Common Ground?: Deep Faith and Deep Science

This actually supports what I was saying, in that they misread their scriptures, finding the life in them in the wrong place, rather than in Jesus. Modern Pharisees continue to expect to find salvation in keeping their version of the law rather than in Jesus.Jesus' primary objection to the Pharisees was their adding on their own traditions to the Law, heaping burdens on the people even they themselves couldn't keep. They were NOT true to the scriptures, at the very least missing the spirit for the letter, but more often adding convoluted demands to it that could drive a person batty. They were following their Oral Law which added these extraneous things to the simple scripture, which you can still see in orthodox Jewish communities today, as that Oral Law was later written down as the Talmud, and the Jews still take it as equal to scripture. Where science opposes God, faith sides with God. Seems to me you're the literalist. No definition to be found says it means a hard object. It refers to the heavens or the sky, and to an "apparent surface" at its most similar to your claim. Apparent. You are being the Pharisee in this literal reading. Q did not define the deep faith side, you are injecting your own opinion into it. And I disagree completely. He certainly IS the Truth and being God and the Word of God certainly can protect the written word about Himself and his creation from the kinds of idiotic corruptions you are willing to believe about it.No, you are trusting in the wisdom of men against Him, TL, just as He preached against doing. Faith trusts Him and His word even when it costs us our reputation. You are denigrating His word when you refuse to take it as written and prefer the thoughts of mere human beings instead, whereas He has magnified His word: "You have magnified Your word above Your name" (psalm 138:2).

Iano does too.(though I'm not sure if thats because I really do or I fear a tongue lashing like I once got off you )

Even though I'm not a believer, there is a sense in which I tend to feel more as iano feels. I have a tendency to be indifferent to these global problems. Perhaps this relates to the "two cultures."

I gave my bro a tongue lashing? Where? Please link.

This isn't the place to debate this issue, but I can't let you say "no definition to be found say..." when that simply is not true. It is a controversy, admittedly, with literalists doing their best to argue that it means "expansion," while almost everyone else says it means a hard object. Raqiyah, rendered firmament or expanse, is from raqa, which means to pound out a metal object. (see 7549 and 7554 at http://www.sacrednamebible.com/kjvstrongs/STRHEB75.htm, which got their definitions from Strong's).Answers in Genesis argues against this definition, but by arguing against it, they establish that there is something to argue against, which proves your "no definition to be found" isn't true. They quote "In particular, Seely has published two papers in the Westminster Theological Journal claiming that the Bible teaches that there is a solid dome above the earth." So, obviously the Westminster Theological Journal feels fine publishing that definition.My "Online Bible," which I got free off the internet at http://www.onlinebible.com gives a Strong's definition for that word that begins with "extended surface (solid)..." Those are the first three English words in the definition.You are welcome to stick to the other definition. I admit many Christians argue that this word is expanse, not solid object, and you can find that in many Christian lexicons. I was talking about myself, and that word is among the many reasons honesty compels me not to be a literalist.My topic, however, was not whether literalism is accurate, but that it is literalists who argue against science, not other people of faith, and thus it is Biblical literalism vs. science, not faith vs. science, because Biblical literalists are a very small subset of those with faith, and even deep faith, in God.

I looked firmament up on half a dozen googled online dictionaries, not in a Christian source. Considering the apparent differences between the pre-flood climate and that afterward, the term may well have a more justified literal meaning then than later, I don't know, but what it was originally understood to mean does not have to be the all-time understanding of it, and we don't violate the Bible by coming to understand it better than they did. And again, the regular dictionaries don't attribute solidity to it.Literalists are the ones with the true faith because they don't compromise it, that was my answer to you. I got your point.

