The evidence against religon won with just one argument until...

stevejazzx

Well, I was asked in the pub yesterday, by a rather astonishisly attractive female who I had never met before but had nonetheless got into a religous debate with, exactly what evidence I had to support my wacky theory that no such thing as a biblical god existed.
Now, I hate these on the spot confrontations when all the great rebuttals of those past atheists get congested in my mind and the best I can manage is a kind of disfigured representation of their arguments but yesterday in the pub I had a rather glorious momnet of clarity where I managed to find exactly the right words and insert them in exactly the right sentences. I satrted with time.

The two representations of the age of the earth currently on the table are
either thousands of years or billion of years. It is not possible that they are reconcillable becasue the differnece betwen them is almost infinite. It is extremely difficult to imgaine the figure one billion properly. It is beyond our scope of thought. It is mathamatical, it is not relative to any experience we may of had as a civilisation. The scientific estimation of the age of the earth, now widely agreed upon, is 4.5 billion years (using uranium lead dating) and the reliogus estimations of just thousands of years are made by adding up all the ages of all the people in the bible going back to Adam and Eve. Given that we've been finding dinousaur fossils all over the place and that darwins threory of evolution would've needed an inordinately large amount of time to get to the current stage and by what we now know about the life of stars in our solar system and the extremely accurate advanced and sophiscated calculations that scientists now use when dating rock strata, absolutely everything points to the scientific method being more likley to be more correct, the biblical timescale of the earth is now widely accepted as not just improbable but very much impossible.

So without getting into other silly arguments about the god of the old testament or complex debates over the human genome and where we our
morals come from or even the fact that there are so many religons all claiming to be th3 one true one, the girl I was arguing [debating] with simply said, "you know what? I've begun to have some doubts recently and sitting here now thinking about time the way you explained it...I'm gonna have to look at my reliogn more seriously.

She then asked me how matter came into existece and what I thought of the very nature of existence itself, not existing and then suddenly existng or either always existing but never to have been satrted but always to have been. I slipped out to the toilets then and happily when I returned the conversation had moved onto Britney Spears new 'look'.
When the night ended she reminded that i has ducked the question of matter and time..damn so close...
Perhaps next time i'll bring Stephen Hawkins with me and we can double team her, in a purely scientific sense that is....

A literal reading of genesis and a few crazy creationists aren't exactly evidence against the biblical god...

PDN

Congratulations on finding someone who found that to be convincing.

I presume she was blonde?

Dades

stevejazzx wrote:

Perhaps next time i'll bring Stephen Hawkins with me and we can double team her, in a purely scientific sense that is....

LOL

She sounded like a soft sell TBH.

joe_chicken

stevejazzx wrote:

sophiscated calculations that scientists now use when dating rock strata, absolutely everything points to the scientific method being more likley to be more correct.

So scientists proved scientific methods are accurate, using scientific methods...

I'm sold anyway.

stevejazzx

bluewolf wrote:

A literal reading of genesis and a few crazy creationists aren't exactly evidence against the biblical god...

If the timescale of the earth really is 4.5 billion which all modern evidence suggests then the perspective of the bible as word of god being recored just thousands of years ago is ludicrious. How could god have created the earth in six days thousands of years ago when the earth is litreally billions of years old. It is evidence agianst a biblical god, very strong and convincing evidnece at that. Genesis isn't meant methaphorically, and for the most part theolgians accept that. This is whay we are having to endure the creationist 'scientist' argument who question radiometric dating and try to prove that the Grand Canyon was created by noahs flood. In fact recently Dawkins talking on newstalk i think was quoting the eminment Mr. bertrand russell saying that the timeline of the earth was perhaps the gretaest evidence agianst religous societies, since in the context of time it shows them as just superstious socieites exiting long after the real creation of the universe, who created their own myths and legends about of the creation of the universe which we now know are incoorrect, therefore their religon is also incorrect. You can't simply remove a large section of religous belief and still claim there is some validation in saying that the creator may still exist.

stevejazzx

joe_chicken wrote:

So scientists proved scientific methods are accurate, using scientific methods...

I'm sold anyway.

