Help With Biblical Interperetation

[KeithReynolds]

Same here, I grew up in that environment. I was even home schooled for 2 years using a christian school set. Haha.
When I started asking my parents questions is right around the time they decided I was evil.

[ToonaRockGuy]

I believe in Neo. The Matrix exists.

[lonewolf]

I believe in de-evolution...after all, are we not men? We are devo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUrT0M_XGZE&

[ZappasXWife]

I believe in Questions. Lots of them. All the time.

[Jasaoke]

The fact that the references in this thread are Seinfeld, George Carlin, and the West Wing speaks volumes about the validity of arguments here.

If you READ the bible (the whole thing, not just the parts that other people copy/paste online) you find out that Jesus (who was God) changed everything. Old Testament law no longer applies after Jesus.

Also, one must take into account the social context of historical texts. Owning a slave does not mean that you beat them and starve them. We tend to project our own ideas and ideals onto everything.

I've found the the biggest problem people have with the Bible, Christianity, or God in general, is that it makes you admit that you are a sinner. (I know I am)

[sstuckey]

Way to suck all the fun out of a funny post! LOL

[ToonaRockGuy]

Way to suck all the fun out of a funny post! LOL

...this.

[hicksjd9]

Way to defend a faith that is constantly under attack.

[RobTheDrummer]

Why don't people attack Islam? It's just as crazy as Christianity, and hell, they've been the ones blowing themselves up!

[ToonaRockGuy]

People do all the time, Rob. That's why Islam and Christiantity/Judaism have been pretty much at war for the past 2011 years. They attack each other.

[songsmith]

Yup. Christianity was ENFORCED in every part of the world there were Christians. The Crusades were simply Christian imperialism. Even here, the Native Americans were forced to accept Christianity and white culture. Evangelicals still attempt to force Christianity, by forcing the teaching of Intelligent Design, the war on the "War On Christmas," school vouchers, anti-choice measures, etc.
You can't talk about freedom and religion in the same sentence. One negates the other by definition.

[RobTheDrummer]

Yea, USED to be. Christians and Catholics don't use violence like back in the day. Islam is stuck in the middle ages in my opinion.

[Jasaoke]

Well, you can't hold an entire faith accountable for the actions of those who claim to believe. Christianity has never waged a war or fought a crusade, just as Islam has never hijacked a plane. Those things are done by people. And, yes, people do horrible things in the name of a "greater" power. (all the more reason it's foolish to put your faith in people)

and if you don't see the validity of intelligent design, I feel sorry for you.

[HurricaneBob]

I'm still waiting for Horus....

[lonewolf]

I'm still waiting for Horus....

Yep, I know what you mean Bobby. There aren't any around here. You go to Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh and there are some on every corner.






















(lol)

[songsmith]

and if you don't see the validity of intelligent design, I feel sorry for you.

Your sorrow isn't necessary. If you don't see the validity of science, I don't feel sorry, I just assume you see what you want to see, not necessarily what is. You're entitled to your faith, and so are Muslims. It's when you attempt to enforce it, in science class and elsewhere, that one should be sorry. I don't think you're forcing your faith, Jasaoke, but I choose freewill, and tangible evidence. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, and I think intelligent design (which is really a modern way of saying Christian Creationism) is simply the faithful's way of squaring what he's been told by his religion, with what science has confirmed to the contrary.
I believe, in the context of religion, Christians are too adamant about HOW we got here, when the emphasis of faith is more about the WHY we got here, and what we're supposed to do now. Remember, the world was once flat, and anyone who said differently was burned at the stake, or imprisoned... not at the hands of God, but at the hands of men who claimed to speak for God. God obviously did not smite people for wanting to know the reality, it was the men who wanted to control reality.

[Jasaoke]

Actually, there is no such thing as 'Christian Creationism'. Christ (Christianity) did not come until well after creation. One is not necessary for the other

And faith is already enforced in science class, it's just faith in science. If you are going to rely on "tangible evidence", I have to ask what that is. I hear stories all the time from evolutionists about fruit flies adapting, but this in no way indicates that all life on earth evolved from a primordial soup.

I, too, choose free will, and as a free thinker evolution does not add up. The basic structures of life are irreducibly complex: they cannot be simplified without being useless. The basic idea is that you need a WHOLE cell in order for it to live and reproduce.

