Freethought & Rationalism Archive

bacht · 05-21-2009, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtheistGamer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Most Christians think of the Bible as "true" or "inspired" in some sort of higher, spiritual sense.

What I don't get is this... What do Christian's mean that the bible is inspired by God? Do they mean that some dude liked the idea of God, and decided to make up a book about him and how he made the universe, even though they had no knowlege of the event in question?

How the fuck is that any different from what us Atheists are saying?

What do they mean true in a spiritual sense?

Until they bother to define what the hell it is they are talking about I'm not buying this "Inspired by God", or "Spiritually True" nonsense.

I suppose an uneducated person living in the 1st millenium bce might have considered the Hebrew scriptures as inspired. The general belief in a geo-centric cosmos combined with magical mystique about writing itself could've been enough for the average layman.

The focus on the Biblical text is especially a Protestant theme, not so much from the Catholics or Eastern Orthodox. The rise of evangelicalism/fundamentalism in the last century was a reaction to the scientific analyses of the previous centuries, a defensive position against further erosion of the ancient 'revelation' and a protest against modernism.

Clivedurdle · 05-24-2009, 12:01 AM

Roger, are you agreeing with Swift?

Roland · 05-24-2009, 01:08 AM

To me, the real flaw in the creation story is that plants are made BEFORE the sun. Wouldn't that mean that the temperature on planet Earth would be roughly around -450 degrees Fahrenheit (absolute zero)? Not exactly optimal conditions for growing a prize-winning orchid now, is it?

Clivedurdle · 05-24-2009, 01:27 AM

Bible gateway

What is this verse 3 light and verse 14 - 16 light? It is as if time and light are separate - the relationships between the spinning earth in orbit around the sun which is the source of heat and warmth to enable life are not understood.

Part of the problem is that we are looking at a hypothesis of how the world works, probably with Babylonian input, put into a poetic format. So it is wrong science and poetry mixed up.

Quote:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Why did not Copernicus and Newton get the treatment Darwin has?

arnoldo · 05-28-2009, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roland

To me, the real flaw in the creation story is that plants are made BEFORE the sun. Wouldn't that mean that the temperature on planet Earth would be roughly around -450 degrees Fahrenheit (absolute zero)? Not exactly optimal conditions for growing a prize-winning orchid now, is it?

The real flaw could also be the english interpretation of the word "asah."

Quote:

Genesis 1:14-19 reveals that in the fourth creative stage God parted the cloud cover enough for direct sunlight to fall on the earth and for accurate observation of the movements of the sun, moon, and stars to take place. Verse 16 should not be understood as indicating the creation of the heavenly bodies for the first time on the fourth creative day; rather it informs us that the sun, moon, and stars created on Day One as the source of light had been placed in their appointed places by God with a view to their eventually functioning as indicators of time (“signs, seasons, days, years”) to terrestrial observers The Hebrew verb wayya‘aś in v.16 should better be rendered “Now [God] had made the two great luminaries, etc.,” rather than as simple past tense, “[God] made.” (Hebrew has no special form for the pluperfect tense but uses the perfect tense, or the conversive imperfect as here, to express either the English past or the English pluperfect, depending on the context.)

Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1982), 61

Quote:

The Hebrew word for "made" (asah) refers to an action completed in the past.

( Reading Genesis One-Comparing Biblical Hebrew with English Translation (San Jose, R. Whitefield, 2004), 104

dettus · 05-28-2009, 10:59 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton

phytoplankton

aChristian · 05-29-2009, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtheistGamer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Most Christians think of the Bible as "true" or "inspired" in some sort of higher, spiritual sense.

What I don't get is this... What do Christian's mean that the bible is inspired by God? Do they mean that some dude liked the idea of God, and decided to make up a book about him and how he made the universe, even though they had no knowlege of the event in question?

How xxxxxx is that any different from what us Atheists are saying?

What do they mean true in a spiritual sense?

Until they bother to define what the hell it is they are talking about I'm not buying this "Inspired by God", or "Spiritually True" nonsense.

I wouldn't either if I were you. As soon as you assume God can't get basic facts straight about the physical world, why would you believe he could get the spiritual facts (which are much harder to determine) right. All this 'higher spiritual truth' talk is just gobbledygook trying to sound reasonable when taking an unreasonable position.
I happened to be one of those 'inerrantists' who believe that science (ie., our description of the world we see) agrees with the Bible. For example, when you drop pick up sticks, they don't form a log cabin by themselves but randomly scatter on the table. I just think it is rather stupid to believe something as complicated as the universe came about by particles randomly (incredibly luckily) falling into place.
Whether it is history, philosophy, physics, chemistry, biology, or any other study of the universe that man has undertaken, it will always arrive at the conclusion that the Bible is true if it is done honestly and carefully.

P.S. Many people who take this 'spiritual truth' position may call themselves Christian, but, according to the Bible, ie., according to God, they are not.

Switch89 · 05-29-2009, 10:35 PM

Here are the responses I predict you will recieve:

Liberal Christian: "Genesis is a spiritual book, not a science book."

Fundamentalist: "The notion that plants came after fish is based on uniformitarian assumptions. Blah blah blah. The Bible is right no matter what."

Petergdi · 05-29-2009, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

Here are the responses I predict you will recieve:

Liberal Christian: "Genesis is a spiritual book, not a science book."

Fundamentalist: "The notion that plants came after fish is based on uniformitarian assumptions. Blah blah blah. The Bible is right no matter what."

It is perfectly possible to be a Fundamentalist and to think there is no conflict between the Bible and the theory of evolution.

Amaleq13 · 05-29-2009, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aChristian

I happened to be one of those 'inerrantists' who believe that science (ie., our description of the world we see) agrees with the Bible.

I suspect that is the result of a limited understanding on your part of science and what science has to say about the world we see.

The "agreement" I find between the two is either the result of plain observation or creative interpretation of poetic language. Nothing magically amazing in its foresight or uncannily accurate in its description.

Quote:

FI just think it is rather stupid to believe something as complicated as the universe came about by particles randomly (incredibly luckily) falling into place.

This would be an example of the limited understanding mentioned above. It exhibits a general ignorance of complexity theory and a specific ignorance of the place "random" action had in the formation of the universe. Stick to the Bible, you've got more wiggle room.

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05-24-2009, 12:01 AM	#12
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Roger, are you agreeing with Swift?

05-24-2009, 01:08 AM	#13
Roland Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: California Posts: 748	To me, the real flaw in the creation story is that plants are made BEFORE the sun. Wouldn't that mean that the temperature on planet Earth would be roughly around -450 degrees Fahrenheit (absolute zero)? Not exactly optimal conditions for growing a prize-winning orchid now, is it?

05-28-2009, 10:59 AM	#16
dettus Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: where apologists for religion are deservedly derid Posts: 6,298	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton phytoplankton

05-29-2009, 10:35 PM	#18
Switch89 Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Montgomery, AL Posts: 453	Here are the responses I predict you will recieve: Liberal Christian: "Genesis is a spiritual book, not a science book." Fundamentalist: "The notion that plants came after fish is based on uniformitarian assumptions. Blah blah blah. The Bible is right no matter what."

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