A Field Trip To the Creation Museum 1854
Lillith writes "The anti-evolution Creation Museum opened last weekend and Ars took a field trip there and took lots of pictures. 'There were posters explaining just how coal could be formed in a few weeks as opposed to over millions of years, and how rapidly the biblical flood would cover the earth, drowning all but a handful of living creatures. The flood plays a big part in the museum's attempt to explain away what we see as millions of years of natural processes. There was also an explanation as to why, with only one progenitor family, it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other.' (Myself, I liked the picture of the velociraptor grazing peacefully next to Eve, who is wearing some kind of dirndl, in the Garden of Eden.)" The reporter posted more photos from the museum on Flickr.
Problems (Score:5, Interesting)
But I have a big, big problem when it comes to the public actions of those believers. How many thousands of children and impressionable adults will never even have the chance to learn basic tenets of logic, reason and science after being indoctrinated by a "museum" like this and the cooing, gentle voice of its proponents, telling children stories about dinosaurs living next to adam and eve and jesus?
I don't know what to do. I fully believe in Voltaire's classic quotation on freedom of speech and belief. But in this instance, I find myself thoroughly unwilling to defend the "Creation Museum's" right to make up whatever crazy "facts" they want. It's the first time I find myself wanting to "think of the children" who may very well grow up into the willfully ignorant bible beaters that are founding this "museum."
And yet there I am, suddenly the intolerant monster I have never been able to stand. Yet I tremble to imagine a future dark ages in America, where real science -- the search for the evidence of the reality of the universe -- is stoned in the streets and systematically rubbed out.
Please: before you mod me into oblivion, I want to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject.
Just to present more than one side (Score:1, Interesting)
duckies! (Score:1, Interesting)
Do they have an explanation for the fish?
Re:Factually inacurate (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One Word (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Confused (Score:5, Interesting)
As such, they need a natural/unnatural dissater that affects the entire world.
Hence they calim that Noah's flood moved tons of dirt, buring lots and lots of bones much deaper than happens normally.
This is supposedly why we find animals buried with millions and millions years worth of dirt on top of them, instead of just the 40,000 thosand years of dirt that one would think.
Not so exclusive (Score:1, Interesting)
Looking at the schedule on their website.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, how comes... (Score:5, Interesting)
I once asked my biology teacher (Jesuit) about the Bible's recount of the Creation. Answer: "The Bible was written by men, and inspired by God. Do you think He could have gone to some Bronze Age guys and told them about atoms, mass-energy equivalence, aminoacids and DNA? That was Abraham and company He was talking to, not Mr Spock."
You folks need some of these Jesuits types, methinks.
Re:Confused (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole point of creationism and other philosophies like them is that they are a response to, and not a discovery of, new knowledge. The bible says that the flood happened. Therefore, when investigating the 'origins of life', that HAS TO BE accounted for. No option of how history happened can exclude that information. The entire museum takes all of the information in the bible and then attempts to map that information to a model which would allow the bible to be true. The bible is the yardstick to which all other information is measured.
Science, on the other hand, is progressing by asking questions, proposing models and ideas, and advancing those models and ideas through objective testing. If the model or idea is invalidated by the testing results, they are modified. The yardstick in this case is objective reality. If an idea is good enough, we can test its validity in the world.
I personally side with science/reality. I mean, I don't have much choice. Reality will continue to be what it is regardless of what I want to believe.
i think of it this way (Score:5, Interesting)
intolerance of intolerance is actually good
in fact, to meet a fundamentalist, and for them to call you intolerant, as in, hypocritically intolerant, is actually a badge of achievement
because you are not hypocritically intolerant if you are intolerant of them
because what they don't understand is that fundamentalism is true intolerance, and therefore to be intolerant of that is actually to strive in the direction of more tolerance
intolerant: "because you are not a true christian/ true muslim, i am better than you" =evil
intolerance of intolerance: "because you consider yourself better than me based on your religious bigotry, i am intolerant of you" =good
intolerance can be predicated on a number of characteristics of a person that is not intolerant in and of themselves: race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
intolerance can also be predicated on someone else's intolerance: not tolerating their intolerance of someone because of race, religion, seuxla orientation, etc.
