Genesis 1
1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13: And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17: And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18: And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19: And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21: And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22: And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23: And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24: And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25: And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29: And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30: And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31: And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2
1: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
4: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
5: And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6: But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8: And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10: And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11: The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12: And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13: And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14: And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
15: And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20: And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22: And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23: And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25: And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 3
1: Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2: And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4: And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9: And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10: And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11: And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12: And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13: And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14: And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16: Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17: And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18: Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
20: And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
21: Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
22: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
24: So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
I am just curious why it is important to Christians that this all be true, either literally or allegorically. How would their everyday decisions, their treatment of others, their happiness, be impacted? How would their politics be impacted?
Why is so difficult for them to accept that others do not agree with them? Why do they fel the need to use the political process to expand their view of these issues?
Because if Genesis isn’t true then a caste of doubt is spread onto everything else that is included in the bible. Therefore, this has become a matter of pride for intelligent Christians and a matter of delusion for the rest. But lets not underestimate the power of pride and delusion-certainly the Republicans haven’t.
I DO believe in God, and I DO like this quote from Napoleon: “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”
As far as it being all about a power trip, at least as that charge has been leveled against the Catholic church, if it were all about power, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that the Vatican city-State would be the largest sovereignty on earth instead of the smallest?
LibDem, your answer is merely cynical, but more than that, it displays a complete ignorance of what Christianity is supposed to be about and how that is shaped by Holy Scripture. Genesis is 100% true, but not in the way you mean because you don’t understand how it’s supposed to be read. It has to be read within the context of the ancient civilization its human authors lived in. At the same time, it is accepted among most Christians that the Bible is co-authored by God and the human authors. That means that the human authors of the time used their own language and literary devices of the time that they lived in, but the messages and thoughts they were conveying were from God.
It would take us forever and a day to go through the details and nuances of all of this and I’m pretty sure you aren’t the least bit interested in it anyway. I’ll try to sum up a few things from a Catholic perspective.
There are some core points that Catholics need to take away from the creation story and accept and some things they don’t. For example, they have to accept “the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time” but the Church does not specify anything about the how or the when of creation. So, if you want to believe as I do that God created the Heavens and the earth as it states in Genesis and after the 7th day, He let evolution take it from there – that’s OK with the Catholic Church. That’s what I meant in my other comments when I said that creation and evolution can be integrated into one belief system. At least it can for me as a Catholic, but maybe it can’t for some other denominations. Maybe there are some who are anti-evolution all the way. I wouldn’t know about that.
And JTO, all I can tell you is that if you believe that the Bible is God’s Word and that through it, He is speaking to us today, just as He did to the ancients long ago (and as Catholics, we have to believe that or else we aren’t in full communion with our Church and we run the risk of excommunicating ourselves) then God’s Word should inspire us to strive to follow the commandments, live out the Gospels, and follow after Christ in every aspect of our daily life. If we’re doing that and we happen to be elected to some office, then our participation should be based on what God tells us is moral or immoral, not based on what either political party tries to dictate in their platform, talking points, or legislative proposals. In that vein, our participation should be a positive contribution to society and the political process if we’re living the way that Scripture and the Magisterium call us to live. Once God becomes an afterthought to us, if we think of Him at all, that’s when our own and/or our political party’s agenda becomes our god instead of Him. Then, we have ourselves a mess.
I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic schools for several years and I never heard of any of that. And the Vatican WAS the wealthiest and most powerful city-state in the world for about 1,000 years,, behind most of the political maneuvering throughout Europe and responsible for much bloodletting throughout Europe and the Middle East. This only began changing as politicians, starting with Henry VII, however ignoble his motives, and religious leaders like Martin Luther, questioned the infallibility of the Pope’s edicts. This evolution has culminated, in modern times, with the Kennedy speech during his presidential campaign, addressing his view of separation of his public responsibilities under the Constitution from his religious beliefs as a devout Catholic. This speech is the opposite of your own.
As for excommunication, I refer to the Irish Parliament leader last year who was threatened with excommunication for passing legislation overriding the papl edict protecting Catholic priests who were molesting children. In our own country, it has taken decades to properly prosecute these predators because of the exact mentality your are espousing.
I will continue to follow my own conscience, set aside the more ridiculous beliefs and formalities of the Catholic church, and take my chances at the back end.