Man you seem to always appear in my posts with odd pedantic arguments. I could go on at lenght about your 'argument' here but I feel you are one of those posters who just likes to just 'poke' and see what kind of reaction you get. If you think that the scientific method of ageing the earth is wrong then come out and say why and stop wasting my time and everyones eles time with your little 'pokes', your infertile quips of insinuation that somehow x poster is simply missing the point of what he/she is wrting. So lets hear it then, your arguments agianst radiometric dating...

stevejazzx

PDN wrote:

Congratulations on finding someone who found that to be convincing.

I presume she was blonde?

Apparently, and i get this from good sources but 95%- 99% of the scientific community believe it aswell,. Robin posted similar links recently afaik to back it up. And yes she was blonde but I never saw that matter question coming..

Scofflaw

stevejazzx wrote:

Apparently, and i get this from good sources but 95%- 99% of the scientific community believe it aswell,. Robin posted similar links recently afaik to back it up. And yes she was blonde but I never saw that matter question coming..

A rather larger 99.9%+, actually.

joe_chicken wrote:

So scientists proved scientific methods are accurate, using scientific methods...

Hmm. The point is really that all of the scientific evidence fits together, whether drawn from geology or biology or physics or whatever. The probability of that happening by chance is basically zero, so either it's right, or God faked the world so that it looked right.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Dades

stevejazzx wrote:

Genesis isn't meant methaphorically, and for the most part theolgians accept that.

Really? I would have thought that most Christians at least believe it to be metaphorical - the only other alternative being to be a creationist.

A lot of biblical sceptics (myself included) believe it wasn't meant to be metaphorical.

PDN

stevejazzx wrote:

Apparently, and i get this from good sources but 95%- 99% of the scientific community believe it aswell,. Robin posted similar links recently afaik to back it up. And yes she was blonde but I never saw that matter question coming..

So 95-99% of the scientific community think that evidence against young earth creationism is compelling evidence against the existence of the biblical God? That is contradicted by surveys that demonstrate that 40% of scientists believe in God.

A literal belief in the Bible does not necessitate believing in a young earth.

The majority of believers in the biblical God do not hold to a young date for the creation of the earth.

For most of the Church's history (and even in Judaism) few if any theologians or leaders have argued for a young earth.

That is why I congratulate you on finding someone uninformed enough to be convinced by your argument.

Zombrex

PDN wrote:

I presume she was blonde?

Well she did believe this stuff to begin with ...

stevejazzx

stevejazzx wrote:

Genesis isn't meant methaphorically, and for the most part theolgians accept that.

No they don't...that's why christian != creationist

timeline has nothing to do with the existence of a god

stevejazzx

bluewolf wrote:

No they don't...that's why christian != creationist

Yes they do for the most part, read up on it. The earth was supposed to be made in six days. The snake in the garden of eden however, methaphorical depending who you read and I've read a lot of theology recently but from my study it is clear that most thelogians accept that most of what is written is done so without methaphor. They are only prepared to accept meathaphors when the passage in question is vague or the mythes bieig relayed are done so unsing animals in which case the methaphor is either obvious or there really was talking animals or some such other 'impossible' activity occuring with the exception of the Jesus and his fathers activities, his life, performing miracles etc which are of course meant completely factually. What people don't realsie is that meathaphorical explanation/defense of the bible is a relatively modern in reaction to the percieved attacks science, darwininsim etc. The whole idea of meathaphorical text is to create ambiguity where meaning can take many different froms. however theolgians are aware of this and so most of the major events recoreded in biblical text are not meant methaphorically, hence my words included the phrase for the most part.

bluewolf wrote:

..timeline has nothing to do with the existence of god

Zombrex

PDN wrote:

A literal belief in the Bible does not necessitate believing in a young earth.

The majority of believers in the biblical God do not hold to a young date for the creation of the earth.

I think people are slightly missing the point. This isn't about whether modern Christians believe the Bible to be literal.

This woman asked for evidence that the Biblical God does not exist.

Steve responded with the fact that the Bible is wrong about a lot of things to do with history and science, demonstrating that the Bible that the God that was supposed to write or inspire it doesn't exist (because how can a God get things wrong)

Now modern Christians, including some scientists, might have decided for themselves that rather than the Bible being in error, the Bible was never actually trying to be correct or literal in the first place.

