Starboy

Amos, how does science extrapolate from all-knowing (omniscience)? If there is such a thing as all-knowing (omniscience) what is need for science?

Starboy

aikido7

Not strictly true, Clarice. Within the pardigm of critical historical studies, biblical scholars have developed guidelines. I am thinking that personal preference comes in as to how those guidelines would be treated.

I have not communicated clearly; you have misunderstood me if you think I have posted here to "convert." I am saying that both fundamentalists and skeptics lose a bit of their humanity (for want of a better term) by playing in the fields of literalism. By deliberately ignoring "the pattern that connects," which is (a part of) metaphor we not only impoverish ourselves, but set up a false image of reality which can be ultimately dangerous.

I go back again to the poet William Wordsworth, but not before apologizing in advance to all those here who think poetry is a total waste of time. Humans are decidedly hardwired, I believe, to be NOT like Peter Bell, the character of whom Wordsworth wrote:

A primrose by the river's bend
A yellow primrose was to him;
And it was nothing more.

On some level, we all meet the primrose with some sense of empathy and even recognition, but somehow perhaps the Cartesian mind/body split has divorced that sensibility. Or so I believe.

Rational skepticism and evangelical fundamentalism drink from the same fountain.

That is part of "my point" at any rate....

aikido7

Scary thought, but WE do!

...maybe religion didn't start to be "metaphorical" until the letter "s" got added onto the word "religion." And this has been quite recent.

Isn't the post-Enlightenment "study of religions" a sort of "politically correct" admission that as humans we all inhabit mythological worlds in which we embed our cultures?

Amos

Because the idea (hypothesis) is inspired.

Science is to confirm our inspired ideas and the many questions that arise from the experiment allows us to pry deeper into omniscience . . . for the answer must exist before the question can arise in our mind.

Oxymoron

Science is not "extrapolating" at all (in any event, should the metaphor not be "interpolating"?). Science is building a model out of observed data and making predictions based on that model. There's nothing "omniscient" about it. At the end of the day, it's just a model.

Science depends in no way other than perhaps historically on religion, they are deeply different in the way they approach understanding the world. Indeed, science is often railroaded by religion (creationism being taught in schools, for feck's sake - that hardly does Evolution by Natural Selection a favour).

Hawkingfan

Tercel:

I am perfectly aware that many of the ancient philosophers were theists. My point was that they used their own intellect to make their decisions. Also, Einstein's beliefs did not have anything to do with Hitler. His dislike for the chuirch came from his days attending a Catholic school as a boy. He also realized chrisianity was false after reading a 20 volume series on science that a Talmudic rabbi gave him. Of course, not everything Einstein said was true (the Cosmological Constant). And he even failed to realize the full implications of his theories (relativity indicates a singularity at the beginning of the universe). But I'll still take his word over the Bible. He's smarter than any of the idiots who wrote that garbage. And he's smarter than you, oh great one.

Hawkingfan

Saying that the entire bible is a parable or a metaphor is getting off way too easy. Everytime there is an inconsistency that cannot be explained, this is the interpretation we are given. But even as a parable or metaphor, the inconsistency is still there.

Clarice

On the contrary, I was trying to demonstrate that we will debunk literalists and metaphorists alike.

I mentioned the attempt at conversion merely because most liberal Christians (who tend to rely on metaphorical reading of the bible) rarely try to convert atheists (for which I thanks them), and I didn't want it to sound like we pounce on Christians who are sitting there minding their own business.

Most folk on this board are content to let people use metaphor to comfort themselves in their private faith. It's when it's used as a conversion tool that we point out its flaws.

Amos

Except that the metaphorist will never ever use tools for conversion. If metaphors make you feel uncomfortable it could be a sign of paranoia.

Amos

Interpolating uses the machinery of logic after the idea of the model has been extrapolated. The model is created out of the experiment and the reality of the model may be formed after the model that has been created first (essence precedes existence), if omnipotence allows it to be that way.

Science is good, and is very good because all that 'is' has come into existence after the model presented by science (of which the idea had been extrapolated first). So science provides the energy needed to make evolution possible.