I’m going to try to dissect my understanding of modern Christianity here, so if I get something wrong please feel free to comment and correct me.
Christianity is based on the belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God / God Himself, that He came down to Earth 2000 years ago, had Himself persecuted and crucified so as to forgive the Original Sin, and all sin for that matter, for all of time, for all of humanity.
So to believe that you must believe the story of the Original Sin, why else would God feel the need to crucify Himself in front of His creation? (Ignoring the fact that if He’s infinitely forgiving He could just forgive without the whole need to sacrifice Himself).
The Original Sin (in my understanding) was Adam and Eve being tricked by the snake, who was Satan, (I guess God was looking the other way so that this could happen and He could be pissed at humanity for the next 2000 years until He killed Himself for us) in the Garden of Eden, to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that God had forbade them to eat from (even though being blissfully ignorant they couldn’t fathom the shit they’d get in – good trick there God). This is all Old Testament folklore.
So to sum up: to be a Christian one must believe the Original Sin story so that Jesus would have a reason to sacrifice himself. But to believe the story of Original Sin means that you have to believe in the Biblical creation story. The best reconciliation with science a Christian can have then is that of fundamentalist creationists, since how can you believe only a part of the creation story (that conveniently fits the rest of your belief system).
So to all Christians: are you all Young-Earth Creationists, or am I misunderstanding something here (please inform me)?
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You’re being too skeptical. God wasn’t looking the other way, he deliberately gave them the choice; they chose to commit sin. That is the thinking around it (like I said in my comment on a previous post, the sin is eating the fruit from the Tree, but that is sinful only because God said so).
Think about how many people call themselves Christians. It’d be ridiculous to expect them to all believe the same thing! (Another problem I have with religion.) There are various kinds, numerous that accept a 6000-year-old Earth and numerous that believe evolution to simply be God’s method (the latter, unlike the usual morons, tend to take the Bible metaphorically). It all depends on one’s own understanding of the Bible, which I’m afraid to see is uncommon to see, as almost all people have Christianity come to them and have the beliefs forced upon them; no one has the chance to think for themselves. The stories in the Bible, I think, are wonderful metaphors; many of them (though certainly not all!) are things I would want my kids to learn, but not for the wrong reasons.
For me, the stories are like any other: I either agree or disagree (from an ethical perspective, that is). For Christians, they agree because those stories are the very source of their ethics. What varies is the level of interpretation they use.
If you want to see some Christian views that aren’t retarded, take a look at Dr. Lamoureux’s site:
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/
I personally don’t believe in evolution, but if evolution were somehow found to be absolutely, authoritatively true, it wouldn’t shake my faith. So, no, Christians don’t need to believe in creation. Even the story of the Fall (Adam and Eve) could be metaphorical, though I don’t believe it to be so.
I find discussions about creation/evolution interesting, but they are not fundamental to my faith. Many, many Christians get caught up in a bunch of side issues (creation, homosexuality, etc) that are not fundamental to Christianity itself.
Adit’s right – the taking of the fruit was about giving us choice. He let us choose if we wanted to love and follow him, or if we wanted to live our own lives apart from him.
ps. About evolution – I don’t believe it’s been proven to be absolutely, authoritatively true – I think there are too many gaps still. But I admit that I don’t know a whole lot about why. I simply hear those things from other Christians. But, since it’s not fundamental to my faith, and belief in evolution, as far as I can tell, will not change my day-to-day life, I have not taken the time to investigate it further. If you can convince me otherwise, then I will look into it in more detail and see if I can validate what I have been told.
Also, I was planning on posting on this very issue on my blog (together with Stephen Thornhill), but I see you beat me to it. Maybe I still will.