[ernie]

Yeah I guess so. I guess I also assumed it would come up in the conversation. In all those discussions about biblical metaphors and allegories et cetera, I figured if the professor didn't believe it he or she might have said "by the way, I don't believe a word of any of it, everything I said and you said in the last hour and a half is wrong, the bible is the absolute literal truth, and most of what is being taught in this university is false

Most academics are quite good at not promoting their own personal beliefs (other than theories directly related to their discipline) and there is no doubt that unless it is a religious university the courses are going to lean towards the secular view and limit personal bias. Many bible oriented classes are taught as allegories I agree but it need not come out that the teacher or prof beleives that. I can teach an undergraduate theories from my discipline that I do not put much stock in and that I don't wish to explore in that class ot is explored later on. I'll happily do so because you need to have all the information to base your decisions on. And believe me many literal interpretation guys know the other side of the argument better than you or I do. They understand it, they follow it but do not accept it. There is nothing wrong or stupid with that.

On what the Pope said....that's what I was saying. The Catholic church has room for those discussions but they have not said "forget teaching the literal version of the genesis story it didn't happen that way". Quite the opposite. They allow their own leaders and followers to go with what they feel is the proper intepretation...a literal genesis story or topical one. And continue to have discussion on it. As such one parish may differ from another because of who is leading that parish. It is one occupation that your religious beliefs plays almost a complete role. However, no matter which way you slice it these churches have only begun to accept such things in the last decade and it is not universal acceptance. By default, most christians 20 years or older are going to have been taught the literal version in the church they grew up in. That would mean most christians do indeed few it as a literal story. It is probably changing but there is nowhere near universal acceptance in among any of the large denominations what way is the proper way to teach the bible. As well the catholic church while indicating that evolution may have occurred still very much teach that somewhere along the lines there was Adam and Eve and God provided them with souls and thus began the human race. The Catholic church has simply stated it does not fear science but does not say it's followers must accept science as fact. Atleast from my understanding. Essentially they have said from what I have read is take in all the information and make your choices as to what you believe with a few underlying tenets that must be accepted: God provided humans with souls that you do not inherit from your parents, God created the universe from nothingness and God is essentially in control of the grand design that we can't hope to understand.

I wonder if you can point out where I said "having different beliefs is stupid". I don't think I did. I was pretty specific in saying what I believe is and is not stupid. Believing that the earth is 10 thousand years old and that dinosaurs and man walked around together is (and this is my "belief" so it's sacred and cannot be challenged according to the direction of this thread), is stupid.

What you have said is that because Day has these beliefs it means he is stupid. Plain and simple. Not worthy of a vote or worthy of a financial post or foreign affairs post because he has this one religious belief. He's a stupid individual because he has beliefs based on a different dogma than you do.

It doesn't make sense. It's not true.

Yes you believe that. You believe in that the proponderence of the scientific evidence says this. You believe it because the scientific theories fit the data it must be so. As do I. But the thing is the theories are all based on some underlying dogma (defn: a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds) which you can not prove. You and I make a leap of faith to believe the things we do as well. It may be good enough to win a civil trial so to speak while you think it wins a criminal trial when it doesn't.