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." -Charles Darwin, from the Origin of the Species

[bassist_25]

And faith is already enforced in science class, it's just faith in science.

You can call it faith, but it's a qualitatively different type of faith than religious or spiritual faith. It's a faith based upon probabilism due to empirically verifiable phenomenon. If a scientist conducts a controlled study, reports those findings, and then other scientists are able to replicate said findings, then I can reasonble have faith that the phenomenon is real. It's something that's falsifiable. Faith in an afterlife or deity is not falsfiable nor empirically verifiable...at least until we pass over...and then only if we were right along can we contemplate that.

The basic structures of life are irreducibly complex: they cannot be simplified without being useless. The basic idea is that you need a WHOLE cell in order for it to live and reproduce.

So you're saying that just because principles of reductionism cannot be applied, then ergo, evolutionary theory is invalid? I've never been a fan of The Watchmaker's Argument, because it's largely been invalidated by systems theory that state complex systems do have a "natural" tendency to self-align. Of course, we get into the issue of first causes, which I know some physics that I can't even begin to wrap my head around is dealing with.

Don't get me wrong - I believe in God. But as you can probably guess from this post, I'm not a gnostic. *lol*

P.s. Not attacking you, just having some debate.

[MistValkyrie]

You can call it faith, but it's a qualitatively different type of faith than religious or spiritual faith. It's a faith based upon probabilism due to empirically verifiable phenomenon. If a scientist conducts a controlled study, reports those findings, and then other scientists are able to replicate said findings, then I can reasonble have faith that the phenomenon is real. It's something that's falsifiable. Faith in an afterlife or deity is not falsfiable nor empirically verifiable...at least until we pass over...and then only if we were right along can we contemplate that.

This is the best I have ever heard this summed up. Excellent Mr. Rainey!

[Jasaoke]

Have you ever made a paper airplane?

Even with a bit of trial and error, and step-by-step instructions from the World Champion Paper Airplane Engineer, you might get a few hundred feet of flight. If you're really good, you could probably set a controlled turn. Now, to make that happen, you need paper (which is a whole design set unto itself), you need to methodically and accurately fold (design) it, and you need to add energy (appropriately). I could design controlled scientific experiments to show that naturally occurring phenomenon can produce any of these elements necessary for the plane to fly, and others could verify this. It is quite possible that strong winds and flying debris could slice a tree paper-thin. Rain could soak the slice and make it plyable. Given enough time, one of these paper slices COULD be formed into a working airplane. But possibility coupled with possibility does not make probability. If I brought the plane before the scientists and claimed that it had been produced through random, natural phenomenon...um...

But then evolution would have us believe that birds did just that. Birds can fly much better than our paper airplane, find their own food, they can self-replicate, they know when to migrate, can navigate over tremendous distances, they are wonderful living machines of highly specialized parts that would be quick meals if all of these things didn't come together just as they are.

[bassist_25]

Have you ever made a paper airplane?

Even with a bit of trial and error, and step-by-step instructions from the World Champion Paper Airplane Engineer, you might get a few hundred feet of flight. If you're really good, you could probably set a controlled turn. Now, to make that happen, you need paper (which is a whole design set unto itself), you need to methodically and accurately fold (design) it, and you need to add energy (appropriately). I could design controlled scientific experiments to show that naturally occurring phenomenon can produce any of these elements necessary for the plane to fly, and others could verify this. It is quite possible that strong winds and flying debris could slice a tree paper-thin. Rain could soak the slice and make it plyable. Given enough time, one of these paper slices COULD be formed into a working airplane. But possibility coupled with possibility does not make probability.

I don't know if I quite understand your argument. You originally said that science is based on faith, and I said that faith is informed by empiricism and probabalism. Probability is statistical. High correlations are needed to get published in physical science journals. Social science journals generally require p values of .05 or lower. Random events like rain making a tree into a plane is not something scientists are going to be interested in as far as controlled studies are concerned. It may be of interest as a post-hoc investigation.

If I brought the plane before the scientists and claimed that it had been produced through random, natural phenomenon...um...

