I have read Augustine’s book before, but it’s been a while. I will certainly revisit.
This, I feel, demands some clarification that I’m sure is going to be met with plenty of resistance. The difference here seems to be the difference between philosophy and science.
Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.
Science is like being in a dark room looking for a black cat with a flashlight.
While I certainly understand and don’t begrudge yours and others reliance on the “best theologians” or other forefathers of the church and the like, there’s something significant we have that they never did. Context. An actual overall view of the historical landscape and developments happening around the events being described.
These philosophical musings, while potentially insightful or thought-provoking, can only really rely on the text as if playing out in a vacuum. The only ‘truths’ to be gleaned have no basis in the context of the environment these events are playing out in.
What I’m describing is what’s been observed in the merging of text and history. If you look to the past to find agreeance with what I’m saying you’re most likely not going to find it, not because it is wrong, but because what I’m talking about those people of the past were not privy to. They simply did not have access to the accumulated knowledge we have now.
It’s like trying to grasp the particulars of Gone with the Wind with no knowledge of the civil war. There’s much to be misunderstood or missed completely.
What I found potentially exciting about this site is that it’s populated with people willing to break away from old ways of thinking and truly re-evaluate the texts in the light of modern knowledge. This is one of my issues with organized religion. It’s the insistence to rely on the past and not embrace the progress of knowledge. This, in my opinion, arrests development. The amount of resistance I’ve been met with since was something I thought discussions here would finally be free of. Or, at least, not as hampered by.
At this point I wonder how this group ever considered alternate takes on the Adam story at all.