Well I was born and raised in the church my whole life, but once I got educated on things like history, astronomy, geology, and studied the history of differnt religions I came to an undeniable understanding of how everything came to be how it is today. I can say that being raised Christain has enstilled very important values in my life but things became complicated to me when I realized how outlandish and historically inacurate cetain parts of Genesis seemed to be. I know that the first five books were written by Moses and I would often wonder why God never told him about the Dinosaurs or the possiblity of other life out there. I came to the realization that God was instructing him on how to live a moral spritual life not trying to explain the physical world. I find it hard to believe in Noha's Ark and Adam and Eve but I don't think that whether or not these events did or did not happen have any effect on the validity of the teachings of the bible as a spritual guide line. What do you think? Is is still possible to have faith or claim to still be a christian if a person doen't really think the begining stories were physically true and more of a metaphore like the events in Revelation are seen as?

I'm an atheist myself, but I think faith doesn't require any specific belief in certain events or people. In my opinion, faith is a subject to individual interpretation and everyone should believe in their own unique way, instead of trying to adapt to already existing beliefs. As for me, I'm not saying there is no God, but I'm not denying God's existence. And as for the bible and the book of revelations, it's only a piece of literature to me, until someone proves it otherwise, but I do enjoy watching documentaries about religions and all that stuff, as seen on National Geographic.

I am atheist, but once I was a person of faith (strange change, don't you think?). Personally, I agree with Zyd, faith does not need an exact system of beliefs, faith fills the space that reason cannot, and that can occur in many different ways. Some people have faith because it gives peace or hope, some others because they feel comfortable with the ideas that religion sells.

The other side of the fence. For those who have religious faith, It might seem that Atheism is the Antitheses of faith, However;

Atheism is faith, Faith that creationism, or god does not exist.

While Agnostics believe that creationism seems likely, & that god might exist, but is not necessarily something that can be quantified.

And Ignostics believe that there is no definitive evidence to either prove, or disprove the existence of forces greater then what we can perceive.

Everyone has faith. In one thing or another. Weather it is in science, god, or that there is simply more in heaven and earth then we have dreamt of, Or if it is that there is nothing more then what we already know.

It seems your question is about belief rather than faith. It doesn't appear that anyone has really answered your question yet, either... So I'll give it a shot from a religious perspective.

thewarangel

I find it hard to believe in Noha's Ark and Adam and Eve but I don't think that whether or not these events did or did not happen have any effect on the validity of the teachings of the bible as a spritual guide line.

Actually, the events of the Fall of Adam and Eve are quintessential to biblical teaching. What good is any of the Bible if there was no such thing as sin?


As for your original question, I feel the answer is an insurmountable yes. Of course, some take creationism as fact. Others see the story as metaphorical. Either way, however, christians must agree that there was a fall. That's where most of the controversy arises. Creationism allows for a fall. Most christians feel evolution is incompatible with this, hence your question:

thewarangel

Is is still possible to have faith or claim to still be a christian if a person doen't really think the begining stories were physically true and more of a metaphore like the events in Revelation are seen as?

Can you have faith but not believe in the physicality of creationism? Yes. You can believe in evolution, creation or whatever other theory you can come up with, but to maintain religious coherency, the Fall has to be worked somewhere into the solution. As long as you do that, there is no problem.


Does that answer your question?

Yes and no depending on the point of view.

Hard-core Christians will say no, for sure!

Either way, people of long ago did not know the things that we do today. The often sought explanations for why things had come to be up until that point. If you explore not just religions, but different cultures, you will find that they each have their own myths, legends and stories as to how the world and the people living on it came to be.

It's up to you to decide what is true or not and just live the way you want to. Sure, other Christians may try to confront you but they can't change what you believe and take away what you have learned.

On a funnier note, when I was a small child I used to believe in creationism AND in the theory of evolution. It was in my later years in elementary that I realized that they both contradicted each other. Hahah. You should have seen me trying to relate them and come up with an explanation. Strange how I never went to my parents--I think I was afraid of what they would do if I questioned our religion.

