Ralph Carabetta wrote:
>What if you believe in the bible as allegory? Perhaps the bible was not
>intended to be taken literally but metaphorically. Isn't it possible to

Sure, then the theory of evolution could be a part of it.  But I was
referring to people that believe the entire bible as fact.

>believe in the basic tenets of the bible and still be a good Christian,
>or a God-fearing individual?

Well, to speak for myself, I don't believe the entire bible to be fact
nor allegory (somewhere in between), but I consider myself a God-fearing
individual.

JoAnn Betten wrote:
>i didn't evolve to eat this way, i was *created* to eat this way.
>how's that?

Kathleen Lunson wrote:
>I believe we were created to eat this way, which is why our
>sytems respond so well to it.  I don't think we were given dominion
over the
>animals so that we could train them for circus acts.

No, so we can eat them!  I agree.  Although it is a bit strange that a
God that created us and set us up as an agricultural society would have
made us so that grains, beans, etc.  would be carcinogenic to us.  I
mean, there's even a recipe for making bread in Ezekiel!

I respect everyone's beliefs, but for me I have a hard time believing
that we've only been on this earth a few thousand years. I have a strong
gut feeling about this evolution thing, it really makes a lot of sense
to me, and there does seem to be scientific evidence to back it up.  At
the same time I have a strong belief in God and Christ. And more and
more, scientific evidence is proving that many of the historic events in
the bible (in particular the old testament) did occur, and many places
depicted in the bible did exist.    So my opinion on this matter is,
either:  the creation act occured back much earlier in time, which would
have allowed evolution to have taken place, or: the act of creation
depicted in the bible is in fact only allegorical. I can live with
either option.

Have a good day,
Gary