Well, my friend, it took me no small time to think up an adequate response to your post. Even now, I'm not sure how "adequate" it is. It may not do justice to your reply.I'll start out by saying that I completely agree with your views on conspicuous consumption, capitalism, and the trend in newly emerging states like India and China to aspire to developed-world affluence. Oh, we can argue endlessly about the details - whether or not these things are symptoms or causes, for instance. But fundamentally, we are in accord. Herein is where we part. While I agree that changing human behavior in a macro sense is similar to herding cats, I don't agree that it is a futile exercise. Admittedly I have often felt this way (does that surprise you?) out of frustration at the sheer stupidity of my fellow humans. I've often entertained the thought that a catastrophe of biblical proportions might have a salutory effect - to shake them out of their complacency, if nothing else. I've even, when my frustration reaches its zenith and my "faith" in humanity reaches a nadir, felt like giving it up as a loss - deciding that the whole exercise was a wash. However, ultimately I always come back to one point, one single realization, that derives from my personality and my worldview:I am a fighter. I always have been. I'm constitutionally incapable of giving up, no matter how stupid, hidebound, ignorant, short-sighted, bigotted and just plain lazy my fellow humans might be.On my desk I have three framed items. They represent my icons - my touchstones. It has been an occasionally painful selection process to reach this point, but now they have truly come to represent what I am and why I continue.On the right, in the place of honor, is a framed photo of my two daughters. They are sitting side-by-side in a meadow of brown grass, with a dark green bush behind them. The light is perfect, highlighting their faces. Their hair is windblown, and the expressions on their faces are so perfectly representative of their personalities it's almost eerie: the oldest with a tight-lipped smile and knowing look in her eyes, and the youngest with a squinched-up nose and toothy grin. In the background behind them dark, ominous blue-black storm clouds are gathering; but on them, the light shines clear. This photo is my icon of perseverence: I can not and will not accept that my only legacy to these bright spirits is a dying world. I owe it to them to continue to fight, and to convince others to fight as well, to avoid that fate at whatever cost.The left side frame is a photo of a female olive ridley sea turtle just coming ashore to nest. The sand upon which she is climbing is utterly flat, smooth and unmarked. The water from which she is emerging is the deep blue of a tropical sky. Although I've seen thousands of ridleys, not to mention myriads of other animals - many much more spectacular - she has come to symbolize something much more profound for me. She is my icon of continuity: watching her struggle up out of the sea in response to an eons-old biological imperative - a moment frozen by the lens of my camera - represents the vast sweep and grandeur of evolutionary time. Her lineage stretches back over 200 million years. Her ancestors watched the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, and the rise of the upstart mammals, including one rather insignificant primate with a big brain, with the same patient unconcern with which she herself contemplates her upcoming nesting. Her antideluvian shape rising up out of the sea represents both the long vanished past and the future of her race - and by extension symbolizes the continuation of all life. I can not accept that my species will be the cause of her death and the end of the lineages of millions of other species on Earth. I wish to preserve this life so that my daughters' daughters will be able to witness it like I did.And finally, the middle frame is a simple quote.

quote:

---

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead

---

This quote is my icon of faith: it symbolizes the one thing that I must believe. You are completely correct: one person cannot change humanity's careening to destruction. However, if enough of us "fiddle around the edges", I "know" that collectively we can. And even if not, we at the very least did everything we could to stave off the darkness.And that is Q's "holy trinity". Since I do not believe in an afterlife, or believe that there is anything more than our one world and the time allotted us, I have but one choice: make the most of what we have. I understand, at least intellectually, why the Deep Faith side of the equation doesn't see the problems I outlined in the OP as signicant. Hopefully now you will begin to understand why I do.

Outer Space is the ultimate answer to many of these problems (although not one for our lifetimes). There are enough resources in the asteroid belt to last 10s of thousands of years.For now, the most important thing is population control at all costs.Most of the major world problems (natural resources, food, war, etc) are all results of overpopulation

I've heard that one bandied about alot. I have a printer/scanner/photocopier sitting beside me at the moment. Its got a dinky little colour lcd screen on it - about 1" x 1" - so that I can preview my digital photos before printing them. It cost about $100 incl. half full cartridges.What cost such a machine were it the case that you had to mine the materials that made it on Uranus rather than good old Mother Earth. $10,000, $100,000? It's life Jim - but not as we know it.Sure its possible. There is no reason for man NOT to go on forever. The only fly in the ointment is how exactly we make the transition from now to then. Do we evolve seamlessly - or do what humans typically do when there is a call to man the lifeboats: walk in orderly fashion towards them; women and children.... and ME first?

That's exactly the point iano. I believe we are in the most difficult period of modern human history. We have to make sure we use the resources the earth has left properly until humanity can being to live in orbit, on the moon, on mars and beyond. Once we have spread ourselves like that the human race's chances of survivial will greatly increase. We just have to make sure we don't blow ourselves up first.

We may suppose already that our relative views are irreconcilable. My question was formed on the basis of that fact: how do you reconcile your OWN view. I never did, in my wilderness years, form a view as you have found it necessary to. You put your daughters in the place of honour to the right. As is fitting. We shall not argue, my friend, about the relative worth of human being. That for which we are both struggling.A woman called Mary Jean Arian wrote this entitled "Gift from a hairdryer". Reflections of a mom as she combs her 7 year old daughters hair after a bath..

quote:

---

Comb and dry, comb and dry...
"Soon, I won't be able to do this anymore" you say to yourself,
knowing that the little straight bob must inevitably yield to
grown up couiffers and ugly curls.

​

"What will she be like at 14? Where will her hair be blowing then? And at 16.. and 18?" You suppose boys will love to watch her hair blow as you do now. And some of them will feel it on their faces...and one of them will marry her. And her hair will be spread out under the veil...and then spread out on his pillow. And oh! - though you hate him a little - and wonder where he is at this moment...whether he will be good to her?