so you can judge any tolerance in question as to what it is opposed to. and if it is opposed to some inherently nonintolerant feature of a person, it is true intolerance. but if it is opposed to an intolerant feature of the person themselves, it is not intolerance, it is a form of tolerance, because it directed against real intolerance
Matthew 6 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm a devout Christian who knows God exists (Score:1, Interesting)
The only two reasons that Evangelicals hate Evolution is that 1) Atheists have jumped on it as a means to disprove God (which doesn't mean much, since God is supernatural and Evolution is natural) and 2) To accept Evolution means that we have to take Genesis as an allegory, which people have done for 1800 or so years. The book correctly points out that Genesis HAS to be allegory, since Noah's Ark couldn't fit all of the different species (or animal waste, or food, etc..), and that Genesis 1 and 2 contridict one another: if you list the events of Genesis 1 (On day one, God created XYZ, Day two, etc...) and compare it to Genesis 2, they are different orders. Something that only has a dismissive answer for the new-earth creationists.
This book is great for those of us who believe in God, but don't believe we need to check out brains in at the church door.
Re:Problems (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's one thing to be tolerant of different people, their culture, and how they live their lives. But I think ideas are a different kind of beast. Not all ideas are equal, and are deserving of equal time. I don't think that tolerance for a person who believes differently from you needs to be equated with tolerance for their ideas. I have no problem with people who believe in creationism, but that doesn't mean that their beliefs should be given a free ride in the name of tolerance (or that questioning them necessarily means that you are being intolerant).
This is one of the biggest problems with the news media today. They've created a perception that both sides of any story deserve to be heard no matter what. In order to appear fair and unbiased, they try to find two sides to every story, but very often, one of those sides has no standing at all but it is still presented in an uncritical fashion, even though it doesn't deserve to be uttered in the same breath as the other. So we get left with a lot of tripe on the tv news that "lets the viewer decide" which side is right, all in the name of fairness, balance, and tolerance, which I personally think is complete BS.
Re:Factually inacurate (Score:3, Interesting)
Before eating from the tree of knowledge A&E had no knowledge of right and wrong (it was the tree who gave knowledge of good and evil, right?). And is if that wasn't enough Eve was led to her 'crime' by the snake (put there by guess who). Both these factors would in many civilised societys have led to a drop of charges (the last fact may only lead to a lighter sentence in many cases, but anyway) but not here. Oh no. Not only were A&E punished (for doing something, as said, they could not know was wrong or evil), all of their descendents for thousands of years to come were to be punished too.
Totally psychotich behaviour IMO.
Re:The US is looking more and more like the taliba (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at all the things that people buy into today, particularly in Europe, such as homeopathy, reflexology, chiropractics, magnet therapy, colonics, yadda yadda. How many people believe that irradiated strawberries are radioactive? How many people sit around worrying about the "toxins" in the body? How many people belive that Feng Shui increases the positive "energy" in a room?
Re:In 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't smack people around for believing in god, and I don't smack them around for smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day. I do, however, think both are without reason and terribly stupid things to do. I will probably spend the rest of my days criticizing both behaviors (my freedom, as it were), and doubt I will ever be bothered in the least about you crying into your pillow at night.
Religions promote falsehoods in that they foster environments of non-scientific thought, or more precisely, they foster lack of thought. This lack of thought is the antithesis of all human progress as we know it and we'd probably still sitting in our own shit if it prevailed. The same science that invented everything around you is the same science that shows the earth to be 4b years old, the universe to be upwards of 13+b years old, and so on. The foundations of the medicine you and your children take, the cancer treatments your mother takes, the emergency treatment given to your father when he got into an accident when he was 17, are of the science that show the bible to be wrong on many accounts.
Of course, the worst part is that now many people are starting to move from "literal" interpretations of the bible to more "story" based, or metaphorically based. This is the only thing that _could_ happen when underlying texts of a religion start failing, because had it not happened the religion would have vanished. (Sort of like the anthropic principle for religions?).
Re:Factually inacurate (Score:5, Interesting)
"Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness...I said in my heart with regard to the sons of men that God is testing them TO SHOW THEM THAT THEY ARE BUT BEASTS..."