But then evolution would have us believe that birds did just that. Birds can fly much better than our paper airplane, find their own food, they can self-replicate, they know when to migrate, can navigate over tremendous distances, they are wonderful living machines of highly specialized parts that would be quick meals if all of these things didn't come together just as they are.

I quote these two parts together because I think you may be assuming that everything has a teleological purpose. The plane does have a teleological purpose. Is was built and designed to be a flying machine. Natural selection doesn't work on a teleological framework. Organisms don't evolve with the purpose of survival. They survive because they have adaptations that make them fit for their environments. I do agree that there are issues with evolution - but I think those issues are tautological in nature, not necessarily teleological.

Again, I think you're discounting a lot of systems theory here they may answer questions about complexity and self-alignment.

[hicksjd9]

Science is clearly based on faith (scientists' word for faith is "theory"--theories are simply attempts by intelligent people trying to make meaning and connections out of the facts with which they are presented). If scientists simply presented the facts, then I would be the first to say that science is infallible (assuming that the scientists' "faith" in the accuracy of their instruments of measurement is well-placed).

The problem is that scientists interpret those facts. At that point, science loses the high ground of infallibility. Once humans try to make sense of the facts, they muddy them up with their own bias and limited understanding of the physical world.

I'm not saying that interpretation is a bad thing, in fact, I believe the opposite. If scientists simply presented the facts and pulled no meaning from them, science would go nowhere. There would be nothing to build on. They must have faith that their interpretations are correct, and these interpretations are the basis for all further progress. Simply put, all scientific progress is based on faith. It is this caveat that makes science lose the "moral" high ground. At this point, it shares quite a bit more in common with its trailerpark cousin "religion" than it would care to admit.

The problem with an unshakable faith in science is that commonly accepted scientific theories are often disproved over the course of time. We know this as a paradigm shift. Flat world? Sun revolving around earth? Spontaneous generation? These were espoused by the top scientists of their day. These are old examples, but there are several examples of paradigm shifts from the past century.

When the paradigm shifts, it is often the scientific community that balks the hardest against the change even when they are presented with the cold, hard empirical facts. It's hard to change your beliefs, whether they are religious OR scientific.

As human beings, E-VER-Y-THING that we do in this life is based on faith. The stock market/economy is based on faith, our interactions with each other are based on faith, our science is based on faith.

If you think that science is somehow the "Truth," (with a capital T) then you are sadly mistaken, because scientific facts can be interpreted differently based on the beholder. And if you are putting your faith in the "Truth" of science, like it is some infallible source of perfection, then you will be sorely disappointed when your favorite paradigm shifts.

The first step to understanding critical thinking (on which all of our interactions are based) is that when presented with the same set of facts, two experts can interpret them in diametrically opposed ways. Scientists do the best they can with the facts, but today's science is far from infallible. I wouldn't put all of your eggs in that basket.

We can talk about Christianity's dirty past, but how about science's dirty past? Wondering womb? 19th and early to mid 20th century asylums? Leeches? Lobotomies? Forced sterilization? Nazi doctors? Feel free to do some keyword searches. I'd like to see numbers on deaths related to science vs. religion.

Hey, if it makes you feel good to believe that science is perfect, and if that "knowledge" makes you feel warm and fuzzy and that all is right with the world, then good for you. Do some back patting with your buddies who feel the same way and call it a day. At least you don't have to tithe or go to inconvenient weekly social gatherings. You go to your chuch and I'll go to mine, but calling my faith ugly is a bit funny when yours has every bit as many contradictions in its history and countless deaths under its belt.

Pot. Meet Kettle.

[songsmith]

Have you ever made a paper airplane?

.

If you gave me a self-replicating, self-preserving airplane and a billion years, I bet it could evolve to do all those things. You have your faith, and it's creation-story... all faiths have a creation story. You can no more prove yours than they can theirs. That's what faith is, the belief in something that can't be known, not the rationalization of it. It doesn't need reckoning against what is really observed... but science does. Teaching faith in science class makes no more sense than teaching science in Sunday School. You can describe the world as "flat in a very circular way," but science says otherwise.

[sstuckey]

Ya'll do realize the intention of this guy's thread was to give you a chuckle right?

[lonewolf]

yes, Steve is right, you are all going off topic, lol.