Pendaric

Sheer laziness on my part, but I think a previous posting I made is relevant:

I'll admit to not understanding why any Christian goes along with their faith. To me, it is patently obvious that the entire ball game is a manmade phenomenon.

However, for those that do follow that faith, I am further mystified by those who are happy to accept that the bible is not inerrant. Surely that places the entire deck of cards on a bed of sand?

If just one sentence is accepted to be uninspired, wrong, and not the word of God, then surely that opens the door to doubt of any passage in the entire book? If just one sentence is not the word of God, then surely the veracity of the entire book becomes doubtful?

I'm thinking particularly of some of the Old Testament passages and stories. As these contain the areas of most obvious myth, such as Genesis and the flood, and the most (though by no means only) morally dubious passages, the Old Testament is often subject to cherry picking by Christians of the bits they want to believe and follow and a discarding of the rest as myth or not relevant to modern circumstance.

There are plenty of Christians out there who accept evolution. Plenty of Christians who object to the outright genocide depicted in the Old Testament. Plenty who believe the bible, at least the Old Testament, to be at best partially true with a smattering of old time myth.

If you follow this through, how then can they believe in the divinity of a man who supposedly attested to a total belief in, and thorough knowledge of, the scriptures. Jesus was first of all a practising Jew who attested to the truth of the Old Testament and claimed to be come in fulfillment of the prophecies made within it. He absolutely preaches the inerrancy of the Old Testament. If you claim the bible is mistaken anywhere before the Gospels then you are contradicting the beliefs and teachings of Jesus. He may have said he had come to change the laws, but he attested to their prior existence and the historical accuracy of the events portrayed in the Old Testament.

If you believe Jesus to be mistaken in those beliefs, then you cannot believe him to be divine. A divine being doesn't make mistakes.

trendkill

It's possible with an authority-driven approach; you have someone who you believe has the authority to speak for God and can tell you which parts to accept and which parts not to. People who don't accept a living prophet can get around this by listening to the promptings of the "spirit" as to what is inspired and what isn't. Although these people often don't accept church authority, it is strange to note how often their personal revelations remain entirely within the scope of the Bible; if one didn't know better, one might think they were using their own intuition to make this judgment, having been presented at some point with a single volume that just happened to contain everything they needed, without realizing or without caring who compiled it or why. :P

mrmoderate

Sorry people, but most who consider themselves Christian really don't have very much knowledge of Christianity other than big hats for Easter and get to mass early for a seat on Christmas.

Those Christians who study the scripture and try to understand scripture from a historical viewpoint mostly view the Creation of Genesis as a parable loosely describing how things got here.

I find many fundies are those who have a monetary or political agenda for spouting off fire and brimstone only teachings.

I live in an area that is also one of the largest Jewish populated areas in the world and the same is true with most Jews. Other than knowing all the words to Dredel/Dredel and how to make great kosher foods that are a far symbolic cry from the foods they are supposed to represent, they don't really know their faith very well.

Irishbrutha

Starboy wrote, "Let's face it, just about every Christian to some degree or another allows for magical things to happen. Once that option becomes available then, the great flood, genesis, parting the Red Sea, and on and on are now placed in the realm of the real."

And why not? The issue in this thread seems to be that fundamentalism wont' allow science to inform biblical interpretation. This argument is weightiest in the area of Gen. 1, but has no bearing on Noah and the animals, nor any other miracles. Science really has nothing to say about Noah and the animals. It's not naturally impossible that animals came to Noah. It's unlikely. It required Supernatural prompting. Science, therefore, cannot inform us about the possibility of the Flood event (regarding the animal migration, not the geological impact of it) If you wanna label pro-miracle believers as fundy, fine, that's your thing. I disagree with the idea (in no way do I consider myself a liberal, because I prefer evangelical to fundy...the history of fundy refers to those who avoided intellectual defense of the faith, while evangelicals have recently become much more responsible) Anyway, my point is that if miracles are possible then so is Noah's ark and the other things you mention. But miracle-possibility in no way defines the difference between liberal and fundy.

-Shaun

jdlongmire

...I think the Bible is Morally and Theologically inerrant, which fits its purpose perfectly...

atheist

Because there are real, much more plausible, natural, scientific explanations to our "Genesis" than divine magic and miracles.

If these thing are only possible through supernatural means, then why even bother to using "science to inform biblical interpretation"? Do these supernatural events (like Noah's flood) leave behind natural evidence? If not, then logically, it would be meaningless to use science to explain anything supernatural in the bible. "Naturally" Noah's flood never could have happened.

So, through the supernatural, miracles (including Noah's flood) could have happened, but effectively "haven't" happened because the natural world neither permits it, nor shows any real evidence of it.

Doesn't this effectively make "supernatural" meaningless?

jdlongmire

And just for fun...

Genesis - Creation

In my theory, Creation was completed within the 6 day stricture
proclaimed by the Bible. Earth was developed as a complex biosphere
that existed now as it did then. All lifeforms existed simultaneously.
Life and death, adaptation, extinction, decomposition, geologic change: all present
and sustained by the Master Creator and within His will, however
inscrutable that will is. This was true for all Creation except
man.

Man and the Garden

Man was created and placed in a protected place from destructive,
sudden change, the Garden of Eden. He was given great freedom
within this protected area and prohibited from only one thing;
eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
(Genesis 2:17) Please note that there was one other special tree in
the Garden: the Tree of Life. Man was not prohibited from eating
from this Tree until after the sin of eating from the other Tree.
(Gen. 4:22)

Ancient-Adam

There is no Scriptural indication of how much time passed from the
end of the Creation period until the Fall. It is my theory that man
existed in the Garden communing with God and Creation for
multi-eons, sustained by the fruit of the Tree of Life.

Some Theory Weaknesses and Resolutions

On the Creationist, strict Biblical interpretation side, I have
found one apparent weakness in my theory. Genesis 5:3 gives the
apparent age of Adam as 800 years, but the count starts with Seth.
Where are the firstborn, Cain and Abel? I believe they and many
others were born before the Fall (“..be fruitful and multiply�
– Gen 1:28) and existed as those sustain by the Tree of Life.
Before the fall, years of life were irrelevant, only afterward
would years be counted or have real meaning. Thus my theory
resolves how and who Cain could marry.

Mageth

Sure, science can inform us about the possibility of the Flood event. As described in the Bible, it's scientifically impossible. On top of that, science can tell us that there is absolutely no record of any such global flood having happened in the last many millions of years.

And as for the animals coming to Noah, science can tell us that that is impossible. How, pray tell, would Galapagos tortoises, New World monkeys, kangaroos, koalas, and Antarctic penguins get to Noah, or return to their places after the flood? It's impossible. Heck, you don't even need science for that.

Mageth

Wow, that's nice. You interpret the myth as literal history. You interpret a poem as prose. So noted.

jdlongmire

.....