Difficulties with Adam and Eve:
Father Longenecker is on fire today. This one is on the difference between a difficulty and a doubt.
I'm Outside the Autistic Asylum!
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Introduction to Wonko the Sane and Outside the Asylum, which this blog is named after.
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"Consequently, we affirm that Adam and Eve were historical figures–how and when they lived and the details of their fall from grace are open to speculation based on the Biblical account."
So, is this really the position of the Catholic Church? Does the Church really believe that Adam and Eve really existed, had a direct relationship with a diety and would have lived forever had they obeyed this diety? Does the Church really believe in Original Sin being as a result of their disobedience and that our suffering and death was caused by it?
"how and when they lived and the details of their fall from grace are open to speculation based on the Biblical account."
What part of that do you not understand?
The fall from grace isn't about longevity. In fact, there's quite a bit of historical evidence that says the ancient Hebrews used a much different numbering system- and in that numbering system, Methuselah lived to the ripe old age of 86 years.
That Original Sin can cause suffering and death, however, is observable in the lives of atheists right now. Atheists make a wonderful control group for the existence of Original Sin, especially in their suicide rate.
And of course, to the believer, pain and suffering simply don't matter. There is no such thing as an intolerable life.
Perhaps believers live a better life. That doesn't make what they believe true. It is far more likely that atheists have it right. But being right doesn't mean that your life is better than that of the "Ignorance is Bliss" crowd.
Except rational believers aren't the Ignorance is Bliss crowd- Atheists are the ones who need to deny most of human history to make their worldview work.
I don't ignore history. I simply look at periods dominated by one religion or another for what they were including the prevailing beliefs of any time or place. History has not shown any religion to be correct.
There is one religion that has lasted through the death of 5 civilizations, that invented science, that fights against superstition and ignorance consistently.
There is another religion that has lasted through the death of 6 civilizations, that gives 1.2 billion people the strength to put up with amazing levels of persecution, that fights against superstition, ignorance, and suffering consistently.
There's a third religion that has lasted through the death of 10 civilizations, the persecution of the ignorant period of the first religion in my list, and invented the modern banking system.
Your atheism would deny all three of these their proper place in the advancement of human civilization. And I bet you can't even guess which three religions I'm talking about, except maybe the first. But all three are more rational than atheism will ever be.
Their faith, though, does influence this. There is good reason why the Turks killed off the mathematicians in the 14th century.
I was not aware of the Turks doing that. Why would they do that?
Truly anti-rational theology in a form we're not used to in Christianity; mathematics implies that there is an order and laws to the universe and thus Allah follows something that can be recognized by human intellect as reason. This goes against the Sunni and Shi'a theology that Allah is beyond all human reason.
That theology (that the creator of the universe is unreasonable/random) is really common outside of Christianity. It kept the Greeks and Egyptians from developing science 2000 years earlier; it kept the Romans from discovering Portland Cement and reinforced concrete, it kept the Chinese from using gunpowder in warfare, it ended the Arabic invention of algebra and prevented them from learning calculus.
And I believe that despite the advances of secular America, third to sixth generation Protestant churches have turned Sola Scriptura into exactly the same trap.
If there is anything Atheists and Catholics have in common, it is combatting this dangerous and anti-intellectual theology that threatens to undo all we have created and plunge us into another Dark Age, like it has so many, many times in the past.
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