But that is simply a bit of jiggery pokery compartmentalization that theists are famous for, that simply stems from a refusal to face up to the reality with regards to this issue. If one refuses to accept that the Bible can be wrong in the first place, then such mental gymastics are required to figure out a way that the Bible can say something that is incorrect without actually being wrong.

Of course a far more logical conclusion is that the Bible was simply wrong.

But then of course it is wrong! Why wouldn't it be. These people knew nothing about physics or chemistry. All religious books from that period that attempted to describe the universe got it completely wrong Why would anyone believe that the Bible would be any different.

JC 2K3

PDN wrote:

So 95-99% of the scientific community think that evidence against young earth creationism is compelling evidence against the existence of the biblical God? That is contradicted by surveys that demonstrate that 40% of scientists believe in God.

78.94563735% of statistics are made up on the spot.

PDN

stevejazzx wrote:

Yes they do for the most part, read up on it. The earth was supposed to be made in six days. The snake in the garden of eden however, methaphorical depending who you read and I've read a lot of theology recently but from my study it is clear that most thelogians accept that most of what is written is done so without methaphor. They are only prepared to accept meathaphors when the passage in question is vague or the mythes bieig relayed are done so unsing animals in which case the methaphor is either obvious or there really was talking animals or some such other 'impossible' activity occuring with the exception of the Jesus and his fathers activities, his life, performing miracles etc which are of course meant completely factually. What people don't realsie is that meathaphorical explanation/defense of the bible is a relatively modern in reaction to the percieved attacks science, darwininsim etc. The whole idea of meathaphorical text is to create ambiguity where meaning can take many different froms. however theolgians are aware of this and so most of the major events recoreded in biblical text are not meant methaphorically, hence my words included the phrase for the most part.

I can assure you that I have been 'reading up on it' for the last 26 years - and there have been very many theologians who treat parts of the book of Genesis as metaphorical. These include the majority of the early Church fathers, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, Eusebius, and Basil, and also most modern theologians.

There are also many Christians who take the Bible literally and yet do not believe in a young earth. Belief in Creation, and belief in a young earth, are 2 separate issues - hence you have a large number of Old Earth Creationists.

Young Earth Creationism has never been more than a minority view within Christian theology as a whole. Young Earth Creationists are extremely vocal, and attract much publicity, and I can understand why some atheists would like to pretend they are a majority. After all, it is much easier to argue against a parody rather than the real thing.

Tim Robbins

stevejazzx wrote:

I slipped out to the toilets then and happily when I returned the conversation had moved onto Britney Spears new 'look'.
When the night ended she reminded that i has ducked the question of matter and time..damn so close...
Perhaps next time i'll bring Stephen Hawkins with me and we can double team her, in a purely scientific sense that is....

Sounds deadly Steve. Fair play, I'm delighted for you.

Well whatever you believe in show a bit of bashfulness about your beliefs and respect for others. Don't be afraid to say what you really think and why but say it in a contextual way i.e. not everyone has to agree with you. Remember to listen. If you are looking at her longterm I would definetly go for a few deep conversations. But remember people have their own backgrounds and their own reasons for beliefs so just be a bit sensitive. It can be interesting when people have different opinions and exchange them.

Remember even people with the same beliefs or lack of beliefs can get into heated discussions quite quickly (as we see around here regularly). Remember even people with different beliefs can get on quite well. Ultimately none of us know what's out there, we just have a range of opinions for a very wide range of reasons.
I am beginning to think that nobody believes in God, we just all deal with it differently. I am beginning to think that religions manifest purely because man cannot deal with the fact that there is no reliable evidence when looking at the real world, so he creates evidence to create the illusions there is a God because he can't deal without there being one.

This is a bit like the end of the film Momento, where Guy Pierce creates a mission in his life, by making up evidence that he'll soon forget he made up but he knows he'll enjoy his life more when he beliefs it.

Anyway, if you are just looking for sex it might be better to stick to Britney Spears talks.

Are you going to meet her again? Why not suggest to meet her and go to something in the fringe festival?

Best of luck.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote:

After all, it is much easier to argue against a parody rather than the real thing.

Interesting.
Can you confirm that you think the beliefs of some of the Christian posters on boards are nothing more than a parody?

pH

Those claiming that genesis is a metaphor have yet to explain what exactly it is a metaphor for.