JTO,
I don’t doubt for a minute that what I explained above in regard to Catholic teaching is the opposite of what you heard in the catechesis of your youth. I don’t doubt it because I received the same post-Vatican II catechesis that you report having received. Most Catholics of our generation did as well. But with the election of JPII and then B16, both of their pontificates have been directed toward returning the Church to its traditional roots. The same divisive battle that we are witnessing between liberals and conservatives in American politics is taking place in the Vatican as well. That’s what the whole “Vatileaks” issue is about. There is a powerful block of liberal bishops and cardinals who are working to undermine B16′s attempts to reverse the liberal “spirit” that was infused into the Vatican II Council. If you go back and read the actual documents from Vatican II, you’ll find that the Council never deliberately intended to abolish the Latin Mass and the traditions of the Church. Now, if you fall into the liberal Catholic camp, you’re going to be just as unhappy as the other liberal priests, bishops, and religious in the Church who want the Church to change (away from her traditional roots) and keep up with modern cultural trends. JPII and B16 oppose that trend and want to re-unify the church and restore her traditions.
Once I became aware of that, I’ve been gradually studying the teachings of JPII and B16 and essentially have been re-catechized by them. So the comments I make above may very well be wholly unfamiliar to you if you haven’t been exposed to the papal encyclicals of these two popes, among others. If that’s the case, know that you’re not the only one. However, according to Church teaching, you are most definitely choosing to “take your chances on the back end” if you choose to follow the path of the “cafeteria catholic”. That choice is between you and God and is none of my business, but please know that you’ve just officially been added to my prayer list.
I was raised a Catholic too. And I believe that being a good Catholic, is all about Catholicism.
What role does belief in the afterlife play in Christianity? Is this the primary reason for people becoming Christians?
NC – so you are proving my point that there are a variety of opinions within the Catholic Church. There have been multiple schisms as I recall – Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, the Lutheran revolution, the great schism between the Eastern and Western Holy Roman Empires, not to mention the bloody politics among the family controlled Italian city states like the Medici’s of Florence and Borgia’s of Venice seeking political power and wealth. Then there are the Marists, the Franciscans, Paulists and a list of other orders within the church, all with different variations of belief. I mean, if everyone who did not agree was a heretic, then heretics would constitute an overwhelming majority of the population of the Catholic church.
With all of this varied opinion with the Catholic Church currently and throughout 2,000 years of history, don’t you think it’s just a little presumptuous for you to pronounce your handful of details on a local blog and declare those who disagree “heretics”?
As for the recent Vatican leadership, I have no doubt they are doing everything they can to pull us right back to the Middle Ages. Then they continue to maintain the Catholic Church as a haven for child molesters!
John,
There are as many individual reasons for someone to become Christian as there are individuals – truly. If you speak to people who choose to become Christian, I think you’ll get a sense of that. Most of the folks I’ve heard talk about their experience, most of them choose Christianity as a response to some situation or event that they experienced. People commonly mention becoming aware at some point in their life that the Lord was leading them to know Him in some way. Sometimes, Christianity is a person’s response to their feeling prompted and called to faith by God somehow. But everyone’s story is as unique as they are so it really does vary.
As to your question about the afterlife…that answer will also depend to some extent on which denomination they belong to. Different denominations vary in their doctrine regarding death, the soul, the Resurrection of Jesus, Heaven, Hell, and the list goes on.
The afterlife is a pretty deep concept with multiple facets. If you have a specific question in regard to it, I can try to answer it from a Catholic viewpoint, which is all that I’m really familiar with. Just in passing, I can tell you a little something about it, but this will barely scratch the surface of what is a rich aspect of faith.
Here’s one excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church just to give us some sort of starting point, “Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on earth, death seems like the normal end of life. That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives: remembering our mortality helps us realize that we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment.”
Then, CCC includes a quote from Ecclesiasticus 12: 1,7 (sorry for the Latin Chapter titles but that’s how my Bibles list them)
“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth,…before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
Article 1011 of the CCC, “Therefore the Christian can experience a desire for death like St. Paul’s: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ.” (Philippians 1:23) He (the Christian) can transform his own death into an act of obedience and love towards the Father, after the example of Christ.”
For Catholics, and I believe several other denominations of Christians as well, the Christian view of death is really opposite the worldly view. In our world, death is not usually considered to be a positive experience, either for the person who died, or for the people left behind to grieve. For Catholics, death is desirable because of Christ. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1: 21)
Does that get at the aspect of death that you had in mind when you asked the question?
Thankyou, Newcomer. I take it that the answer may be Yes but Christians may answer this question in various ways rather than to just say Yes. From my perspective the answer may be Yes. This was on the mind of Darwin because his wife Emma was a devout Christian and it saddened him to disappoint her in this way. This was her purported wish, that they would be together in the afterlife. I spoke to my son, Drew, and mentioned the afterlife which I am sure surprised him as he is a devout Christian as is his wife Michelle (this was in April right after they had twins), and so is my daughter, Christina, with husband Brad. Brad is the pastor of The Gathering in Tulsa. I have the highest respect for all four of them because of the responsible way they conduct their lives. Christina was the daughter I talked about in “Friday Night”.