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Author Topic:   Why read the Bible literally: take two
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 7 of 306 (220211)
06-27-2005 7:26 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Percy
06-27-2005 4:28 PM


Percy writes:
You've got a talking serpent, a global flood, a wife of salt and a man living in a fish for three days, and I'm asking you by what intellectual exercise you conclude that such fairy tale events really happened.
Just a quick point. I happen to believe that the stories that you mentioned are allegorical. They are however in the Bible which forms a part of the basis for the Christian faith. Many believe that these Bible stories are to be taken literally which when compared to the miracle of creation in the first place isn't that big a stretch.
The question is, if you are anything but an Atheist, did God choose to perform these miracles in this fashion or not. To refer to them as fairy tales does absolutely nothing to advance the discussion. Debate by ridicule isn't going to take us very far.
This message has been edited by GDR, 06-27-2005 04:27 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Percy, posted 06-27-2005 4:28 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by jar, posted 06-27-2005 7:44 PM GDR has replied
 Message 11 by Percy, posted 06-28-2005 8:02 AM GDR has replied

GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 10 of 306 (220227)
06-27-2005 8:56 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by jar
06-27-2005 7:44 PM


jar writes:
As a Christian I see no reason to consider them more than educational fables, the same as the Story of Hamelin.
I agree. Educational fables, parables, metaphors all sound fine. I believe that the stories represent a truth that is far greater than the literal truth.
My problem is when the term fairy tale is used. It is unnecessarily insulting and doesn't lead to any kind of useful dialogue.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by jar, posted 06-27-2005 7:44 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by jar, posted 06-28-2005 12:01 PM GDR has not replied

GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 13 of 306 (220405)
06-28-2005 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Percy
06-28-2005 8:02 AM


I understand your point, but put yourself in the shoes of a literalist. How would you feel if the central belief in your life was labeled a fairy tale; would you feel like continuing a constructive dialogue?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Percy, posted 06-28-2005 8:02 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by Brian, posted 06-28-2005 11:56 AM GDR has not replied
 Message 16 by Percy, posted 06-28-2005 1:32 PM GDR has replied

GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 17 of 306 (220497)
06-28-2005 2:11 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Percy
06-28-2005 1:32 PM


Percy writes:
I think you have to keep the context in mind. I would never call someone's religious beliefs fairy tales. I've said to Faith several times that beliefs accepted on faith do not require objective real-world support. But this only upsets Faith (as does almost everything else), and she persists in claiming that she can provide a rational argument for believing the stories really happened. At that point she has stepped into the real world where, as far as anyone can tell, talking animals appear only in cartoons.
I still maintain that language that is less likely to cause offence would be preferable.
You make the statement that animals don't talk in the real world. I think that your statement would be more correct if you were to say that animals don't talk in the natural world.
Although I personally have come to the conclusion that the stories are metaphorical, I cannot prove that an intelligence that is capable of creating this universe is not able to cause intelligent words to come from the mouth of an animal if He so desired.
For me the question is about how does God interact with the physical world. Obviously our own life experiences are going to play a role in our own conclusions. Not having had, or known someone, who has had long conversations with their pet Iguana, (I have been caught talking to my dog ), I am very sceptical about the literacy of the Bible stories. I have come to one conclusion and Faith has come to another. None of us can categorically say what an Intelligence that is so far beyond us that He could create this universe from nothing, can, has, or will do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Percy, posted 06-28-2005 1:32 PM Percy has replied

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 Message 20 by Percy, posted 06-28-2005 4:53 PM GDR has not replied

GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 19 of 306 (220527)
06-28-2005 3:46 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Brian
06-28-2005 2:15 PM


Brian writes:
I think it is fine and dandy to say that a being who can create the universe could quite easily do everything in the Bible. The problem here though is that no one has proven that this entity exists in the first pace to create anything.
It is a bit like Paley's design argument, which falls apart when we ask who designed the designer.
Paley made a good argument. Dawkins made a good argument that it didn't prove the existence of God. However just because Paley was wrong it using his design argument as absolute proof, it does not mean that he was so wrong that the logic of there being a designer was wrong.
The thing is Brian, you are only accepting scientific evidence. I agree that is the predominate western approach to truth. There is however the philosophical. I contend that there is considerable philosophical evidence for the existence of a metaphysical creator. You may not accept this as evidence, but I contend that our consciousness is strong philosophical evidence of the existence of God. I suggest that those who reject that evidence are somewhat comparable to a YEC rejecting the evidence for evolution.
I believe that both of these examples, (for evolution and for God), are based on solid reasoning but I suggest that you have people on the extremes of both sides who reject the evidence because the evidence is incompatible with there beliefs.
Science is wonderful and fascinating and it does a great job of finding out the how's of our universe but it cannot deal with the why's. It is much more difficult to assess the success of the Philosophers and Theologians, as they can't conduct empirical tests. I am inclined to believe that they have made progress, and that at the very least we have to assign to them the why's of creation.
IMHO