So it's not that man was doing evil, it's that man was a beast. By eating of the tree of knowledge, they become enlightened enough to be shamed by their evidence of bestiality and wish to become clothed, thus taking on a godly aspect. And God found this a threat, because God is a jealous little bitch. (Note that the First Commandment is not "Don't murder" or "Be Nice" or anything like that; no, it's "Me, God, I'm a jealous bitch, and you better not step out!" But I digress.) The Serpent in the Garden is man's benefactor, cluing in Eve that God is a liar -- God couldn't care less if she and Adam died, rather God's concern was that they would become like him, which just wouldn't do. Genesis 3:4-5:
"But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil..."
And just to hammer the point home, the narrator has God repeat back the Serpent's words in verse 22, thus confirming the Serpent's shrewd and penetrating analysis:
"Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil..."
Anyhoo, all snickering at God's insecurities aside, the point here is that if you want to make any sense whatsoever out of Genesis, you need a firm grounding in Mesopotamian theology.
Re:Tourism Mecca? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I'm a devout Christian who knows God exists (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the reasons that [most] scientists (those who believe in the scientific method as the surest method to get as close as possible to truth) find certain religious people insufferable is that they attempt to assign their own meanings to words which already have plenty of meanings, thank you.
I understand that what you mean is "I believe that God exists", just as a scientist would say "I believe that quantum entanglement exists". But that's not what you're saying. And as long as you say what you don't mean, then you will be alienating those who do.
Others have said similar things to you, so this comment is somewhat redundant. But none of the other comments explain what the root problem is, and most of them are quite rude - which is fun, but not conducive to communication.
Its about personal preference (Score:3, Interesting)
Some people prefer not to do that.
Re:One Word (Score:4, Interesting)
Not really. As someone else mentioned, it was built by an Australian, but all it proves is that any individual or group of people (no matter how small) with enough money can build anything they want. Having been through the school system, I can assure you that the vast majority of American schools teach Evolution with a fervor that nearly assigns it as actual history (rather than theory), and if the Judeo-Christian concept of Creation is taught at all, it is presented as mythology alongside Roman, Greek, Chaldean and other creation mythology. What people choose to believe despite this education is not really in any way related to success or failure on the part of the schools. It is not the school's responsibility to form your opinions for you. It's their responsibility to provide you with information that allows you to form your own opinions and understand differing opinions of others. Surely you don't think that schools should punish children who refuse to acknowledge the authority of Evolution, do you? Yes, I know that there are a few schools who have been dabbling in "Intelligent Design", but despite the media attention this has received, it's not very widespread in the public school system.
Now, on a separate note, there _are_ serious problems with the American education system, but they are more related to attempts to "dumb down" material (New Math anyone?) and the inability to recognize how children learn best and work with their natural proclivities. They don't do a good job of teaching logic and critical thinking. They wait until the children are too old to start teaching foreign languages. They have replaced much of the classical literature with more modern trash. They no longer discipline unruly students properly, instead allowing them to become a distraction to students who are are interested in learning. But most of all, out of fear of a lawsuit from the parents, they allow students to matriculate without a satisfactory understanding of the basic prerequisites for the next grade.
Re:The US is looking more and more like the taliba (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The US is looking more and more like the taliba (Score:2, Interesting)
What would you have us do? Attack the museum with pitch forks and burn it down? It was created by private citizens. The down side to freedom of speeh is that alot of speech is stupid.
I'm parafrasing a quote that I can't remember the source of, but The way to combat bad ideas is not attempt to silence them but to make them irrelevant with better ideas.
Re:Some Quick Thoughts.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of Adam, Eve, & Incest (Score:3, Interesting)
Cain just killed his brother, Able and is confronted by God... (Genesis 4:14-15)
"Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." But the LORD said to him, "Not so [a] ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.
Now, riddle me this Batman - If Adam & Eve (his very own parents and family) are the ONLY other people who exist, who is going to see Cain, not recognize him and kill him? Why would God have to mark him to keep anyone else from killing him? Who is Cain worried about?
2 cents,
QueenB.