But then I took it upon myself to educate myself because I realized that "certain" people weren't doing it right.

Spaki

I used to believe in creationism AND in the theory of evolution. It was in my later years in elementary that I realized that they both contradicted each other.

They in fact don't contradict each other if you consider the story of creation to be metaphorical. Science and religion aren't so far removed as everyone thinks. Some (like myself) believe both in evolution and creation, just not a creation in 7 days.

Of course both are rather hard to give credence to. It all comes down to personal deliberation, and that deliberation on my part led to compatibility.

Faith without belief and action is a dead end

There are many faiths in the world that have 'faith' without belief in "creationism".

Creationism is like the many stories of the many religions concerning the creation of the world -- they are 'stories', myths. That doesn't stop their current day followers from having faith in their religion's tenets. I think the Hindu had the world being supported on the firmament that was a great turtle floating in the sea under the sky. There are many Hindu's today. There are those that still believe and practice in various native religious that have various creation myths. They may now regard those stories as myths or stories -- that doesn't prevent them from engaging in spiritual or religious practice/ritual that works for them and comforts them in their lives.

If your religion comforts you, don't worry about the details of it's mythologies. What's included in the Bible arbitrary. With different parts/stories included and purged at different times. The modern day largest Christian group, the Catholics, have a different Bible (a few added books) than the standard US Protestant version. These decisions are not made by God -- but by political bodies within the church(es).

They try to put together a coherent work that supports their view of how they see Christianity should be. If it works for you, great! Unfortunately most of the leaders of such large religions hide the true origins of their particular branch or 'mystify' it in some way.

Islam had Mohammad getting his revelations from Gabrielle the Angel. He then recited his visions to followers who wrote down his words -- and most certainly he said that 'those of the book' (Jews and Christians) were to be respected in their religious paths. They were also instructed not to take up arms or get into heated arguments with their brethren 'of the book', but WERE instructed to not to tolerate persecution or derision -- and to regard such as a physical attack to which they can respond with 'war' -- unless the "enemy" stops fighting / stops verbally attacking them. Then they are to stop their attack. Not all live by those details, but those are instructions laid out in their book.

Mormons have another appendium to the ''Jaweh' texts, making the set, I believe, at my last evaluation: 1) The Torah, 2) O.T.+N.T.first Catholic then Protestant versions, 3) The Qur'an, and 4) The Book of Mormon. The first 3 were collections of writings from many sources that were embodied by official religious bodies in their day. The 2nd two were told in 'visions' to 'prophets' (or scribes, really, as they weren't really "prophecy-ing", but transcribing what they were told in vision), but the term prophet is still used, I believe to describe both.

Hope that helps...
A*a

Well, interesting opinions, I wish to add and comment some of them.

x64600

Atheism is faith, Faith that creationism, or god does not exist. While Agnostics believe that creationism seems likely, & that god might exist, but is not necessarily something that can be quantified. And Ignostics believe that there is no definitive evidence to either prove, or disprove the existence of forces greater then what we can perceive. Everyone has faith.

Well, in that case I don't know what I am. I don't believe in God, that makes me an atheist, but I cannot prove that God does exists or not (that would make me an Ignostic), in consequence even when I don't believe in his existence I believe he might exist (which makes me an Agnostic?), but not as the creator. I am not agree with you that everyone has faith. As ChrisWas said, is mandatory to separate faith of belief, because is not the same: the first one involves feelings and a deep commitment that goes beyond any logic or rationalism. Faith is to trust deeply in what you cannot see, hear, or feel. Belief, instead, is to be in favor of some knowledge or theory that might or not be proven. I once feel faith, is very well described by believers as a "flame in your soul", is a feeling much more powerful than a belief. I have lost my faith, but I still have (other) beliefs, but definitely that's not faith for me.

ChrisWas

Science and religion aren't so far removed as everyone thinks.

