I will note that the playwright who wrote the folio of this world is not mentioned as having created the seas, friend Arac, but that in the first chapter of Genesis, the waters are pre-existent, enabling said divinity (perhaps demiurge) to “move over the face of them.”
I figure I’m just about the last person on Earth who reads and appreciates the Bible without necessarily ascribing to its alleged dogmas. As a student of literature, which is a student of life, the book is among the most fascinating. Genesis especially, with its mind-blowingly complicated and truly, profound!, readings of basically every aspect of worldly existence. However, it is our modern vogue to cast aside history’s generosities and write off these treasures of the most brilliant and challenging genius simply because their authors had not microscopes and particle accelerators nor the current, enlightening treatises by many certain French and German philosophers.
And yet those true scientists among us were never tempted to look into the mysteries of the atom and the DNA molecule but that they expected or hoped, somewhat guiltily, that they should be looking into the eyes of God.
It isn’t kosher. There are very specific rules about what sorts of things I can and can’t eat; for example, I can’t eat dairy within about 6 hours of eating meat; I can’t eat any fish without fins or scales (not that I can stomach fish anyway), or mammals who don’t chew their cud or have split hooves. There are incredibly detailed laws about this sort of thing. And before anyone asks, no, I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything in particular. I get good food on a very regular basis.
You’re almost exactly right. Its not that it isn’t provable, but not testable. I know that’s probably what you meant, but its an important nuance when it comes to science.
A question for Cid:
If I could demonstrate evolution in a dish, what would be your answer?
The rules in Leviticus were a contract between God and the early Israelites, who were in a bad spot, and God promised to save if they followed his rules :>
Sin: I have no problem believing in evolution. I think evolution is the way that God’s creation happened. At least, given the current state of our understanding of the world, that makes the most sense to me. Back in the first millenium, plenty of Jewish authorities used Aristotle to try to understand the world and the Torah, so I don’t really see a problem in using current science to do the same. My personal understanding of the year 5768 is the year “humanity” came into being as people with souls and spirits, rather than in a physical sense.
Frankly, even in Genesis itself I’ve had questions. If Adam and Eve were the only humans in the world, who was Cain afraid would kill him when he wandered, and who did he and Seth marry to have children? So this idea ties everything together for me.
I’m not a rabid believer in evolution, but I think it’s the most likely to be true at the moment.
The rules in Leviticus were a contract between God and the early Israelites, who were in a bad spot, and God promised to save if they followed his rules :>
Actually, no, the Israelites weren’t in a “bad spot”. God didn’t bail them out just so he could have one particular people to listen to him. God had already told Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that his descendants would be the “chosen people”, and even told them about the slavery in Egypt ahead of time. In addition, the rules were given after God had already taken them out of Egypt.
I call bunk! It goes against every teaching in the book to link to the same gag site twice in less than 6 months. (No matter how funny it is.)
On the subject at hand though. To quote an old Dungeon Master I knew “God was in fact the name of the captain of the spaceship that deposited the first humans on Earth.” He even covered all the other religions with this one “And all the other important deities being the captians’ and crews’ of the other spaceships that landed humans on the Earth.” And to prove his point he made some really bad anecdotes about his metaphorical(?) solution to solve disagreements with anyone about any of his beliefs which went something like this “If they don’t like what I say then I’m going to kill them.”
I’m not a theologian and I can only speak for my denomination. There’s my disclaimer.
As far I’ve been taught, all those rules in Leviticus and such are deemed extraneous to the Christian faith. I’ve heard in a multitude of messages in my Baptist church that basically hammer the point that since Jesus is the only link we need to God and the only one we have there’s no need to follow any of the rules in the OT. The only exception from what I’ve been taught is the Ten Commandments because of how easily they coincide with a Christian life and Jesus’s message. When I say people take the Bible literally, I take it as saying the events occurred in the way they are described and transcribed. It doesn’t mean we have to follow laws which we see as unneccessary.
I’ll be honest. It’s always seemed that the OT is a foundation. Important, albeit, complex to the point of depression. I get a point of origin and history lesson from it but there’s only a couple of important links that I really need to be aware of to make sense of the New Testament. I count my blessings on that point; I’d fall to pieces trying to make sense of of the OT.
But basically, Creationism is one of the really important links from the OT. Serves to prove the point that God’s always had this very specific plan that would have very specific results. Some people view Evolution as a way sly of debunking that instead of complement to His design which might be possible. I’m not saying it’s an insidious theory or it’s the work of devil but believing it can lead people astray, obviously. Between being ignorant of evolution and being saved from the fires of hell, I know which I’d choose. So all those literalists and Intelligent Design proponents are walking on a road paved with good intentions - the one that’s not going to hell.
I should also note that the Old Testament itself makes absolutely no mention of either Heaven or Hell, which is something that very few people know.
Eh, I didn’t know that. If I recall correctly the Rapture might not be mentioned in the New Testament so those Left Behind books had it wrong. More importantly, I’d have to deal with the Tribulation. Great.
There’s plenty of mention of heaven and hell in the New Testament. So I’ve got plenty to fear and plenty to look forward too.