Re:Some Quick Thoughts.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Folks who follow zen gain key insights by meditating on contradictory or abstract puzzles.
perhaps the bible is an elaborate koan.
---
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: `The flag is moving.'
The other said: `The wind is moving.'
The sixth patriach happened to be passing by. He told them: `Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.'
---
Wind, flag, mind moves.
The same understanding.
When the mouth opens
All are wrong.
Re:In 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Kind of like in Idiocracy. [wikipedia.org] Whoever breeds the most becomes the most successful.
Re:Factually inacurate (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, God rested on the seventh day and established His sabbath for mankind (Mark 2:27) [crosswalk.com].
But... "Now Open 7 days a week" [creationmuseum.org]
A great museum, but they have a blind spot on this point.
Re:Problems (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Exclusiveness (Score:3, Interesting)
Europe has plenty of churches, cathedrals and the like
Cafeteria Christianity (Score:4, Interesting)
Cafeteria Christianity [wikipedia.org] is a pejorative term, used in general to describe individual Christians or Christian churches who selectively follow or believe in the doctrines of their religion, particularly what the Bible states as being the word or will of God. The use of the term suggests that the believers being so described are not as legitimate as other Christians. As cafeteria style means to pick-and-choose, as in choosing what food to purchase from a cafeteria line, the implication of the term "Cafeteria Christianity" is that the individual's professed religious belief is actually a proxy for their personal opinions rather than a genuine interpretation of or spiritual relationship with Christian doctrine or the teachings of Jesus. The selectivity implied may relate to the acceptance of Christian doctrines (such as creationism and the virgin birth of Jesus) or Biblical morality and ethical prohibitions (e.g. a rejection of homosexual acts and dietary laws) and is often associated with discussions concerning the applicability of Old Testament laws to Christians and the Sermon on the Mount.
The label "Cafeteria Christianity" has been used both to encourage more conformity with Biblical teachings and to advocate for less. When used by Conservative Christians, it is often an expression of a preference for a more literal and uniform approach to the Bible, rather than the carefree do-what-you-want theology preferred (as some see it) by Liberal Christians. The term in this sense thus expresses contempt for those viewed as lax in their Christianity.
It is also used by some Christians and skeptics to undermine the advocacy of particular Christian precepts by pointing out the supposed inconsistency of the advocate's position. The logic of such a usage is that someone who has rejected one supposed command of God has little room to argue that another such command should be followed. Thus these individuals observe that some Christians are more than willing to condemn certain behavior on Biblical grounds and yet do not themselves adhere to the Bible in its totality, i.e. a charge of hypocrisy. For an example, see An Atheist argument on Cafeteria Christianity. The counter argument is usually that, according to the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 (as well as some Paul's letters), Gentile Christians are not obliged to keep the entire Old Testament Law.
The term Cafeteria Catholic [wikipedia.org] (also à la carte Catholic or CINO = "Catholic In Name Only") is a pejorative or an insulting characterization and is used to describe people who dissent from certain teachings of the Roman Catholic Church while maintaining an identity as Catholics. These people are said to view the Church much like a "cafeteria", where one picks and chooses only those items that appeal to them. The term is typically applied to those who blatently dissent from selected Catholic moral teaching on issues such as abortion, contraception, premarital sex, and homosexuality. The term is less frequently applied to those who dissent from other Catholic moral teaching on issues such as social justice, capital punishment, or just war. Groups labeled as such include Call to Action, FutureChurch, DignityUSA, and Catholics for a Free Choice. Some of those who employ the term in their vocabulary accuse those who view the term pejoratively of believing dissent from the constant teaching of the Church to be a form of devoutness.
It should be noted that the this epithet is not created, used, or endorsed by official church teaching. However, the practice of selective adherence to the magisterium of the church has been repeatedly condemned through the teaching of the Popes:
* In a homily delivered on April 18, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI clarified the relation of dissent to faith:
Re:Some Quick Thoughts.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Adam and Eve got a bum deal. They were created and placed in paradise where they could have anything they want. Except two trees. So now we have a situation with an arbitrary restriction that serves NO function other than a reason for punishment. It's like putting a razorblade in a playpen and getting mad when the kid cuts himself on it. If you don't want the trees messed with, why are they there? Either they were placed specifically to give our young couple an opportunity to sin, or utter fuck-up on God's part.
