> You folks are looking at the Bible in the wrong way. Either the Bible is accurate or it is not. The Bible claims, itself, to be the divine written Word of God. Either it is, or it isn't. If it is, it doesn't matter how many years passed between the occurrence of the events and when they were written down: if it's the written Word of God, it's 100% true, and if it isn't, it's an anthropological curiosity upon which no world view or system of belief is worth founding upon it.


This is not true, as many faithful Christians who believe the Bible to hold kernels of divine truth but to have been edited or changed by man will tell you. It's also surprisingly dogmatic, Sam. Even if the Bible is not 100% true, it's perfectly valid to form a religious belief on your own spiritual experience, using the Bible, your church, or whatever you want as a component of your own spirituality. It can be inspired without being perfectly accurate and it doesn't need to be perfectly accurate to be part of religious belief.


>
> Contrary to what it may sound like I'm saying, the Bible is a great place to start in the ambitious pursuit of answering that question for oneself. A creation vs. evolution debate isn't.


I'll agree with that. I've been biting my tongue not responding to try to stop Rinkworks turning into a pale version of talk.origins.

Tom Schmidt
tmschm@wm.edu