(August 1, 2013 at 1:48 pm)whateverist Wrote: I've always wondered what the essential, bare bones minimum requirements would be for calling oneself a Christian. I'm starting to think there isn't perfect agreement on this among all those who claim to be a Christian.
It seems to me that the more strict and literalist the group is, the more likely it is that they will restrict the definition to themselves. JWs refer to all other Christians as "Christendom" and they use the term to mean "non-Christians who mistakenly call themselves Christians even though they're not." This is a group that pushes Jesus aside and names itself after the god of the OT, mind you.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