Add in a disgruntled ex-employee that is keen to screw up your plans. But this is a being created by God, whose revolt was known, and whose interference with humankind was known in advance. Again, this is either intended design, or utter fuck-up. Not doing too well here.
So disgruntled ex-employee (that shouldn't exist in the first place) convinces the young couple to eat from the forbidden trees (that shouldn't be there in the first place) causing original sin and getting the ball rolling on 2000+ years of general suffering. Awesome.
Now, all evidence points to either entrapment, or royal fuck-up. There is no way to logically look at this situation without becoming very skeptical of either the competency or motivations of the creator.
Now for the GUILT TRIP. Okay, so we were manipulated into original sin. We are blamed for this event and carry the burden of that mistake. In fact, we are all condemned to eternal torment because of a mistake we were guided into. Fair huh? So God says: "Lemme make you a deal. I'm going to send my son to earth, and sacrifice him so that you all can be forgiven (By me) for your mistakes. (which I caused) Aren't I just the nicest deity in the world? You BETTER be thankful until the end of time for this."
Bonus round: According to Genesis, when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, they became aware of sin. This is interesting because it implies that acts of sin committed before awareness carried no responsibility or penalty. For example: before they ate from the tree, they ran aound naked and it was okay. After eating from the tree running around naked was not okay. It's not that they did no wrong before eating from the tree, they were simply ignorant that some of their actions were sins and were not held accountable. With awareness comes responsibility. So if other sinful behaviour, such as indecent exposure, was excused when they were ignorant, why was the act of eating from the tree not?
It is also interesting to note that Genesis does not state that they were cast out of the garden as punishment for their actions. It states that God cast them out in fear that they would eat from the tree of life, and gain immortality. Odd that an all-powerful being would be afraid of his creation.
One more contradiction: Supposedly we were created by God in his image. But God is infinite and immortal. We are neither. That's about as far from 'his image' as you can get, don't you think?
Re:Just to present more than one side (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's funny. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a pointless argument. I can give you any number of completely consistent, logical explanations as to why God acted in the way that many people believe he did. Some subset of the believers would agree with each explanation, and many others would say that each is wrong.
When I had the opportunity to teach my religion to many people who believed other things, I discovered a truth that, had I not been so arrogant, would have been obvious: There are very intelligent, very logical and very devoted believers in almost every faith, and there have been for centuries, and those people have worked out all of the logical kinks. The only way you can successfully attack a religion through logical argument is by having a discussion with someone who isn't well educated in their own belief system, and hasn't fully examined the implications and studied the explanations that were crafted by others. Of course, most believers do fall into the category of people who don't fully understand the teachings of their own religion, but if you manage to stump one such, all you've done is prove the inadequacy of that person's studies, you haven't addressed the issue of the religion at all.
In one of Feynman's books, he talks about a similar realization. He was dealing with a group of Jewish rabbinical students (I think that's the right term) and he thought he'd found a foolproof way to logically demonstrate the fallacy of their thinking. He failed utterly and then admitted rather sheepishly (in the book) that it was rather stupid of him to think that he could stump them. Almost any theology has *plenty* of flexibility to escape any logical trap you can construct, without violating any of its own precepts. Particularly since the centerpiece of the theology is usually presumed to be all-powerful and impossible for our limited minds to fully understand. That alone makes it possible for religion to accept even the most outlandish ideas about the nature of the universe
I, incidentally, am not a creationist and find their ideas laughable on several levels. That said, I wouldn't bother to argue it with them because the deciding factor in the debate would be which of us was more clever, not which of us was right.
If you're interested in what my explanations of what God's nature is, and why His actions are in fact consistent with a benevolent and loving God, and why I think my explanations are right, I'm more than happy to oblige. I can easily demolish the logic that led to the above, and you would find my explanation consistent, but probably not compelling. The whole concept of trying to logically prove or disprove religious ideas is unworkable. At best you'll shake some poor sap's faith, but only until he talks to someone else who will trivially bury all of your arguments.
