Why read the Bible literally: take two

Ah, you note that most wonderful of books. Few people I mention it too have heard of it. pity ...btwWhy do you picture John of Gaunt as an emaciated grandee?And has it occurred to you the Romans counted backwards? Why or why not?lfen

Who died? or better what died?An egg, which Christians assert was never fertilized by a sperm, or at least a sperm from another human begins dividing and developing into an organism which continues developement to adulthood when it ceases functioning as a consequence of the trauma of crucifixion.It is asserted that that organism was non functioning for three days although it is (at least prior to modern medical monitoring) possible for life signs to be undetectable for that period of time with a subsequent full recovery and then began functioning again with its heart beating, its cells metabolising and it began walking around but then in some fashion that physical body disappears from the face of the earth. That disappearance rather than showing a physical body isn't immortal is taken as proof that people will live forever somewhere else in a place called heaven.What is death? The irreversible dissolution of the intergrity of the molecules and chemical processes of the cells that constitute the neccesary functioning of an organism?lfen

Phillip,I understand your religion makes you very happy and you don't want science to make you unhappy so you believe what pleases you. Just out of curiousity as clueless science has after all measured the speed of light in a vacuum as well as studied the wave and particle behaviour of light as well as discovered that light is just one band of frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. The Bible to my knowledge has not given any clues to these phenomena.But my question to you is, if light is "good" and "the Lamb", does that mean the "good" and "the lamb" can't travel faster than 186,000 miles per second? Just consider me a clueless scientist quite amazed that some one prefers the ancient ignorance of the Bible to actual knowledge.lfen

I don't think God is a liar, but also I don't believe God wrote the Bible or any other book for that matter. People write books. Some people have writtens some books either believing they were speaking for God or just claiming to speak for God. I don't think the author of that passage was saying the Lamb was literally the light he saw when the sun, or moon was shining or fire was burning. I think it's clearly a metaphor anyway.What science did you study? What are your degrees in if you don't mind my asking?lfen

I'm not spending time these days here but I got an email notifification of your post. I've don't have time to try and find the places I've written about my beliefs. It would have been in different threads.Briefly, though not a Buddhist or Taoist my approach is more along those lines. One way of looking at the book issue is simply that language can't convey or model absolute reality. Books are used by humans for authority in ruling populations or groups, they claim their authority from God sometimes and that they are conveying in this language or that a message from God. I would say they may honestly believe that but at best they are conveying their understanding of God. The truth of reality lies beyond language which is something that the Buddha or Lao Tzu clearly understood.Now I go to bed! sweet dreams ...lfen