Genesis is a collection of tales (hence 2 creation myths) but how a 6 day direct creation is a metaphor for 4.5 billion years of gradual unguided evolution is beyond me.

And all the other stuff? Painful childbirth for women is caused by the fall, how is that a metaphor for "Painful childbirth for women is cause by evolutionary pressure for finding a balance between the child having a large brain and keeping the pelvis small enough for efficient upright walking".

PDN

Wicknight wrote:

Now modern Christians, including some scientists, might have decided for themselves that rather than the Bible being in error, the Bible was never actually trying to be correct or literal in the first place.

But that is simply a bit of jiggery pokery compartmentalization that theists are famous for, that simply stems from a refusal to face up to the reality with regards to this issue. If one refuses to accept that the Bible can be wrong in the first place, then such mental gymastics are required to figure out a way that the Bible can say something that is incorrect without actually being wrong.

Of course a far more logical conclusion is that the Bible was simply wrong.

But then of course it is wrong! Why wouldn't it be. These people knew nothing about physics or chemistry. All religious books from that period that attempted to describe the universe got it completely wrong Why would anyone believe that the Bible would be any different.

A very convenient argument, but totally false and easily disposed of. Your attempt to present a 2000 year-old viewpoint as a modern phenomenon is to history what Ken Hamm is to geology. The idea that the Bible makes no attempt to give a scientic description of creation is not modern at all, in fact this position was held by the majority of theologians at a time when there was no carbon dating, no understanding of the fossil record, and no modern physics or chemistry.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote:

Interesting.
Can you confirm that you think the beliefs of some of the Christian posters on boards are nothing more than a parody?

They are a parody when they are portrayed as being representative of all, or even most, Christians.

It would be akin to me treating Mao's opinions and actions as being representative of all atheists. Yes, I am certainly entitled to argue against Mao's opinions, but for me to pretend that he is representative of atheism as a whole would certainly be a parody (not to say either grossly ignorant or deeply dishonest on my part).

stevejazzx

The Atheist wrote:

Really? I would have thought that most Christians at least believe it to be metaphorical - the only other alternative being to be a creationist.

A lot of biblical sceptics (myself included) believe it wasn't meant to be metaphorical.

You're right it wasn't meant to be for the most part - and theologians will acknowledge this. Theolgians don't have a problem acknowledging this becasue they tend to use more complex arguments for God.
They will say that world 'appears' a cetain age and God may be challenging us to find the 'truth' of our existence, thye'd be the liberal ones though as the fromer Pope famously declared that study into what happened before the big bang is against the wishes of our creator. Most conservative theolgians would say that mans inquisition into his existence is a waste of time because the mind of god is outside the realm of human understanding and that he needs to teach himself to love Jesus and to stop thinking and just know. They would offer a almost philosophical explantion of the universe suggesting that we are enitties, energies that belong to a higher being. Our purpose is to find love and harmony so that we may join him in a celectial paradise which to the listener may sound very much like the hindu explanation of the nature of ther universe. The launguage and sentinment of the theolgian from what I can gather is quite wishy washy and they get around complex arguments by suggesting that the nature of things is beyond us, God holds infinite truth wisdom etc. Another example is that in theodicy, when confronted with the notions of God letting small babies die and thousands of innocent people get slaughtered, theolgians will suggest that god does not interfere as he has placed the world in the hands of men who do as they please (free will). But we know from the bible that God used to intefere in mens lives so I've never bought that argument but its a very handy way to dismiiss all the evil and suffering in the world. So in essence there is no need to pass biblical passages off as methaphorical becasue modern theological arguments are based around the fact the human beings will never be able to grapple with enormity of the universe, it's structure and essence lie outside of our grasp. that proves God for them more than anything else. This is closest to what is called the ontological argument which Colin mcGinn very nicely covers in his interview on the program 'The atheist tapes'.

sdep

I couldn't provide evidence that someone's god didn't exist, and don't see that they should reasonably expect me to.

I could only say that I'd no irrefutable evidence that could only be accounted for by invoking said god, and that that was good enough for me.

No genuflection without proof.

stevejazzx

PDN wrote:

So 95-99% of the scientific community think that evidence against young earth creationism is compelling evidence against the existence of the biblical God? That is contradicted by surveys that demonstrate that 40% of scientists believe in God.