Re:Seriously! Christians, step up and explain (Score:1, Interesting)
Adam and Eve did not eat and apple from the tree (Score:2, Interesting)
Lucifer is not evil, he was kicked out of the club because he wanted to give the true information about why and how earthlings came about and didnt agree with the Universal Father about keeping the truth from the earthlings, he felt that the mud people on earth had a right to know about there universal history. The great default was when Lucifer destroyed the wormwhole so that the Universal superbeings could no longer interfere with earth.
LOL
Re:A Christian viewpoint (Score:3, Interesting)
You could also consider Christians polytheistic: The father, son, and holy ghost.
Well that's what some Protestants say.
Beautiful post (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Evidence of atheist's cultural successes, pleas (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh, then note how the USSR was probably capable of putting a man on the moon within a few months of when the US finally did, just it was pointless by that time since we'd already done it and there wasn't much interesting science left to do there for the cost.
Not to mention the fact that communism is pretty much a religion all its own, asking you to take the state on faith instead of the church. That's why they didn't have religions - religion would compete with the state.
Anyway, it certainly wasn't a lack of god that made the USSR fail - if anything that saved them a bit of money on churches. It failed because communism fails to reward the individual and is prone to mass corruption orders of magnitude worse then competing systems. Not to mention that Communist China (with elements of capitalism in its economy so that it doesn't run out of money) is pretty much succeeding as the fastest growing economy in the world...
Now please tell me one way religion has benefited society that couldn't have happened in the absence of religion. Try the crusades on for size. Or the spanish inquisition. The massacre of South America (North America was mostly disease and arguably due to religion as well). September 11th. Radical Islam in general. The Dark Ages. You could try the red cross, but I'm afraid it is hardly the only charity - there are plenty of non-religious ones. Morality is genetic (see recent story about chimps exhibiting basic morality) and also enforced with social contract (i.e. gov't - jail is as effective as hell when there is no heaven). I suppose you could try to claim some churches are pretty, but I can't see them being worth all the trouble religion causes. Oh, and there is plenty of non-religious art that I like just fine (cheaper to make as well, I bet).
Re:A Christian viewpoint (Score:3, Interesting)
Sources of authority in the Roman Catholic Church have long included, in addition to scripture, what they called Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium (the authority of the church's hierarchy, headed by the Pope.) Martin Luther spearheaded the Protestant Reformation with the slogan "sola scriptura" ("by scripture alone") as a revolt against the structure and authority of the Catholic Church, and to some extent that slogan still resonates with some Protestant sects today, however, many mainstream Protestant denominations hold out other sources - for example, Anglicans state that their religion is based on "Scripture, Reason, and Tradition," a trio with which the great Medieval Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas would agree. Methodists get their Christianity from "Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience."
Metaphoric interpretations of the Bible are at least necessary in parts (was there literally a Good Samaritan or a Prodigal Son, or was Jesus just telling stories to illustrate his points?) Literal interpretation of the Bible is impossible in some areas (Did humans come about before or after the other animals? In the first creation story in Genesis 1, animals were made, then on day 6, man was made; in Genesis 2, man was made first, then the animals were made to keep him company. These are not both literally possible.) Throughout the history of the church, metaphorical interpretation of scripture has been used for various parts of the Bible. The only question is where is it appropriate to take this approach, and where is it appropriate to take the writings at face value? Just as the early members of the church had to decide which parts of Jewish tradition to keep, modern churches have to decide which parts of the Bible to take metaphorically, and which parts to take as a culturally-bound piece of history which has no bearing on today's society.
An example of rejecting parts of the Bible as culture-bound is the fact that Jesus was firmly opposed to divorce, but divorce had a very different social context in the first century as compared with today, leading many (but not all) modern denominations to approve of divorce in the right circumstances. The diversity of different Christian churches active today shows that there are a many judgment calls to be made, and that the Bible is not a simple book which can support only one interpretation.
Finally, and most importantly, there is more than one way for a story to be "true." There is literal truth, and there is metaphoric truth. There is undoubtedly at least some literal truth in the Bible. There isn't much question that there was a rabbi named Jesus who was executed for treason by the Roman army, for example. But in my to a large extent it's the metaphoric truth that makes the Bible significant to readers, not these historical details.