Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
How are those comparisons "unfair"?
What do you consider more appropriate? Santa vs. Jesus? God vs. Allah? Jesus vs. Zoroaster? Jesus vs. Buddha?
Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
You're correct that there have been centuries of scholarship about religion, and most of it's from centuries past - before modern science: i.e., before modern medicine and space exploration. Imagine if we still depended on candles for light or still bled people in hopes of curing them.
I can see why you don't like comparisons between God and fairies, because you don't believe in fairies anymore -- you think that's childish. We atheists don't believe in God or fairies anymore. Like you, we stopped believing in fairies as children and some of us stopped believing in God much later than that. Like you, most of us were taught to believe in God and were taught that maintaining that belief was a good thing. It was only later that we realized that God - though believed in by many good people through the centuries, was simply not real - like leprechauns are not real.
Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
You're correct that there have been centuries of scholarship about religion, and most of it's from centuries past - before modern science: i.e., before modern medicine and space exploration. Imagine if we still depended on candles for light or still bled people in hopes of curing them.
I can see why you don't like comparisons between God and fairies, because you don't believe in fairies anymore -- you think that's childish. We atheists don't believe in God or fairies anymore. Like you, we stopped believing in fairies as children and some of us stopped believing in God much later than that. Like you, most of us were taught to believe in God and were taught that maintaining that belief was a good thing. It was only later that we realized that God - though believed in by many good people through the centuries, was simply not real - like leprechauns are not real.
DP here. Opinions aside, you're just wrong on the facts here. Like most fields of study, theology and religion have seen an immense amount of important work over the last 100 years. The amount of scholarly works produced in the last 100 years is certainly greater than in any other century. Even atheists and agnostics are doing serious work on the subject, and popular figures like agnostic Alex O'Connor are making this field more accessible than ever.
Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
You're correct that there have been centuries of scholarship about religion, and most of it's from centuries past - before modern science: i.e., before modern medicine and space exploration. Imagine if we still depended on candles for light or still bled people in hopes of curing them.
I can see why you don't like comparisons between God and fairies, because you don't believe in fairies anymore -- you think that's childish. We atheists don't believe in God or fairies anymore. Like you, we stopped believing in fairies as children and some of us stopped believing in God much later than that. Like you, most of us were taught to believe in God and were taught that maintaining that belief was a good thing. It was only later that we realized that God - though believed in by many good people through the centuries, was simply not real - like leprechauns are not real.
DP here. Opinions aside, you're just wrong on the facts here. Like most fields of study, theology and religion have seen an immense amount of important work over the last 100 years. The amount of scholarly works produced in the last 100 years is certainly greater than in any other century. Even atheists and agnostics are doing serious work on the subject, and popular figures like agnostic Alex O'Connor are making this field more accessible than ever.
It's still people who believe trying to justify thise beliefs.
No matter how hard one tries to fit a square peg into a round hole, it will never work.
Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
You're correct that there have been centuries of scholarship about religion, and most of it's from centuries past - before modern science: i.e., before modern medicine and space exploration. Imagine if we still depended on candles for light or still bled people in hopes of curing them.
I can see why you don't like comparisons between God and fairies, because you don't believe in fairies anymore -- you think that's childish. We atheists don't believe in God or fairies anymore. Like you, we stopped believing in fairies as children and some of us stopped believing in God much later than that. Like you, most of us were taught to believe in God and were taught that maintaining that belief was a good thing. It was only later that we realized that God - though believed in by many good people through the centuries, was simply not real - like leprechauns are not real.
DP here. Opinions aside, you're just wrong on the facts here. Like most fields of study, theology and religion have seen an immense amount of important work over the last 100 years. The amount of scholarly works produced in the last 100 years is certainly greater than in any other century. Even atheists and agnostics are doing serious work on the subject, and popular figures like agnostic Alex O'Connor are making this field more accessible than ever.
It's still people who believe trying to justify thise beliefs.
No matter how hard one tries to fit a square peg into a round hole, it will never work.
And it's still includes more centuries before modern times than in modern times.
and really, how important is it that so much work has been done? and that it's so accessible? It still is not accurate.
Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
You're correct that there have been centuries of scholarship about religion, and most of it's from centuries past - before modern science: i.e., before modern medicine and space exploration. Imagine if we still depended on candles for light or still bled people in hopes of curing them.
I can see why you don't like comparisons between God and fairies, because you don't believe in fairies anymore -- you think that's childish. We atheists don't believe in God or fairies anymore. Like you, we stopped believing in fairies as children and some of us stopped believing in God much later than that. Like you, most of us were taught to believe in God and were taught that maintaining that belief was a good thing. It was only later that we realized that God - though believed in by many good people through the centuries, was simply not real - like leprechauns are not real.
