| It is. A priest who wanted to maintain an inerrant Bible would probably go that route, but one who wanted to be honest about it would probably admit that its just an error. |
I don't think "honest" is the right word, when a priest compromises so much of what scripture says, to the point where he places more trust in the words of men than in the word of God.
| How does typing about what priests might say provide evidence for me being programmed? That line doesn't fit there at all. Did you throw that in there later, or something? |
Typing that the Bible is wrong is what provides me evidence that you may have been programed. It fits.
| Absolutely. It'd be silly to just assume that it [the Bible] got everything right and then not ever bother checking to make sure. |
Once Christianity is reduced so far that it's subject to scientific approval by humans, (prohibited at several places in the Bible) then there's no source of absolute truth, because human opinions of just what's right about it and what's wrong about it are never going to agree, especially when enthusiastic atheists are part of the process.
| marc9000 writes: They didn't find this in the Bible of course. I"m also wondering where non-Bible believing Christians get their information about Christianity, if not from the Bible. |
From out in the real world. |
That's what Catholic-scientist Kenneth Miller says. On page 258 of his book "Finding Darwin's God", he says this;
quote:
"...only those who embrace the scientific reality of evolution are adequately prepared to give God the credit and the power He truly deserves."
He's actually claiming that nature shows us more about God than the word of God does, yet atheist scientists like Dawkins, Stenger, and many others claim that the same nature that Miller studies shows us that there is no God. It's logical that these two views would really be at odds with each other, that there would be a flurry of debate between these two beliefs. Is there, of course not, these two views UNITE against some political views of creationism, even though neither of them have complete scientific explanations for the origins of life. If Miller (and you) have the most basic knowledge of the seriousness of the conflict between science and religion, the importance of what God (through the teachings of Jesus) expects his followers to do concerning setting examples, spreading his word, and opposing Satan, then your zeal for downplaying the importance of scripture just doesn't pass the smell test.
| We can test the information in the Bible to find out what works and what doesn't. Helping others works. Selling all your stuff doesn't. You'll even find Bible-believing Christians that figured out that they aren't going to make it very long if they get rid of all their stuff. So they don't. |
The "sell all your stuff" reference was Jesus talking to ONE man, a way of showing that even following the 10 commandments doesn't make a person perfect. It wasn't a requirement of all people in all situations.
There is a lot of difference in interpreting scripture to determine the best way to behave individually, versus putting actual Biblical history "to the test" (Matthew 4: v7)
| Certainly an almighty God can do all sorts of "impossible" things. When the Bible says that God was directly involved in a particular miracle, I have no problem going along with the story. |
Different non-Biblical Christians seem to have different problems about what to believe, with only nature as their guide, militant atheists always seem to be anxious to help them.
| But in this particular case with Jacob, not only is God absent from direct involvement, the story tells us why the outcome was achieved: its a purely materialistic explanation where the stripes on the wood are what caused the offspring to be different. That's why its an interesting case. If you want to say that God was involved, then the story is misleading. If you don't want to say that God was involved, then the explanation in the story is just plain wrong. |
Of course he was involved - if you think that's misleading, it's because you're making the mistake of putting it to a secular test. Science sometimes thinks too highly of itself.
| No, but doing things to the world leaves behind evidence. Your claim about what God did would have left evidence of it happening. The only other option is God purposefully hiding it from us. And that is deception. |
So humans have the authority to dictate to God what he reveals to us? Maybe this is something that you and Miller find in nature, but you won't find it in the nature and personality of God, which is revealed to us in scripture.
| marc9000 writes: So you have a requirement of God that he makes sure not to hide anything from us? Where does this requirement come from? |
From the idea that he's generally a pretty good guy. A guy that wouldn't lie to us about what he's having us see. |
His one perfect plan is so far above and beyond human understanding, we can't even come close to judging his actions that are leading to it. That's something that I'd say even Catholics would agree with Protestants on.
| I think people have put to much weight into his "authorship". An all-knowing God, who was also honest, wouldn't tell us that you can colorize your goats by making stripes on wood and having them mate in front of it. |
That's as far as we can go on it, I just think things were different in Biblical times.
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