RELG 340 - Science and Religion
Course Notes for Module 12
The Language of God : chapters 9, 10 & 11
- p.182 - the school board
- Note the political agenda behind these events - the question is "Who shall dictate what our children are taught"
- p.184
- Note the political (rather than scientific) agenda of the Discovery Institute.
- p.206-207 Adam and Eve
- The 10,000 ancestors who gave rise to the population of humans on earth must themselves have had ancestors (a decreasing number for each generation as one goes back, until it comes down to just one couple). That we are all created from the dust of the earth may refer to the fact that our bodies are built from the same sorts of atoms (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, etc.) as the rest of creation.
I have no problem with Cain and Seth marrying their sisters - the prohibition against incest came later, when there was a large population to choose from; Abraham married his half-sister Sarah - and God blessed that union, making their son Isaac the "child of promise"
However, I do not know what to make of the account of Eve being made from one of Adam's ribs - is this some deep-down memory of the first meiosis of the first unicellular organism - the step which gave rise to sexual differences? Some scholars think that the Hebrew word for rib used here really referred to a penis bone - which some animals have, but which men do not (or no longer) have.
For me, the important question is, not so much "How did we get here?", as "What are we going to do now that we are here?" - Look after God's creation? Despoil it? Seek a relationship with our Creator? Go our own way regardless? - p.208 - eating of a fruit
- In Genesis 2:9 and 3:5 the tree is identified as giving "the knowledge of good and evil". Hebrew makes no distinction between knowledge and experience - to the Hebrew mind, in order to know something one must experience it. So at some point Adam and Eve made the decision that they wanted to experience evil as well as good. Up until then they had only experienced good, and did not know what they were getting into. However, they willingly disobeyed God's directions, chose to experience evil, and the rest is history.
- p.210 - theistic evolution or BioLogos
- To me, the term "BioLogos" sounds like the name of a biological supply company or a washing powder. I prefer the term "theistic evolution" or even just "evolution" - provided I can make it quite clear that science can only describe the process - not the reason behind it.
- p.219 - deism
- Deists believe that there is a God, and they acknowledge that He is the Creator. However, the most popular Deist concept of God is as "The Watchmaker" - He created the universe, and set everything in motion, then He just left it running according to His laws. He does not care about it, but seems to have gone off somewhere else to do whatever He wants elsewhere.
- p.229 - the Mass in B Minor
- This refers to a musical setting of the Latin Mass (Eucharist, or Communion service) by Johann Sebastian Bach
Copyright © 1999 Shirley J. Rollinson, all Rights Reserved
