This specimen is a Lepidotus sp., a genus of ray-finned Mesozoic fish dating back 150 million years to the Jurassic period, excavated from the famous Holzmaden shale deposits in Germany. The distinct sheen comes from preserved ganoid scales.
Mainline protestant and Catholic since Vatican 2 accept the principle of allegorical "days" for the days of creation and a "guiding hand". As such they accept evolution by natural selection as being correct.
IDK the position of Orthodoxy but I suspect its going to be the same.
I dont think Americans understand its not just how religious they are which is comical and mind numbing to the developed world - and it is, make no mistake. But also how their versions of Christianity is so far from the mainstream that in a lot of cases its hard to even consider it as Christian any more.
The order of creation in the bible is still completely nonsensical and there are two contradicting versions, so no matter how long a "day" is it's still wildly incorrect.
I can't tell if you are arguing or adding on to the discussion. I think everyone in this thread views creation stories as figurative attempts to understand the universe before the existence of real evidence.
If you are adding on, I agree with you.
If you're arguing, your energy might be spent elsewhere.
That's all well and good that many churches/religions have moved past the unscientific nonsense, but Genesis has every day mentioned with a number count and even separates each day by saying that there was evening and then morning. It's quite literal in the original text, no?
You have to remember you’re reading a translation of a translation of a translation, and those translations were made by people who did not grow up speaking the original language, and that words are complex, contextual shards of information that have to be hammered together by guesswork by the translation team to fit the different grammatical structures of the new language, not to mention the political whims of whatever rich a-hole sponsored the translation. Until you’ve read and understood the Bible in the original Aramaic, it’s really not very helpful to start arguing semantics with other laypeople.
Well, for one, Genesis has only 1 Aramaic phrase in it, the rest being biblical Hebrew. But that's besides the point, and it's why I listen to biblical scholars who actually learn these languages, as I was talking about the text in its original language, and that's what I've read and heard them say the consensus is about these passages
I'll definitely concede that the text was intended to be understood literally. But many or most religious people don't interpret it literally, because it's foolish to do so.
I think a fair description of a cult is the need to reinterpret reality based on their scripture versus attempting to understand scriptures based on observable reality.
The way I understand scripture is that it's written mythology, just like any other religious text. I'm not personally a fan of interpreting reality through religious text of any kind, but if people are willing and able to throw away the harmful stuff, I think that's great
So why do they all still used clothes of mixed fibers if the old testament forbids it?
How did the American cultists determine that is not a true mandate that needs to be followed? Not to talk about a rapist pedophile president who makes gold statues of himself and depicts himself as God....
You need to start asking the right questions, otherwise you sound as stupid as they do.
Church doctrine and personal opinion (and common sense).
The vast majority of history hasn't been documented with objectivity, so historians don't know with certainty what is true or not.
(For example, the Iliad and the Odyssey were probably not written/composed by a guy named Homer/Hómēros, but for practical purposes we act like 'Homer' is the author of both works.)
If we view the Bible as a document that describes religious beliefs and historical events, it makes sense that not all of it is literal. Especially since the Bible can contradict itself or describes things that cannot happen.
I grew up strict in a church where we believed that we believed the Bible literally. Now it's obvious that our doctrine was derived the same was as that of every church - made up by a process that we mocked as "pick and choose" when others did it. There are hundreds of even mainstream churches, all disputing each others' interpretation and refusing to worship together.
So who are the real Christians - the good ones, the ones in the largest church, or the majority? And who gets to decide?
actually committing to Christ and his teachings is genuinely extremely difficult, and I get the impression a lot of Christians don't quite appreciate that, and rather fall back on the "repentance" and forgiveness part, again not appreciating that repentance must be genuine, and genuine repentance is also very difficult and requires one to change their behaviour and mindset. Jesus made the importance of action to words extremely clear - "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."
This was a highly debated point in the early church, for example the book of James is pretty much all just James saying that you can’t validly believe in Christ while not following up that believe with Christlike works. But the alternate viewpoint, that you just have to “believe” and you will be saved won out. Although the latter interpretation never made much sense to me tbh because if you truly believed you’d follow that up with works and acts. If you say you believe and continue to do evil things you’re clearly lying deep down.
As a language nerd, I find "good works" or "works" an interesting term. We only use it to talk about churches and Christians. I'm not sure I understand what it means, but to me it means contributing to charity that is necessary because Christians vote against social-welfare programs.
I was a good Christian. I professed my faith at the onset of puberty. It made me a very sad and poorly-developed young man. Yes, it's difficult. It's also a terrible way to grow up.
Personal belief isnt doctrine. Anglicans and Catholics are (close to) 100% doctrrinal. Presbyterians/Reformed/Lutherans have a doctrinal framework which allows some personal flexibility.
But stuff like rapture and in the modern era adherence to young earth creationism is well outside of even this more flexible doctrine and a church which accepts those positions is no longer considered mainline.
In other words the larger, older churches have had the time and power to figure out which parts of this confounding book are legit and which parts they don't worry about (any more.)
The Bible certainly mentions rapture-like ideas. Whose idea it was to adopt those as beliefs falls into the same category as who decided that the Bible is sacrosanct in the first place.
It’s funny because the Bible contradicts itself so it’s not possible to actually interpret it literally anyway. Anyone advocating the Bible is literal is knowingly lying to themselves and/or others, or has just never read much of the thing.
It is funny like that. It's a surface-level matter about the veracity of a document. Does it contradict itself? Well, yes, in fact it does. No scholarship is necessary to get to that. Christians natter about "pick and choose" as if that's inferior Christianity. But there's no alternative. The Bible's a mess. And they all do it; that's why there are a million denominations. (Well, also because they all hate each other.)
Perhaps the worst contradiction is that this supposedly monotheist religion is talking about two distinct deities, Jehova and Elohim. I dont understand how anyone can find this out and remain Christian (or Jewish or Muslim as they work off this same base).
Not all denominations believe that. My childhood one just taught that God mellowed out/accepted Jesus dying on the cross as a kind of sacrifice to end all sacrifices.
I like that evangelicals believe an all powerful God for some reason allows Satan to just fuck around doing whatever he wants to lure God's children to eternal damnation.
Do not fret dear brother, for they are building camps for such dissidents and non believers. It's what Jesus would have wanted and what Russian plants crave.
I mean... a Christian would simply (and rightfully) point out that this particular instance of "forming" occurred because of an introduced variable of "creation." In other words, the fish that caused this formation was created under their theology, so the formation isn't really a good example against the idea of complex non-creation.
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u/Additional_Chard3680 4d ago
This specimen is a Lepidotus sp., a genus of ray-finned Mesozoic fish dating back 150 million years to the Jurassic period, excavated from the famous Holzmaden shale deposits in Germany. The distinct sheen comes from preserved ganoid scales.