elevator

I am not trying to speak for "question" here, but it seems as though we were talking about "old books" in a scientific vs. religious context. There are indeed many wonderful ancient books on various philosophical subjects, art, matemathics, and maybe even elementary scientific subjects. Clearly the biblical view on the process of creation doesn't fit today's scientific standards; I mean afterall that's why we still argue the whole Creationism vs. Evolution issue in modern courts.

The original point here I think was that why use the Christian canon (or any other religious doctrine) as the basis of scientific and moral knowledge, when:

1. Various religious doctrines contradict eachother
2. Various religious doctrines contradict established science
3. There are perfectly reasonable secular sources of scientific and moral knowledge (i.e. one does not need to believe in God to possess moral knowledge, or believe in biblical literalism to understand science).

In fact we see several examples or religious adherents working against scientific discovery simply because it does not fit their dogmas.

Roger Pearse

This is well put, and was very much the point that I was making here.

Well, if you read St. Augustine, he doesn't think the bible teaches what some people describe as the biblical view!

Um, isn't this to confuse two different things, when even the ancients didn't think that it was to be used for one of these?

The evidence of the last 30 years rather suggests the contrary, you know. The abandonment of Christianity is coaeval with the abandonment of morality (quibbling aside). Here in the UK we have people seriously proposing to create mixed human-animal embryos to experiment on, for instance.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

elevator

What prompted me to reply is that I felt you interpreted "question's" post as to include all ancient literature when talking about "old books", when in fact (without putting words in his mouth) I think he was talking about religious literature when he was talking about "old books". The distiction I feel is quite important as the original post compared the existence of scientific subjects in holy books (books mediated by or written by a divine entity) to contemporary scientific knowledge.

Biblical literalism is very much alive today, no matter how much St. Augustine may have argued for a more liberal interpretation of the Bible. I should think all the court cases surrounding religious fundamentalist views should be testament to that fact. If God really wrote the Bible he would have rid it of such absurd ambiguities that enable subjective translation of its content. Isn't it rather puzzling that an alleged infallible text is open to individual interpretations of it's true meaning? Isn't it puzzling that an omniscient and omnipotent God would put scientific passages in a holy book; that because of his omnipotence and omniscience he clearly must have known would be refuted 2000 years down the line?

I would love to see where you have those statistics from. I have seen statistics suggesting exactly the opposite. Norway, for instance, has one of the lowest levels of religiousness in the world; yet enjoys some of the lowest levels of crimes, highest standards of living and happiness, lowest levels of poverty and unemployment. And I repeat the line said by so many atheists before: "show me a moral action done by a religious believer that cannot be done by a non-believer". Religious morality is also selective. A moral Christian will still go to hell as far as a Muslim is concerned. Even if a Christian lived his entire life morally spotless; he would still be condemned by a Muslim. Why? Because he didn't believe in Allah - damned be any moral considerations. Religious morality is selective and subject to revocation and it is based on fear; not moral knowledge. Of course there are exceptions; such as Jainism for example. But we were talking Christianity here; and clearly you would never see a Jain fly planes into skyscrapers.

dr lazer blast

intrest in religion does not mean a practicing hindu. I am interested in islam, but I am far from a practicing muslim, so yes I am sure

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/quote-o.htm

Is anyone going to award me with a 'good post' award?

lol, how can anyone be jewish but have an interest in the hindu religion of idols?

Roger Pearse

St. Augustine is a biblical literalist, actually. (So am I).

Um, I don't know what made you think of statistics. What has happened to our societies over that period is common knowledge. Probably most of us remember from first hand experience.

But anyone who suggests that society has become more moral seems to me to be in a very curious state of mind. Not something I feel the need to argue about, at any rate.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

elevator

Even better; I assume then that you are able to provide an answer my question in the last post about biblical ambiguity?

Of course it is all about statistics. When you present a claim that a religious population is more moral and maybe even more socially beneficial than a non-religious population you must have more than your own personal first hand experience to back it up, agreed?

I am not suggesting that society has become more moral, but I am suggesting that IF one society is more moral than another, you can bet it's not because of its high religious population.

I can think of many contemporary studies that suggest exactly opposite of what you claim. A more recent one is Gregory S. Paul's study titled: "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popularity Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies" available for download at: http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2005-11.pdf

Question

If you had read the next sentence you would have seen that I said that we CAN learn from history but it needs to be put in context with the facts of today.

JEST2ASK

A bit Off Topic but could you please list a society / culture that you consider to have been relatively more moral (not merely more outwardly religious) and the time frame of that status.

elevator

I don't mean to nitpick here, but I refreshed my history lesson on St. Augustine. I assumed right away that you were talking about St. Augustine of Hippo? Am I correct in that assumption? If so I feel as though my initial claim was correct in that St. Augustine was not at all a biblical literalist; at least not on the topic of scientific knowledge in the Christian canon which was the initial topic of this post.

In fact in his "Literal Interpretation of Genesis" he wrote:
Clearly he took the view that the bible should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts reason and scientific knowledge.

Question

Good reply... as you can now see Roger has now focused the thread on St Augustine and has not answered any of the questions either of us has posed.