[extropy-chat] Re: Religion: Subject Change! How can you Trust Anythingfrom the Bible - Wise Maji or Not?

[Christian Weisgerber]

Kevin Freels <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> As much as the church likes to revise its thinking, what are the chances we
> can get them to change this whole "creation" thing while they are at it?

I've sat through, oh, 10 years of Protestant religious classes in
school.  Quite a bit of that dealt with pointing out that much of
the Bible is composed of myths, which are not to be taken literally.
We were taught scientific explanations for various miracles, and
how the creation myth and others reflect the beliefs of ancient
middle eastern pastoralists.

In this part of the world, most Christians consider a literal
interpretation of the Bible to be medieval and insane.

As far as I can tell, creationism and related fundamentalism is
mostly an American phenomenon.  Well, it might be widespread in the
Third World, too, I don't know.  Usually the Pope takes the blame
as the most anachronistically conservative religious figure around,
but he's not a creationist.  In fact, compared to what's coming out
of the US Bible Belt, the Pope, even in his current most conservative
incarnation, looks rather progressive.

When I tell people around here about American religious conservatives,
they think I'm making things up.  It's just too preposterous.  Surely
creationism must be a joke, nobody has believed this for centuries.

It's high time the US starts a crusade to clean up its very own
religious fundamentalism.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de