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Brian, posted 06-28-2005 2:15 PM Brian has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Brian, posted 06-29-2005 7:36 AM GDR has replied

GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 27 of 306 (220650)
06-29-2005 10:17 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by Brian
06-29-2005 7:36 AM


This is an interesting story from the Harvard Gazette about a man with views on what we are discussing.
Harvard Gazette writes:
Laser's inventor predicts meeting of science, religion
Townes sees more parallels than disparities
By Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office
Nobel laureate and laser inventor Charles H. Townes told a packed Science Center lecture hall Monday (June 13) that science and religion are parallel, rather than antagonistic, disciplines and that he sees them ultimately coming together.
"I look at science and religion as quite parallel, much more similar than most people think and that in the long run, they must converge," Townes said in his 40-minute talk.
Townes' speech, "Logic and Mystery in Science and Religion," coincided with a weeklong conference at Harvard on recent advances by a new astronomical facility, the Submillimeter Array on the slopes of Hawaii's highest volcano, Mauna Kea.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) Director Charles Alcock said that Townes was in Cambridge to deliver technical talks for the conference and was asked to address the more general topic in a public lecture.
The Submillimeter Array examines light at wavelengths invisible to the human eye, combining signals from eight 6-meter antennas to gather very high-resolution images of the universe.
The array has been able to observe objects billions of light years away, allowing it to essentially look back in time. It has already helped identify distant, dusty galaxies too faint for the Hubble Space Telescope to see clearly, and to show that they are undergoing bursts of star formation.
Townes: "It's a fantastically specialized universe..."
The talk was sponsored by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and by the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
In describing religion and science as parallel, Townes rejected the often hostile relationship between the two, evidenced today in the ongoing battle over teaching evolution in schools and by religious objections to certain scientific procedures, such as stem cell research.
Instead, Townes said, science and religion are both efforts to understand the universe. Science seeks to understand how the universe works and how humans work, while religion is an attempt to understand the meaning and purpose of the universe and of humankind, which requires an understanding of their workings.
Both deal with large, unproved mysteries, and operate on the best knowledge available today. Faith is a central tenet of religion, but Townes said a certain amount of faith is also shown by scientists, applying theories that they know have shortcomings in an effort to understand the vast amount of the universe that remains unknown.
"We accept that we just don't understand at this moment and that we'll figure it out some day," Townes said, adding that we shouldn't be afraid of new ideas to explain the things we don't understand. "I think it's important for us to recognize that we don't understand everything."
Townes won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) "for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle."
Born in 1915, Townes was described as "one of the founding fathers of radio-astronomy" by Donald H. Menzel Professor of Astrophysics James Moran, who introduced the talk. Townes also pushed to have investigators explore the interstellar medium, looking for molecules floating between stars. Today, Moran said, more than 128 molecules have been identified.
Townes first addressed the topic of science and religion in the 1950s, when he moved from Bell Labs to Columbia University and delivered a talk on the subject at a local church. The text of the talk was published by publications at IBM and MIT, gaining widespread attention.
Townes said at the beginning of his speech that it presented his own views and that not everyone would agree with them. He focused his attention on how little is known about the physical world, saying that among the unknowns it is possible that science and religion are describing the same thing.
Among the parallels cited in his talk, Townes said that science has proven that in the big bang, there was a "creation," though not one described in creation stories such as the Bible. He also said that there's very little wiggle room in the laws of nature in order to allow life to arise, which prompts questions of why they are the way they are. Questions about free will, the nature of consciousness, the forces that caused the big bang - or even what came before the big bang, highlight the vastness of what humans don't know about the universe - whether from a religious or scientific standpoint, Townes said.
"Scientists, especially physicists, recognize that this is a very special world. Things have to be almost exactly as they are in order for us to exist," Townes said. "It's a fantastically specialized universe, but how in the world did it happen?"
This message has been edited by GDR, 06-29-2005 07:20 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Brian, posted 06-29-2005 7:36 AM Brian has not replied

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