March 13, 2005
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On the poker message boards that I frequent, there is a thread whose
basic thrust is: "how can Christians believe that the universe is only
six thousand years old?" At times like
these, I wish it were widely known that the young-universe theory wasn't generally believed
until this century, and that it still is generally disbelieved by
Christians outside America.I am also reminded of St. Augustine's remarkably prescient (and tragicomical) thoughts on these matters.
Quote of the day
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the
earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and
orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the
predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and seasons,
about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge
he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.Now, it is a
disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably
giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we
should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which
people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame
is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside
the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and,
to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our
Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men....Reckless and
incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on
their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false
opinions and are taken to task by these who are not bound by the authority of
our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously
untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and
even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position,
although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which
they make assertion.
Comments (6)
How come no one has commented on this message. Let me be the first. All other commentators are second and below. Yay!
Apparently, I am a more thought-provoking writer than Augustine of Hippo.
Hola!
can u tell i am bizored
Oh, no. Not again.
Jackdeuce is so smart! He is so smart! S - M - R- T !
That happens often with alot of Christians I know. Especially those still in college. I was talking with Joe Whang about how the thought process from a Freshman in college to a Senior in college can be so far apart. There are people I know who agree that biblically, gay marriage is acceptable. I'm not sure what bible they're reading but they've justified it with scripture. Religion becomes culture.
hm...
I hope I understood the quote correctly.
Comments are closed.