A literal belief in the Bible does not necessitate believing in a young earth.

The majority of believers in the biblical God do not hold to a young date for the creation of the earth.

For most of the Church's history (and even in Judaism) few if any theologians or leaders have argued for a young earth.

That is why I congratulate you on finding someone uninformed enough to be convinced by your argument.

Ahh I see..she should've known that in the first place. Yes well true but of all the people who know the earth is 4.5 billion years how many actually took the time out to see how scientits arrived at that information? i imagine quite a small number so it might be benifical for them to hear that the notion of billion year old planet is very substantial and not just explicit theroizing.

Zombrex

PDN wrote:

The idea that the Bible makes no attempt to give a scientic description of creation is not modern at all, in fact this position was held by the majority of theologians at a time when there was no carbon dating, no understanding of the fossil record, and no modern physics or chemistry.

That is irrelevant, as I explained. There is little reason to believe that those who wrote the Bible didn't take it completely seriously.

The fact that these later theologians realised that it couldn't possibly be true and therefore decided after the fact that the people who wrote it must have not been serious, is simply wishful thinking, thinking that is clouded by the belief that it must be inspired by God and therefore cannot be wrong.

The far more logical conclusion is that it was simply wrong. But of course you religion says it can't be wrong, so that is where the mental gymnastics comes in, attempting to muddle around with ideas that they were talking in metaphors and codes and exaggeration.

joe_chicken

Scofflaw wrote:

Hmm. The point is really that all of the scientific evidence scientifically fits together, whether drawn from the science of geology or the science of biology or the science of physics or whatever. The scientific probability of that happening by chance is basically, the scientific concept that is zero, so either it's right, or God faked the world so that it looked scientifically right.

I like science.

But unless we have some kind of unified theory of the universe, trying to use science to disprove God is futile.

Scofflaw

PDN wrote:

A very convenient argument, but totally false and easily disposed of. Your attempt to present a 2000 year-old viewpoint as a modern phenomenon is to history what Ken Hamm is to geology. The idea that the Bible makes no attempt to give a scientic description of creation is not modern at all, in fact this position was held by the majority of theologians at a time when there was no carbon dating, no understanding of the fossil record, and no modern physics or chemistry.

St. Augustine, for example - as far as I'm aware.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

joe_chicken wrote:

Hmm. The point is really that all of the scientific evidence scientifically fits together, whether drawn from the science of geology or the science of biology or the science of physics or whatever. The scientific probability of that happening by chance is basically, the scientific concept that is zero, so either it's right, or God faked the world so that it looked scientifically right.

I like science.

But unless we have some kind of unified theory of the universe, trying to use science to disprove God is futile.

Ah - there I agree with you. It is not possible for science to disprove God, only to show that the universe can be said to work as it does without intervention. However, science can disprove certain readings of the Bible, held by a minority of Christians.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

I would be curious what reason or evidence modern Christians have for the belief that those who wrote the Old Testament did not mean for it to be taken as a literal history

stevejazzx

PDN wrote:

I can assure you that I have been 'reading up on it' for the last 26 years - and there have been very many theologians who treat parts of the book of Genesis as metaphorical. These include the majority of the early Church fathers, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, Eusebius, and Basil, and also most modern theologians.

There are also many Christians who take the Bible literally and yet do not believe in a young earth. Belief in Creation, and belief in a young earth, are 2 separate issues - hence you have a large number of Old Earth Creationists.

Young Earth Creationism has never been more than a minority view within Christian theology as a whole. Young Earth Creationists are extremely vocal, and attract much publicity, and I can understand why some atheists would like to pretend they are a majority. After all, it is much easier to argue against a parody rather than the real thing.