But basically, Creationism is one of the really important links from the OT. Serves to prove the point that God’s always had this very specific plan that would have very specific results. Some people view Evolution as a way sly of debunking that instead of complement to His design which might be possible. I’m not saying it’s an insidious theory or it’s the work of devil but believing it can lead people astray, obviously. Between being ignorant of evolution and being saved from the fires of hell, I know which I’d choose. So all those literalists and Intelligent Design proponents are walking on a road paved with good intentions - the one that’s not going to hell.
Lead people astray? From what?? Last I checked, mankind was just about as fucked up prior to the theory of evolution as they were after it. People slaughtered each other with as much relish during the heyday of religious piety - the Middle Ages - as they do nowadays. The funny thing about religion is how little impact its had on humanity. IMO. We humans are the same as we’ve ever been, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, none of them have made a dent on our basic nature. Thinking that adhering to some religion can save us is wishful thinking at its worst…
Um, what? Little impact? Religion is the sole reason why humanity has any real purpose. It’s the only thing that keeps our morals in perspective.
Religion has a heck of a better chance of saving us than believing in yourself, so I don’t see what better option you have. If worse comes to worse, I can genuinly say I believed in something with meaning rather than nothing. If you want to be cynical, I at least bet on the right side of Pascal’s Wager.
It’ll lead people astray because I suspect one of the reasonable fears about evolution, primarily when it’s being taught in school’s is the fact that it could cause people to question something in their faith and before you know it you’ve got so many questions that it’s damaged beyone repair. Parents make the decision to just stop that from happening altogether by teaching them at home because they believe (and it makes sense) that it’s better for their kids not to be confronted with some theory that’s merely an observation of man which could cause thier child to lose faith at an impressionable age. I don’t think that’s right - better to not be sheltered about it, but it makes sense. Better to be ignorant about some theory and saved than educated about it and damned.
If religion is the only thing that causes morality, then how come there are moral atheists? I’m not an atheist, but my father is, and for all his faults, he’s one of the most moral (and, unfortunately, conservative) people I have met in my life. He has turned down jobs that would make him a whole lot of money because they went against his principles (a job in which he was asked essentially to willingly deceive people, I won’t go into details). He served this country in the United States Navy for twenty years, and did so out of honor for his country. He has a wife and two kids, and shares the opinion of conservative Christians that abortion is wrong.
I also knew a man who went to church every week. He raped his wife, cheated on her, stole, lie, et cetera. If there was a bad thing out there (short of murder and treason) he did it. He was so proud that he went to church every week. Clearly, these morality lessons didn’t sink in. I won’t go so far as to say that Christianity caused him to be this way, because it didn’t. He was an immoral person on the inside, just like my father is a moral person. Although, I know, that case studies (so to speak) don’t prove a thing, I think that these counterexample nonetheless show a flaw in the whole “religion proves morality” thing.
As for purpose, if you need a book to tell you that if you live like a good person you’ll get a VIP pass after death as motivation to live like a good person, then you’re probably too shallow to get into the supposed VIP-heaven place anyway.
Saving us from what? Ourselves? Doesn’t seem to be working very well just by glancing at the big picture of worldly events. It’s a wager, you could be absolutely wrong and your consciousness/soul bound to complete oblivion after death, you could be right and get everything in the Book after death, it’s a completely blind bet. So it comes down to the two usual choices: Blind faith, or go for the tangible things you can see and measure. One’s not better than the other in itself, it all depends of the person. Some people find it easier to have faith in an intangible being that cannot be proven than to go for the ‘faith in humanity’ angle and vice-versa. I find it a little insulting that you’d call God ‘something with meaning rather than nothing’.
Plus, the very fact that kids adhere to religion easily in their younger age is for the same reason they stray from it: They’re impressionable. You stamp the fear of god early and it’ll stick unless they get disillusionned early. If a child’s faith is so fragile that it crumbles to pieces at the first sign of the Theory of Evolution, then he never had faith in the first place: He/She believed because dad and mom told him/her to. That isn’t faith at all, just fear of getting a divine asskicking. I find it frustrating that some people homeschool their children to be sure this won’t happen because ultimatly it should be every person’s trial by fire. If the faith in god of a child survives being exposed to the secular system, then it will be strong enough to last him most of his live (some horrible traumatic events do break people’s faith) but if it breaks, then that’s that. Nobody should be sheltered and kept ignorant on the CHANCE that it may help them upon death.
Notreally. I don’t suppose you are saying that irreligious people have no ethics. And what about the ethics based on other religions? As you may have noticed in the “what is the meaning of life?” thread, not everyone agrees that life is just a vestibule to paradise.
The other option is of course believing in yourself and trying to improve your own and others’ condition. Jesus had mostly good teachings but the Churches spawned after him (especially people in the high tiers) generally have very little to do with these teachings. And if God can take care of the little bird and the flower why do they keep amassing the monies? Right.
I’ve always wondered about this. If the only reason you do good deeds is the selfish desire to get into heaven, does this make you a good and altruistic person?