I agree, people try to think in this two things like totally opposite, but when we remove the stubbornness of both sides we can see that both perspectives can be adopted in an eclectic way. Not with modern aberrations like scientology, but more with an open and appeasing mind. Personally, I think this is easier when we consider religion as a social system and science as a tool of progress, not as strict paradigms that dictate our lifestyle.

Astara

If your religion comforts you, don't worry about the details of it's mythologies. What's included in the Bible arbitrary.

Totally in agreement. A religion is your personal way to live spirituality, so if you feel comfortable with what you actually feel, then why you have to put yourself a chain called dogma? I believe that Catholicism is very unique in this case because the cornerstone of their faith are precisely dogmas, and maybe that's the reason of modern-times crisis of faith. It is hard to believe in the same things that 2000 years ago, from mythology to sin conception. I remembered some scene that I saw on MTV (sad but true), where a guy was crying in despair because he realized he was gay and he was feeling so guilty (because his sexuality was so in contradiction with his catholic beliefs) that he was convinced that he was going to go to hell, that his entire sexuality was a sin and a curse.

The answer to TheWarAngel's question is my favorite one: it depends. (See ChristWas? everything is relative ) In this case it depends of how flexible your religious dogmas are.

I feel as though I need to start a topic regarding that issue, Gvn

Being that i'm an Atheist, I really have no faith in any kind of god. The way i see it if there is a god, his not worth worshiping. But i find that you dont need to have a god to have faith that something or someone is looking out for you.

I think that faith based on the physical is not faith at all because faith is a spiritual thing. Belief is based on the physical to a certain extent which is why I am able to say that I have faith in the Old Testament but I don't believe that what happened in those first few chapters of Genesis happened physically. Hence the idea of seeing the creation story in the same light as the Armageddon story is seen in Revelations as repersentaion, not an altogther physical occurance. Almost every preacher that has preached on the book of Revelations that I have listened to talked about the events as representations of things to come not physical actualities like a third of all the stars falling to the earth for instance. That is not physically possible but that doesn't make it untrue if said stars are a representation of something else like our modern day satellites for example. We can possibly see the old testament as a physical explination of occurences in the spirit used by God ,a spritual being, to explain things to the physical being Moses. Walk by faith(spritual) and not by sight (physical) was put in there to tell us that our faith walk should not be based on physical things. It was not meaning to deny the physical altogether because it does not correlate to bible. If you are going to have faith in God don't base it on the physical keep it spritual I think that belife in God is not as far fetched as the other non physical things we seem to believe in. Can we deny love, lust,fear, honor, or hope just because they don't have physical manifestations like rock or trees? How then can we deny the faith people have that God exist by limiting our understanding to the physical? Faith in God should not be based on the soley on the physical and neither should the denial of God be based on the physical. We need to know how to keep the correct balance for the physical manifestation of our selves and the non physical things that make us who we are the mind and spirit.






Unless you don't believe you have a soul then you are off on a whole other tangent where you are on your own mr i don't believe in outer body experinces. lol

thewarangel

I know that the first five books were written by Moses and I would often wonder why God never told him about the Dinosaurs or the possiblity of other life out there. I came to the realization that God was instructing him on how to live a moral spritual life not trying to explain the physical world. I find it hard to believe in Noha's Ark and Adam and Eve but I don't think that whether or not these events did or did not happen have any effect on the validity of the teachings of the bible as a spritual guide line. What do you think? Is is still possible to have faith or claim to still be a christian if a person doen't really think the begining stories were physically true and more of a metaphore like the events in Revelation are seen as?