I accept that but most modern theologians are moving from the idea of meathaphorical defense becasue it is weak. It also makes a very confusing bible. You can't cherry pick, a theolgian who does is instanly opening himself to criticism. It also makes God out to be quite misleading, I've often asked the question why would God use methaphors when he must of known that future generations would be so confused and struggle and fight over their meaning? If he was relaying a message to the human race why not a simple unconvoluted message one without ambiguity? Why allow the bible to record data that would be passed onto future generations if that data were somehow corrupt, misleading or not entirely correct. How do theolgians know which parts are completely factual, partly factual or mostly methaphorical. They don't is the simple answer and they struggle and fight over the menaing all the time. Surely an infintely wise creator would not of allowed his message of love and peace to all men and women become so corrupted? Look at Islam, they fight over the word 'jihad' and other such ambigous words phrases. Chrsitians don't accept that a god who kills people and then says everyone can be forgiven is a god who is contradicting himself. A religon whose message is peace and love for all except peope of other religons are contradictng themselves. The whole thing is a mess not becasue celestial beings messed up and got too wordy and verbose but because the whole thing is man made.

stevejazzx

pH wrote:

Those claiming that genesis is a metaphor have yet to explain what exactly it is a metaphor for.

Genesis is a collection of tales (hence 2 creation myths) but how a 6 day direct creation is a metaphor for 4.5 billion years of gradual unguided evolution is beyond me.

And all the other stuff? Painful childbirth for women is caused by the fall, how is that a metaphor for "Painful childbirth for women is cause by evolutionary pressure for finding a balance between the child having a large brain and keeping the pelvis small enough for efficient upright walking".

damn you ph...just seeing this now..this could've saved me a lot of typing

PDN

Wicknight wrote:

That is irrelevant, as I explained. There is little reason to believe that those who wrote the Bible didn't take it completely seriously.

It is not irrelevant. You have tried to portray a 2000 year-old viewpoint (at least 2000 years, possibly much older) as an accommodation to modern science. I have cited examples to show that your interesting theory is historically unsupportable.

Now you give the impression that you have some kind of knowledge as to what was in the minds of the author(s) of Genesis. Theologians and historians, with far greater understanding of ancient literature than you or I, have failed to attain to this knowledge. We really cannot state with any certainty whether the authors' intention was that their account would be taken poetically, metaphorically or scientifically.

Also, I might point out that 'taking the Bible seriously' is perfectly compatible with seeing a biblical passage as being metaphorical.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

I would be curious what reason or evidence modern Christians have for the belief that those who wrote the Old Testament did not mean for it to be taken as a literal history

There's an element of proving a negative there. What evidence do you have that they intended it to be taken as literal history?

cordially,
Scofflaw

stevejazzx

PDN wrote:

A very convenient argument, but totally false and easily disposed of. Your attempt to present a 2000 year-old viewpoint as a modern phenomenon is to history what Ken Hamm is to geology. The idea that the Bible makes no attempt to give a scientic description of creation is not modern at all, in fact this position was held by the majority of theologians at a time when there was no carbon dating, no understanding of the fossil record, and no modern physics or chemistry.

Yes and they were very clever, all 5 of them but they couldn't prove anything insofar as anything is provable. Nowadays anyone (not just a clever philopsher or theologian) can look at biblical accounts of the world and immediately see the disparities between it and science. So in fact it is a modern phenomenon (last 50 years).

bonkey

stevejazzx wrote:

I've often asked the question why would God use methaphors when he must of known that future generations would be so confused and struggle and fight over their meaning?

Maybe our struggle with our confusion was part of the reason?

stevejazzx

Scofflaw wrote:

There's an element of proving a negative there. What evidence do you have that they intended it to be taken as literal history?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Thats an excellent question - possibly becasue they supposedly used real characters and punished people in their time who didn't follow it? I seee your point but it seems it was an attempt to record history while accounting for all thier superstitions also. I imagine it would be a safe assumtion to make....

stevejazzx

bonkey wrote:

Maybe our struggle with our confusion was part of the reason?

<

---

>

PDN

stevejazzx wrote:

Thats an excellent question - possibly becasue they supposedly used real characters and punished people in their time who didn't follow it?

What? The author(s) of Genesis punished people who understood the account of creation metaphorically? Have you any evidence for such an amazing assertion?

stevejazzx

Tim Robbins wrote:

Sounds deadly Steve. Fair play, I'm delighted for you.


.........Anyway, if you are just looking for sex it might be better to stick to Britney Spears talks.

Are you going to meet her again? Why not suggest to meet her and go to something in the fringe festival?

Best of luck.

Well it was fun evening but alas I am happily married. She was, to use the parlance of our times, way out of my league anyway. That doesn't mean that I would have...just that emmm well you know...;)

Zombrex

PDN wrote:

It is not irrelevant. You have tried to portray a 2000 year-old viewpoint (at least 2000 years, possibly much older) as an accommodation to modern science.

