Christianity is Dead, Long live the rEvolution!

[Bow Before Zeus]

Hey Steve, this is great! Let's establish some ground rules that will allow us to discuss this topic with hopefully come to some sort of outcome one way or the other.

1. Evolution is a scientific fact. I am not going to debate evolution. The vast majority of scientists agree the facts of evolution and even some major religious organisations have thrown in the towel and accepted the fact of evolution. You might not agree with this but for the sake of this discussion, you need to accept it.
2. If evolution is a fact then there was no such thing as a "first" human being. The children of each generation are the same species as the parents - changes are so gradual that they cannot be noticed from generation to generation. Richard Dawkins has a great description of this in a thought experiment he does in one of his books - The Magic of Reality. To save you having to read the book, here is a 4 minute video of Professor Dawkins explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ClZROoyNM
3. The whole argument for the death of xtianity that I propose in the OP therefore hinges on taking the bible literally. So our discussion therefore should be confined as to whether this is the logical or reasonable way to read the bible.
4. The discussion is to be held with mutual respect for each other. I will not call your arguments crap and nor shall you mine. No derogatory put-downs, only reasoned argument.

If you agree with those 4 ground rules above, give me time to grab my single malt scotch whiskey and by Cuban cigar and let's sit down to have an exciting discussion about this!

With respect,
BBZ

4. Mutual respect? Do I need to remind you of the post titles in your inaugural month on AF? No matter. I understand the concept to be lopsided here at AF. 

3. Yes, your argument for the death of Christianity does hinge on Gen 1-3 being taken literally. 

i. Evolution has disproved Adam/Eve
ii. Christianity requires Adam/Eve's Original Sin
Therefore Evolution has disproved Christianity. 

Without the second premise, your argument falls apart. Since most Christians do not believe Gen 1-3 to be literal and the doctrine of Original Sin has a wide range of views (and obviously not as pivotal as you thought), it was a pretty simple thing to defeat it. Why not literal? Like I mentioned--this is not a new idea.  Augustine 1600 years ago did not believe that there was a literal 6-day creation. We don't know who wrote Gen 1-3. It is poetic in nature. It has light being made before the sun. A bunch of reasons. A literal 6-day creation is not a new belief, but it has never had the prominence it has enjoyed in the last 50 years with the fundamentalist movement. 

Like I mentioned, I think there was an Adam and Eve of some type in ancient history. I don't know how they were created and I certainly don't know when. I have no proof so I am not going to base an argument on it. 

Christianity requires every person to have an unavoidable sin nature. It does not require that Adam ate an apple to get it.

4. Yes, mutual respect. Whilst I was personally attacked numerous times by various xtians on these forums, I did not retaliate. It appears that thread titles are quite a touchy subject for xtians. I have seen threads here with more benign titles but the OP attacks god directly likening him to the worst of humanity and xtians show little offense or objection. Despite my more direct thread titles, I have always spoken to individual posters with respect. So hopefully we can conduct a respectful discussion.

So with that out of the way, and the above terms agreed to, let me begin by discussing why I think the bible should be taken literally. I will number my points to make it easier to refer and rebut them.

1. The bible authors wrote what they literally believed to be true.

The bible authors intended the material to be taken literally with one caveat - Revelation. I have read this particular book numerous times and I really don't know what it is supposed to be so I will leave that one aside. Certainly, all of the OT was written with the intention that it be taken literally. There have been a number of scholarly works on this subject and I quote a few below.

Ref: http://www.iscast.org/journal/articles/D...ything.pdf

The Genesis of Everything
An historical account of the Bible’s opening chapter
John P Dickson
Honorary Associate of the Department of Ancient History,
Macquarie University, Sydney.

The paper seeks to plot a path through the controversy surrounding the Bible’s opening chapter by examining Genesis 1 in historical context. The author assumes and endorses no particular view of human origins but argues for a literal interpretation of the text, as opposed to what may be called ‘literalistic’. The former reading gives due weight to both the literary genre of Genesis 1 and the cultural milieu
 of the original writer, whereas the latter gives sufficient attention to neither.

Ref: https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hil...1_jasa.pdf

Interpreting Genesis One
CHARLES E. HUMMEL    
Director of Faculty Ministries  
Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship

Genesis 1 appears to be a narrative of past events, an account of God's creative words and acts. Its figurative language is largely limited to anthropomorphisms. (For a highly imaginative and figurative account of creation, read Job 38:4-11.) The text does not have the earmarks of a parable, a short allegorical story designed  
to teach a truth or moral lesson. That genre generally deals with human events and often starts with a formula like "There was a man who had two sons" in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15:11-31). Genesis 1 is "historical" in the sense of relating events that actually occurred. Modern historians distinguish between "history," which began with the invention of writing or the advent of city life, and "prehistory."

There are other scholarly works on the subject but I don't want to labour the point any more. The knowledge at the time of our cosmos and our place in it was still rather primitive. Genesis is an attempt to explain how the universe and we as humans came to be. It is a literal description of the creation of the universe. Of course these days we leave that to science as we have verifiable data on which to base our modern-day theories of the creation of the uni(multi)verse and of the diversity of life on this planet.

2. The literal interpretation of the bible is the largest Christian religion today.

What do I mean by this? To explore this I would like to borrow the figures you posted in this thread earlier on.

In the US (probably the most conservative group of Christians on the planet) only 24% believe that everything in the Bible is to be taken literally. If we project that over the 2.3 billion on the planet, that means there are somewhere in the neighborhood 1.7 billion your line of reasoning would not apply to. What if the Adam/Eve story was metaphorical? Do you think that man does not have sin nature? Redemption is still required. The message of the NT still applies 100%.

Thanks for doing the maths here. So to summarise, there would roughly be 600 million xtians that believe in the literal understanding of the bible and 1.7 billion that accept some sort of metaphor for part of most of the bible. But where to translate as metaphor and where to take it literally? This becomes the conundrum because each and every one of the 1.7 billion so-called xtians will then interpret the bible in their own different way. So in effect, we have one sects of 600 million xtians and 1.7 billion sects of 1 xtian each with their own personal interpretation of the bible.

This is not tenable, it is not viable and is not the intent of the authors as per my first point.

The main effect of this is that the largest sect of xtians is in fact those that interpret the bible literally.

3. Impossible to have a discussion with 1.7 billion versions.

Whilst not an argument for interpreting the bible literally, having a discussion about the bible and having to take into account 1.7 billion different interpretations of it makes it impossible to have any meaningful discussion.

When I discuss/debate xtianity, I discuss the literal translation (usually the KJV) and quote from the texts as they are the definition of xtianity.

To discuss and debate your interpretation of the bible or person a, b, or c's interpretation fo the bible is rather pointless as all I have done is show that I can debate with a single idea of the bible. To discuss/debate the literal interpretation of the bible is a discussion that is relevant to 600 million xtians, not just 1.

Apologies that I took so long to respond, Steve. It is a funny time of the year and I have been busy with many different things in my life, not just the usual activities during the "festive season".

I look forward to your response (take your time).