Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: allenroy@cs.pdx.edu (callen roy) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Calendar Time and Euro-centric reasoning. Message-ID: Date: 22 Jun 91 04:42:15 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 52 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) writes: >Do the Adventists teach such theories as Evolution in their schools >as Science. Or do they keep such discussions for advanced classes in >high school or Collage, and any case with the orientation 'this is what >some mistakenly believe to be the case'. Or have they moved to a >'deistic' directed evolutionary concept? John: I'll try to base my remarks on my personal and my children's experience in the SDA school system. If I remember correctly, science classes, as such began in the 5th or 6th grades. These classes dealt with various aspects of natureD Most of it dealt with the reality around us with only a short time devoted to origins. I think it was in the college level that more indepth discussion on the differences between the Theory of Evolution and Biblical Creation/Flood Models took place in some classes. Science as a study of nature, involving the scientific method, is not a threat to a Biblically based philosophy of life. To me, Science does not equal Evolution, and Evolution does not equal Science. I think the prefice to a discussion on the Theory of Evolution may have gone something like this: There are two main philosophies or ideas on how we got here. The theroy of Evolution which teaches that all life originated from a single cell. It is supposed to have taken Millions of years for this to have happened. However, the Bible teaches that all life (on the earth) was created by God some 6000+ years ago. The Theory of Evolution teaches that Genetic variation is the cause for all the various life forms, but we hold that genetic variation is the cause for differences within kinds or families. (From here on there would be lesser or greater detail, depending on student age group and interest). I don't hold to a Deistic-Evolution concept. I just trying to say that some- times our ideas about Creation and Science seem to conflict. To resolve such a problem requires us to reevaluted our conclutions from Science and even our evaluations of Biblecal statements. Any reevaluation shouldn't violate the integrity of either, but clarifiy both. I do not find that Science and the Bible at logerheads. But the theory of Evolutions, cut the very core out of the Bible. Allen Roy [As you know, I'm not interested in discussing the merits of evolution here. Those who are interested in an informed discussion should read talk.origins. However the point of this posting is not to argue against evolution, but to clarify SDA belief. The question John asked resulted when someone disputed calling SDA's "fundamentalist". I think your response that Christianity requires rejection of evolution involves an interpretation of the Bible that most people would characterize as fundamentalist. I understand that the term fundamentalist has some ambiguity to it, but these days it seems to mean something very close to inerrantist. --clh]