Thursday, May 19, 2011

[1657] THE BIBLE IS NOT 6 THOUSAND YEARS OLD!

I should start an entire blog section called ‘THE CRITIQUE OF MSNBC’, but then maybe that would be giving them a little too much free advertising. Okay- let’s start off with the other night- Chris Matthews was in L.A. and they were covering politics. He goes into this rant on Sarah Palin- saying she has made no efforts to get a simple education. That if she was a serious candidate for higher office then she should at least have spent the last few years reading papers- or getting some basic elementary school type education; history, geography, etc.

He was dead serious. He then interviews a woman liberal- who even though she seems to be on the same side of the aisle as Matthews- even the look on her face was ‘I can’t believe this guy gets away with stuff like this on national T.V.’.

First- I am no fan of Palin. I don’t think she should run for president- nor would I vote for her. But for a male TV personality to regularly accuse the woman of being an uneducated ignoramus- to the point where he actually portrays her in such a demeaning way- it’s unbelievable.

Sarah Palin became the governor of Alaska and held an executive position that was noble. She did indeed drop out- which did make her look bad- but to portray her in a light that says she does not possess an elementary knowledge of anything- it’s totally demeaning- and I think liberal women should at least tell the guy that his demeaning, never ending portrayals of her should end.

Okay- in the rant of Matthews- he mentioned her Christian belief [evangelical, who attended an Assembly of God church for a while] how she [along with all others of this stripe] are actually idiots- because they believe the bible- they reject ‘science’ [evolution] and they believe- quote- the ‘bible is 6 thousand years old’. He said this multiple times.

Now- as much as I defend Catholics on my site- I have had to correct the Catholic misinterpretations of MSNBC hosts on a number of occasions. Do Evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants- Orthodox Christians believe ‘the bible is 6 thousand years old’? No. So what in the heck is he talking about? He is trying to say that some fundamentalist Christians think the EARTH and the history of man is 6 thousand years old. Big difference.

Most Christians agree that the first 5 books of the bible [Pentateuch, Torah] were written by Moses [big debate in theological circles- but most believe Mosaic authorship]. Now- Moses lived around 12- 1400 years before Christ. Some real liberal scholars date the authorship of Genesis around 1- 3 hundred years before Christ. This view holds to the idea that the Jewish people ‘made up’ the history of the Old Testament as a sort of cultural way to deal with their captivity [ under Babylon, Rome, etc.] and that the Old Testament was written at that time.

Most serious scholars reject this idea. So anyway if Moses is generally believed to have written the first 5 books- that would mean that most Christians [including Palin’s brand] believe the bible is around 32-34 hundred years old- not 6 thousand.

I want to be careful here- I grew up in N.J. and over the years have come to appreciate the area of my youth more and more. Why? After studying world [and U.S.] history for many years- you see the North East as being at the heart of the American heritage.

One of the first history books I bought after moving to Corpus Christi [a cheap book sale in one of our malls] was on the Puritans- and after reading all the history taking place in my old stomping grounds- I became a lifelong student of the area.

Okay- one of the problems I see with my old area- is there can be an elitist mindset among some intellectuals [even fake intellectuals]. The mindset often expresses itself in the way liberals speak about other ‘less informed’ folk. I had a conversation one time with a person who was mocking Palin- the person said ‘she is such an idiot- she said you could see Russia from her house’. Now- as a big political watcher myself- I knew this actual quote was wrong.

Palin actually said ‘did you know you can see certain parts of Russia from Alaska’. The person I was talking to absolutely denied this- she said that she personally heard her say it. I informed the person that this actually has become a modern urban myth- that the Tina Fey skit on SNL was where the fake quote came from- that the real quote was the Russia being seen from Alaska quote- not ‘my house’. So- as most liberals [and yes- conservatives too] we are usually not willing to admit that we are wrong- especially during a tirade of exposing the other side as ignoramuses.

So we left it at that. In all of our learning in life- it’s important to try and view the opposing side as favorably as possible. I not only do not believe the ‘bible is 6 thousand years old’ but I also do not believe the earth is 6 thousand years old. I believe Dinosaurs are real [were!]. I believe that there are certain aspects of Evolution that are indeed true- for instance the ‘survival of the fittest’ is indeed a true scientific fact.

The reality is that species do change and adapt over time- yet the ‘other reality’ is we have never- not once- been able to verify this happening between species of living things. That is the theory of Darwin says this is how all the species arrived on the planet- from one common living cell. Science does not show this to have happened- either in the natural environment- or in the laboratory.

So science shows us that Natural Selection does indeed happen- but it does not happen [as far as science goes] between species. As a matter of fact- if a person just went with the current understanding of time and matter commonly held by most scientists- you would not at all have the picture that Darwin painted. Modern science says the earth is a little over 4 billion years old. For the first 3.5 billion years we have no record [Fossil] of complex structures being on the earth.

Our geologic history says complex life structures appeared during the Cambrian era [500 million years ago- referred to as the Cambrian Explosion] and that even according to the Evolutionary scientists- 500 million years is not enough time for Evolution to have happened.

You basically would have needed the Evolutionary process to have started during the first few hundred million years of earth’s history- not the last.

But the average ‘mocker of evangelicals’ has no idea about any of this- he just says ‘they think the bible is 6 thousand years old’. So it would do us all some good if we came to the table with a little more humility. Christianity has a long and deep heritage of wisdom.

Much of this heritage comes to us from the Catholic Church [of which Matthews is a member]. There are many believers who have made great strides in our understanding of creation and existence. Even many fundamentalists accept the idea that the earth is billions- not thousands of years old. So let’s try and have an honest conversation in this country- if I disagree with your politics- then let me make my case and you make yours. But if I degrade you- either by doubting your birth certificate- or by constantly portraying you as an idiot- who lacks a grade school education- well that gets us nowhere.

www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com

2 comments:

  1. Matthews may be "a member" of the Catholic Church, but he does nor speak for Catholics. How can he? He doesn't even believe in the article of his own faith which holds that human life is sacred.

    I'm a convert to Catholicism from what used to be the Episcopal Church. Before a protestant can become a Catholic, he or she must go through a 9-month period of instruction in the faith known as RCIA. By the time we are confirmed Catholics, we know quite a lot about the faith, more in some cases than many "cradle Catholics" know.

    Believe me, Catholicism does NOT teach that our Protestant brethren believe that the earth or the bible is 6,000 years old, not do we ourselves believe so. We are taught the differences between Catholic and Protestant belief, and the age of the earth and the bible are not among them.

    Please don't let Cafeteria Catholics like Chris Matthews form your opinion of Catholics. Pope John Paul II held that although Protestants are not in "full communion" with the Catholic Church you are at least in communion with us. Christ died for ALL our sins, and therefore, since Vatican II, we believe that the Holy Spirit is truly active in Catholic and Protestant churches and even in some other communities separated from us.

    As Catholics we are bound to our brothers and sisters in Christ in many ways: through reverence for God's word in the Scriptures; through the sacrament of baptism; and through other sacraments which both faiths recognize.

    Yours in Christ,

    - JP

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  2. Your right Josh- I know very well that cafeteria Catholics do not represent the church's teaching. As a student of the church and church history- the Catholic church is constantly having to correct the record- because too many 'Catholics' misrepresent their own church! God bless Josh, thanks for the comment.

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