrestrial host seeded the Earth. Using the same generalization logic, would I be accurate in assuming that all atheists believe aliens brought life to Earth? Not remotely.

The actual point to my statement, however, was that not all Christians claim to know everything (i.e., "I know God did it, so will look no further"). Just like not all atheist scientists claim to know everything. There are minority sections of each group that claim that brand of omnipotence, but it does not mean all do. Insisting that is the case will merely turn the others away that do not fit the generalization, because pursuing the conversation further is like asking someone to justify their deeply-held beliefs to someone likely to just make fun in the end.