First off you shouldn't base things on what you feel all the time/at times because what you feel can be wrong.
And the bible isn't written to instruct us how to be moral/good person (that just makes a prideful person altogether - and pride is a sin if you didn't know) though that is one thing to pursue after accepting the sin/fall/marred/ stained nature of self and humanity and having the humility to accept Jesus into your life and more specifically life style. The bible teaches us mainly how to get to heaven (in the most general sense).
Even if you find it hard to believe in some of the writings in Scripture you have to come to terms with it somehow and if you are a true Christian that is praying about it. Because when you start to say "Oh, I'm well educated to believe in something as primitive as that" is when you start to develop an idol and that idol might be that you don't believe all of Scripture, that you hold your knowledge/brain over God's word (in the end of it all God). But there are such that are considered open handed issues and closed handed issues when it comes to the issue of salvation.

tofuguy

But there are such that are considered open handed issues and closed handed issues when it comes to the issue of salvation.

I think you are right that some things are open handed like the way we interpret scripture. We are all different so we all have different perspectives on the word of God. If this wasn't true then there would not be so many denominations of a single faith. This acceptance of the idea that the earth really was made only 6,000 years ago is only going to work on people who never investigate things like fossil records, carbon dating, geology, radiology, the vast amounts of fossils and fossil types and the idea that there was a least a limited form of evolution that is painfully obvious in living animals today. There are Christian scientist working with actual knowledge of certain studies and questioning theories on a toe to toe basis, not just on a 'because the bible says so basis.' Like these people here. Noah's Ark Zoo Farm


We have to remember that the bible is not a science book yet at the same time still be able to appreciate that there isn't any science book that could ever add up to the value of the information that the bible does give us.

astara

Creationism is like the many stories of the many religions concerning the creation of the world -- they are 'stories', myths. That doesn't stop their current day followers from having faith in their religion's tenets. I think the Hindu had the world being supported on the firmament that was a great turtle floating in the sea under the sky. There are many Hindu's today. There are those that still believe and practice in various native religious that have various creation myths. They may now regard those stories as myths or stories -- that doesn't prevent them from engaging in spiritual or religious practice/ritual that works for them and comforts them in their lives.

I have had that in my head for a while now. I remember being at elementary school age contemplating my existence. At that age I also wondered about people of those religions who knew that their stories were more like legends but still held fervently to their faiths. Is their faith actually in some ways stronger that traditional Christian faith because of this? I never knew my birth dad until I was 19 years old and found out that he questioned things the same way I did. Is this something that can really just be summed up to some form of idolatry if this interest in history and the universe and how everything intertwines was inherited? I want for knowledge NOT to be in any ways a reason to disregard God the same way it isn't to those other religions. God gave us brains and I think it was within his perfect will and plan for us to use our brains.
I feel as though I have to quote myself again here.
"Walk by faith(spiritual) and not by sight (physical) was put in there to tell us that our faith walk should not be based on physical things. It was not meaning to deny the physical altogether because it does not correlate to bible."

I have prayed and fasted as hard as I could trying to get God to answer me concerning these things and I felt as though there are other people like me out there who don't just settle for mystical answers to real questions. As things continue to advance it will become harder and harder for people to maintain their faith if it is limited to conundrums concerning the spiritual a physical actualities rather than focusing on having faith in spite of. Having faith in spite of knowing what everyone else does only seems to be a problem for the average Christian that never dared to ask ...why and how? We will never resolve anything by simply ignoring it and hope that it will go away as more and more people are using their God given reasoning.

I know there are scriptures about rejecting anything that comes against the knowledge of God, but that is seen by some as reference to learning witch craft- not things like world history and astronomy, and zoology. To go against God is not what these studies intend on doing. Galileo and Darwin were both men of Christain faith, should it not be a credit to our religion? I am sure there is no way that knowledge its self is a sin and if any one says it is I say you are out of touch with both spiritual and physical reality. Hence the overall importance of a personal relationship with God which will help you to stay anchored in spite of anything else. I do believe that here and now are the last days and that there is a reason why having faith is getting harder. I wanted to make it easier for those of us who always seem to think too hard. Unless you want all future Christains to only be the uneducated. Don't get me started on how that could really turn into another era of people misrepresenting God like those who riddiculed Darwin and threatened the life of Galileo.