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Mistakes in understanding
I was reading this discussion (which I didn't finish), and had a sudden thought:
Several of the people in this discussion (at least, near the start) argue that Christianity is incompatible with science because the Bible, if taken literally, is incompatible. My issue here is that the Bible never claims to be infallible. Or at least, under Christianity, it doesn't. Several books in the Old Testament (the Law) claim to be handed down from God directly, but Jesus (according to the gospels selected for the New Testament) explicitly overrides the Law. Excepting Acts and Revelations, the rest of the New Testament is letters purported to be from various personages, not from God. Acts is obviously a history recounted by a person, and Revelations is properly the Revelations According to John, again a person.
Unlike Islam, Christianity's Book does not claim itself to be the infallible word of God (at least, not that I can recall; I admit to being too lazy to re-read the entire Bible before making this post); hence there seems to me to be no problem with admitting that the Bible should be read interpretively (indeed, even if it made the claim to be directly the word from on high, unless it claims to be literally true, there isn't a problem...).
Several of the people in this discussion (at least, near the start) argue that Christianity is incompatible with science because the Bible, if taken literally, is incompatible. My issue here is that the Bible never claims to be infallible. Or at least, under Christianity, it doesn't. Several books in the Old Testament (the Law) claim to be handed down from God directly, but Jesus (according to the gospels selected for the New Testament) explicitly overrides the Law. Excepting Acts and Revelations, the rest of the New Testament is letters purported to be from various personages, not from God. Acts is obviously a history recounted by a person, and Revelations is properly the Revelations According to John, again a person.
Unlike Islam, Christianity's Book does not claim itself to be the infallible word of God (at least, not that I can recall; I admit to being too lazy to re-read the entire Bible before making this post); hence there seems to me to be no problem with admitting that the Bible should be read interpretively (indeed, even if it made the claim to be directly the word from on high, unless it claims to be literally true, there isn't a problem...).