DP here. Opinions aside, you're just wrong on the facts here. Like most fields of study, theology and religion have seen an immense amount of important work over the last 100 years. The amount of scholarly works produced in the last 100 years is certainly greater than in any other century. Even atheists and agnostics are doing serious work on the subject, and popular figures like agnostic Alex O'Connor are making this field more accessible than ever.
It's still people who believe trying to justify thise beliefs.
No matter how hard one tries to fit a square peg into a round hole, it will never work.
Dp: You are trying to talk about something you obviously never studied. So many of your premises are just plan wrong. If you are truly interested, take a real college level course.
Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
You're correct that there have been centuries of scholarship about religion, and most of it's from centuries past - before modern science: i.e., before modern medicine and space exploration. Imagine if we still depended on candles for light or still bled people in hopes of curing them.
I can see why you don't like comparisons between God and fairies, because you don't believe in fairies anymore -- you think that's childish. We atheists don't believe in God or fairies anymore. Like you, we stopped believing in fairies as children and some of us stopped believing in God much later than that. Like you, most of us were taught to believe in God and were taught that maintaining that belief was a good thing. It was only later that we realized that God - though believed in by many good people through the centuries, was simply not real - like leprechauns are not real.
DP here. Opinions aside, you're just wrong on the facts here. Like most fields of study, theology and religion have seen an immense amount of important work over the last 100 years. The amount of scholarly works produced in the last 100 years is certainly greater than in any other century. Even atheists and agnostics are doing serious work on the subject, and popular figures like agnostic Alex O'Connor are making this field more accessible than ever.
It's still people who believe trying to justify thise beliefs.
No matter how hard one tries to fit a square peg into a round hole, it will never work.
Dp: You are trying to talk about something you obviously never studied. So many of your premises are just plan wrong. If you are truly interested, take a real college level course.
.
As if a college level course is needed to convince someone. Most believers have never taken a college level course. They just learned from their parents and/or in Sunday school. Kids learn about the Easter bunny and Santa Claus too, but they drop those beliefs. I know people can get very insulted when you lump God and Jesus in with Santa and the Easter Bunny -- but think about it - we learn about them the same way - from our parents, as impressionable children.
I wish I had taken a religion course in college, because I probably would have left religion much earlier, learning about how religions were formed.
Anonymous wrote:Well I stay religious because I believe to the very core of my existence that my religion is true. I and most religious scholars also believe our faith is compatible with modern science (which has absolutely nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of God).
Quote me one religious scholar who believes any faith is compatible with modern science.
John Walton's view was espoused by most professors I knew at Wheaton, and the science profs all believed in the Big Bang. Don't think you can honestly call anyone who taught at Moody and Wheaton liberal (though a few crazy insane conservative types try, especially the political ones).
“Concordists believe the Bible must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science. Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was not common to the Old World science of antiquity.”
For example he puts forth an argument from ancient Mespotamian culture that Genesis 1 isn't really about exactly how God created the earth, but rather about why God did it and that he made it work.
“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being). Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
And important to note that this is not a modern 20th century concession to science. St. Augustine recognized that the biblical creation account was highly symbolic 1600 years ago. Yes, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-looking ignorant Baptists are going to have a different take. But they hardly represent the mainstream of 2000 years of Christianity.
What I don't understand is that if a person can rationalize that some parts of the Bible are not true, then why can't they see that all of it is not true? All of it is myth. Same as reading about Zoroaster, Zeus, or Harry Potter.
Did you ever take an English class? Do you understand that different literature genres express truth in different ways?
Did you ever take a history class? Do you understand that ancient Mesopotamian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which the authors of the 66 books of the Bible lived were so wildly different from us that it takes study and work to put their words in the correct context?
It's funny how people (understandably, since I went to the school where the guy who wrote "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" taught) look down on Christians as unthinking without realizing that they reduce things to the absurd all the time themselves.
Are you now going to defend Harry Potter as truth?
Yes, you are unthinking if you can't see how absurd it is that myths are comparative, even the ones from the Bible.
You lost me at your last sentence. I can't parse it into English. What does "how absurd it is that myths are comparative" even mean? Do you mean that there's similiarities between the Bible's creation account and the creation myths of other ancient Mesopotamian cultures? I know that. Do you mean that there are differences (and, interestingly, similiarities) between the Bible's creation account and that of the ancient peoples of Mexico? I know that. I happen to think the similiarities between creation stories comes because they are all referencing an event that truly happened in their own way, through their own cultural lenses. Same with the myriad of flood stories that have existed throughout the world.
