Fundamental and Liberal Christians.

Robin Burkhalter, Kristin Meadows, Brian Dill

Fundamental Christianity and the more liberal or mainstream Christianity divide when it comes to the belief in how and when the the world was created.

A Fundamentalist would likely point to the Bible for his answer, referring to Genesis and its account of all humankind having a common ancestry in the the personages of Adam and Eve. Since the entire human race began with them, it is understandable that the many different culture's various accounts of history are similar. Also, because the story was passed down orally from generation to generation, it is safe to assume that, over time, some aspects of the story of Creation were either distorted and recreated, or lost altogether.

On the other hand, a more liberal Christian would more than likely side with the scientific account of the origins of the world and mankind. Some liberalists believe that everything began with God, though not necessarily in the order or according to the timeline given in the Book of Genesis. There is open criticism in this camp of the fundamentalist's literal interpretation of the Creation story - the majority believing the account in Genesis as only a philosophical allegory written by Moses to give some sort of explanation as to how God created everything. A smaller minority believe this to be a myth fabricated by the Levitical priest in order to control the Jewish people. Still others believe that the story was written more in order to establish belief in polytheism (one God creating the world), and combat the contrary belief in creation by multiple gods.

Whatever their opinions as to the origins of the story, liberalists all seem to agree that the earth and all that's in it was not created in a seven day period, but rather through the evolutionary process. Their explanation as to the similarities in the many different culture's creation accounts would be more in line with scientific reasoning. This scientific approach of explaining the common "variations of the same theme" is based on a theory put forth by Carl Jung called "Collective Unconscious". In short, it is a hypothesis that there is a part of our brain that seems to retain certain information that is commonly shared by all humans. This information is somehow passed along from generation to generation, accounting for many different cultures similarities - ranging from the formation of social orders to the need for religion.

We believe, personally, that if God is the author of science, that the two must one day agree. We also think that as we receive more information about the world around us that we will eventually have to believe in either one or the other in accordance with the evidence.

Whether scientific belief or religious belief can be reconciled is another thing altogether. Most evolutionists do not want to believe in a God, whereas a religious person would rather believe there is one. One may seem to have more evidence than the other, but people usually see what they want to see.

At odds though they may be, we do believe that they both can and have contributed to the good of society.