​

They will grow old together. And the gold, brown hair will be grey. And you will be gone. And then she will be gone. This very hair that now your fingers smooth...

​

And all the tears in the world, swim for a second before your eyes - as you snatch the plug out of the socket suddenly - and gather her into your arms - burying your face into the warm hair as if you could seal this moment against all time.

​

But of course you can't. Because moments come and years fly. And you cannot stop them and you cannot control them...

---

You are a fighter? Well so am I Quetzal. I am not prepared to settle for continuity. Not prepared to let you take up a place of honour - to my right - against which to attach the simple significance of you: a being that which crawls, fighter like, up an unmarked beach somewhere. Crawling upwards to what precisely? Only to more crawling up beaches.You hold for me, as do your own daughters for you - far more significance than that. Margeret Mean has a philosophy. But it is one of a multitude and if it is supposed to advise man on saving man the it is a lie. You only have to look at the world to know that what she speaks of will never come about. This for the simple reason that it never has. Ever. All we do is destroy. We have our moments granted - but whatever the local trend, the graph is ever downwards. You can hope (though I doubt you would) towards the pie-in-the-sky that is capitalism-resourced-from-outer-space. You know man isn't going to make it that far without your daughters sacrifice. The temptation is to wish for it. To want it to be different - because you 'know' that man is within a hairsbreath of success. Even a hairsbreath from success still means failure.You have another theory and as theories of significance always go, this one relies on evidence. And the evidence is even more compelling than that which supports the 150 year old idea of evolution. Man will never do as you suppose he will. He never has.I can appreciate your sentiment. It is based on a yearning that it MUST be. Simply because there is for you no known alternative. You honestly face the conclusion of your heart, have nothing to attach it to. And so attach it to the impossible. I say there is somewhere better to attach it to. The only thing in your heart which you know will FIT.Look into your beautiful childrens eyes next time you have a chance Q. REALLY look. And see the purpose of them being as significant as a tortoise crawling up a beach. If you can truly, hand-on-heart say that, then there is really very little else to talk about. I have looked into a childs eyes too.Edited by iano, : Add titleEdited by iano, : No reason given.

Ahh, but that simply isn't true. Man creates and destroys. At some times we are better at destroying and sometimes we are better at creating. Over the past couple of hundred years man has accomplished more than we have in our entire history. We have travelled to the moon, cured countless diseases and put the accumulated knowledge of the human race at the fingertips of the commmon person (at least in the west).Things can get better... and I do believe outer space is the next frontier, but unrestrained capitalism is not. I think that eventually we will adopt a more human and civilized form of govt. There is no end goal except to leave the world a better place for you children than you found it. I think that should be every person's goal

I couldn't. It would only embarrass you. And I love you too much for that sis!(plus, I'd have to go trawling back - but trust me: it makes me tremble even to think of it now. Think tigress protecting tigerettes and you'll have it about spot on)

Thank you for confirming my opening premise: there is an unbridgeable divide between our worldviews. I was wrong, however, that it was merely a question of faith vs. science, although that is a large part of it.You have given up. I am still fighting. THAT is the difference. You have decided that humanity is beyond help, beyond saving. The world is a failed experiment. You have abrogated your responsibility - that's right, responsibility - to do everything in your power to make this world better. You have decided to place your bet on the existence of an afterlife - a better place in the hereafter.But what if you're wrong? This is the oft-ignored obverse of Pascal's coin. What if YOU are wrong? There is one key statement in my post that you seemed to have missed: "I can not and will not accept that my only legacy to these bright spirits is a dying world." Whether or not there is an afterlife for me is utterly irrelevant. My daughters are the ones that will have to live in the world I leave them. Not me. Heaven, hell or oblivion is my lot. But to my dying breath I will do everything I can to insure they have a place to stand. I care nothing for the next world, you apparently care little for this. Look into YOUR child's eyes, and ask which would they prefer. That is my Purpose.

What if the reason things are deteriorating as you see it is that humanity has rejected God, and such things are the consequence of that? That is, no matter how hard anybody works to improve things, there will still be this fundamental problem that works against the improvements. What if depending on God personally is what would guarantee a future for you and your loved ones, rather than all the work you put in on saving the planet? Not that that work is useless, but if it is done in human strength it can't accomplish much -- only work done in God's power is really going to do that.I think some conservatives don't get that the planet really is in jeopardy, even though they may not (or may) be wrong about this or that particular alarm given out by liberals. I'm for doing whatever an individual can do without dedicating my life to it, but beyond that I see it all in God's hands, and whether or not an individual can affect the big picture as you envision it, I know there's no better choice for an individual for ALL purposes of life than simply giving yourself to God and giving up your own will and your own understanding of the problem -- because there's a lot more to it than any of us can see.