Or do you mean it's absurd that I believe the Bible's account but not the stories told about the pantheon of Mount Olympus or about the crack in the sky mended by a goddess told in ancient China? Why? People pick and choose what to believe all the time. Most Christians realize that our belief is supported by logic, but really it's based on a knowledge of the Holy Spirit being with and in us in a way that we can't share with other people unless they experience it for themselves.
If you want to call that absurd, go for it. There are plenty of ways that the Bible's stories do harmonize with history and science.
What?? I thought faith, not history and science, was all that was needed to believe in whatever religion you believe int.
PP here. Faith is necessary and sufficient, but the rest are kind of valuable too.
History and science often are not in line with faith, especially when it comes to living forever somewhere above the clouds, which we now know as outer space.
Oy. You've never heard of poetic language?
Yes, things are beliefs until they are proven false, then they become poetry and allegory. How convenient.
How do you tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal?
Intelligence + Education.
If you're short on either, you're gonna have a bad time.
So you can’t explain how to tell the difference between what is poetic and what is literal.
That’s what I thought.
I was the one who mentioned poetic language, but I wasn't the quoted PP.
You look at the genre of the text, just like every other piece of writing in the known world throughout all of recorded history.
No, that is wrong, that is not how textual criticism works. You have just described a completely subjective process which is essentially “you believe what you want to be true to be literal and what you don’t to be poetic”.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for confirming that.
Wow, you got all of that out of one sentence? Amazing stuff. You're clearly so interested in having a conversation conducted in good faith on this topic, understanding what other people have to say, and making thoughtful and constructive arguments.
And you are being very sarcastic. Why?
Because I'm tired of the constant denigration and arguing about specifically Christianity by specifically anti-theists on this forum. I should just nope out, but sometimes a question that seems interesting comes up on recent topics. However then without fail it gets coopted into an excuse for people who truly hate Christianity to argue against it over and over and over again in total bad faith.
I would not say that most posters are denigrating Christianity... their criticisms are quite fair.
I would make the case that it is the Christians who tuck tail every time a reasonable question comes up and never address it. In my view, either they don't have a reasonable response, or they finally grasp how they have been illogical and don't want to admit it.
Yes, the constant comparisons between God and Lucky the Leprechaun are truly the height of fairness and don't overlook centuries of scholarship or anything.
You're correct that there have been centuries of scholarship about religion, and most of it's from centuries past - before modern science: i.e., before modern medicine and space exploration. Imagine if we still depended on candles for light or still bled people in hopes of curing them.
I can see why you don't like comparisons between God and fairies, because you don't believe in fairies anymore -- you think that's childish. We atheists don't believe in God or fairies anymore. Like you, we stopped believing in fairies as children and some of us stopped believing in God much later than that. Like you, most of us were taught to believe in God and were taught that maintaining that belief was a good thing. It was only later that we realized that God - though believed in by many good people through the centuries, was simply not real - like leprechauns are not real.
DP here. Opinions aside, you're just wrong on the facts here. Like most fields of study, theology and religion have seen an immense amount of important work over the last 100 years. The amount of scholarly works produced in the last 100 years is certainly greater than in any other century. Even atheists and agnostics are doing serious work on the subject, and popular figures like agnostic Alex O'Connor are making this field more accessible than ever.
It's still people who believe trying to justify thise beliefs.
No matter how hard one tries to fit a square peg into a round hole, it will never work.
Dp: You are trying to talk about something you obviously never studied. So many of your premises are just plan wrong. If you are truly interested, take a real college level course.
Typical. Resorting to an ad hominem attack instead of acknowledging. They are correct.
Make your best learned argument for those of us so presumably less educated.
Anonymous wrote:If that’s how you see things then it makes sense why you reject it. You might start by reading the Bible again.
What would reading the Bible do? I've read it a couple of times, and certain sections several.
I've also read lots of stories on elves, santa, and dragons.
They are all similar as they're all make believe.
You need to strop trying that argument; it makes you sound really ignorant.
making a statement without backing it up with any kind of argument, now thats ignorance
Yeah - they sound ignorant, or desperate. Actually the argument that puts God in the same category as elves, Santa and dragons is not ignorant at all. I used to think that too, and then I realized that there's no proof of any of them and grown ups just dismiss that idea of Santa, dragons and elves. But they don't DO anything good or bad for adults, so we don't need them.
God, on the other hand, we need, supposedly, to get into heaven. After we're dead.
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making a statement without backing it up with any kind of argument, now thats ignorance