Perhaps one change in theology since I left college has been the popularisation of atheism through books like "The God Delusion". I wouldn't recommend that particular book to anyone - not just because I disagree with it but because it doesn't even argue a case for atheism particularly well. The author doesn't bother to read any theology, since he thinks it's a non-subject. So he writes out of profound ignorance, and it shows.
The author, Richard Dawkins, is an Oxford academic. Or at least he is in the fields of zoology and genetics. Anywhere else he's out of his depth. He's written extensively on Darwinian natural selection, in popular science books like "The Selfish Gene". He's very good at that kind of thing, and states his case very well. I was certainly persuaded that evolutionary theory is generally correct, even if it still has several gaping holes. (No scientific theory can claim to be complete - it's always just a useful work-in-progress).
Especially in America, there is an idea that religion and science are in conflict. People like Dawkins in this country perpetuate this ancient myth. There are 'Creationists' and 'Evolutionists', who waste time arguing over bad science instead of turning to the bigger questions.
That's why I don't talk about it much. Anything that causes conflict among Christians, and isn't all that important anyway, is best avoided.
God created us. It doesn't really matter how.
I believe that science points us to a Creator, if we let it run it's course. It can do no other.
The official line of the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other major church leaders and churches is that God created the world through a process, over billions of years. This is what several branches of science tell us. I don't see why there's anything wrong with that view. But of course there are many Christians who object to this idea. It says in Genesis that God created everything in 6 days. I've always thought a 'day' was just a way of saying 'a period of time', like we would say "in this day and age" without meaning a particular date. St Peter says as much (2Peter 3:8 - "...There is no difference in the Lord's sight between one day and a thousand years; to him the two are the same.") He's probably got Psalm 90 in mind ( a favourite of mine since I did this video version some years ago. ) This psalm puts things into God's perspective.
Psalm 90
1 O Lord, you have always been our home. 2 Before you created the hills or brought the world into being, you were eternally God, and will be God forever. 3 You tell man to return to what he was; you change him back to dust. 4 A thousand years to you are like one day; they are like yesterday, already gone, like a short hour in the night. 5 You carry us away like a flood; we last no longer than a dream. We are like weeds that sprout in the morning, 6 that grow and burst into bloom, then dry up and die in the evening. 7 We are destroyed by your anger; we are terrified by your fury. 8 You place our sins before you, our secret sins where you can see them. 9 Our life is cut short by your anger; it fades away like a whisper. 10 Seventy years is all we have--eighty years, if we are strong; yet all they bring us is trouble and sorrow; life is soon over, and we are gone. 11 Who has felt the full power of your anger? Who knows what fear your fury can bring? 12 Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise. 13 How much longer will your anger last? Have pity, O LORD, on your servants! 14 Fill us each morning with your constant love, so that we may sing and be glad all our life. 15 Give us now as much happiness as the sadness you gave us during all our years of misery. 16 Let us, your servants, see your mighty deeds; let our descendants see your glorious might. 17 LORD our God, may your blessings be with us. Give us success in all we do!
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I started off as a creationist but I've slowly turned into an evolutionist.
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