First of all, your post was well stated, but you’re fighting a losing battle to a certain degree because my long experience of covering this has it that, with some people, they either don’t have enough of a scientific background in the areas of biology, genetics, and physical anthropology, whereas the jump to conclusions about the ToE that simply are not there or only there as hypotheses.
Secondly, they often lack the theological background to understand the intricacies and controversies surrounding the actual writing of scripture, thus taking two viewpoints that simply are not supported by any evidence whatsoever: [complete] divine inspiration and inerrancy of the scriptures, for just two major examples. Therefore, to them, any questioning as to the literal veracity of almost any scriptural narrative is typically met with that anyone who does that is somehow trashing the Bible. To put it another way, they’ve basically turned the Bible into an idol of sorts.
About 30 years ago, I was at a theological conference representing my church whereas I ran across a Catholic theologian from China. Between meetings, he and i talked about the issue of biblical interpretation, and I’ll never forget his words, namely that he said all too many people think that the writers of scripture were literalistic-oriented historians writing objective history, which is what we would expect from someone writing today in western society, but the scriptures were written by traditional Asians and in a very subjective manner.
And he used the creation accounts (yes, there are two of them 1:1 and 2:4) as an example. He said, whereas a modern westerner would be inclined to ask “Did this really happen?”, the traditional Asian response would more likely be “What are they trying to tell me?”-- iow “the meaning behind the words”, which is a common phrase used within Jewish theological circles.
But what you and some others are doing here is very worthwhile in another way, namely to help those who may not be certain that there has actually been an ongoing evolution of species, so as to help them understand how and why we know that this has taken place, plus having them realize that there’s different ways of looking at some of the narratives, such as the use of allegory, metaphors, parables, and other forms of symbolism that are extensively used in traditional Jewish literature.
So, yes, I get frustrated at times, as I’m sure you do as well, but I think that it’s important for you and others to keep up the good work with your explanations.