No actually I haven't

I have (tried to?) portray this viewpoint (how old it is is irrelevant) as a realization that what is described in the Bible cannot be true but a failure to accept the logical conclusion that it is therefore simply wrong.

Ancient "science" of the Greeks and Romans knew that it is very unlikely that the Earth was created in the way described in Genesis, so the modernity of the science isn't that important.

As soon as people realised that this couldn't have actually happened they started floating around the idea that it as never meant to be taken literally. This was easier than accepting that it was just plan wrong.

PDN wrote:

I have cited examples to show that your interesting theory is historically unsupportable.

To do so PDN you would have to demonstrate that those who wrote the Old Testament did not mean for it to be taken literally.

So far you have not done so, though I would be interested in seeing this evidence.

PDN wrote:

Now you give the impression that you have some kind of knowledge as to what was in the minds of the author(s) of Genesis.

Not me PDN -

James Barr wrote:

‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the “days” of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.

This is from James Barr, who did not believe the Bible to be without error, but who did believe, and supported the belief, that those who wrote it meant it to be taken as it was written.

You can find this quote and many more like them on any number of Creationists websites (which unfortunately due to my adventures on the Creationists thread in Christianity I'm all to familiar with).

What ever people say about Creationists (and I could say a lot) there seems to be little doubt that they are reading the Bible as it was meant to be read by those who wrote it.

I suppose one has to respect the devotion to the inerrant nature of the original text in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

PDN wrote:

We really cannot state with any certainty whether the authors' intention was that their account would be taken poetically, metaphorically or scientifically.

Very true, and in that little glimmer of uncertainty lives the belief that none of this was ever meant to be taken literally.

But honestly, if you came to this as an unbiased person, would you accept that over the idea that they simply got it completely wrong?

stevejazzx

PDN wrote:

What? The author(s) of Genesis punished people who understood the account of creation metaphorically? Have you any evidence for such an amazing assertion?

Well I meant the generation of people directly following who may of been more acquainted with that history who chose to follow those scriptures and hold them as sacrosanct. The idea is that surely they would have been able to distinguish whether or not the texts were meant litreally seeing as they were far closer to the actual histoires thmeselves.
However if we take the idea that moses wrote Genesis, he smited the Midianites for idolatry or some such thing so thats not a million miles away from what I'm saying either.

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

There's an element of proving a negative there. What evidence do you have that they intended it to be taken as literal history?

I see your point.

But, well the fact that they wrote it, would be strong suggestion for a start.

When people write a history they generally mean it to be take as just that, a history. Given the context in which the books were written that seems to be the most reasonable conclusion.

I mean it could be argued that nothing in the Bible is supposed to be taken seriously, that the whole thing is a joke. And it would be rather difficult to demonstrate conclusively otherwise. But I doubt many people hold that as likely, believers and non-believers a like

PDN

stevejazzx wrote:

Well I meant the generation of people directly following who may of been more acquainted with that history who chose to follow those scriptures and hold them as sacrosanct. The idea is that surely they would have been able to distinguish whether or not the texts were meant litreally seeing as they were far closer to the actual histoires thmeselves.
However if we take the idea that moses wrote Genesis, he smited the Midianites for idolatry or some such thing so thats not a million miles away from what I'm saying either.

Actually it is a million miles away. Idolatry is the worship of a false god. That is a completely issue from whether someone understands a piece of literature as being poetry or as a scientificly accurate description. (When in a hole, sometimes it's best to stop digging).

A small minority of theologians believe that Moses wrote Genesis, but most would agree that we don't know the date in which it was written and therefore we would have no way of knowing which generation 'directly followed', or what they did.

I would certainly agree with you that the first readers/hearers of the Genesis account, and probably a number of later generations, would be able to clearly tell whether the account was to be taken literally or not. Unfortunately that is of little assistance to us since we have no records of whether they understood it metaphorically or not. We do know that early Hebrew thought used metaphors extensively, but we cannot say with any certainty whether that is the case in the creation accounts.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

I see your point.

But, well the fact that they wrote it, would be strong suggestion for a start.

When people write a history they generally mean it to be take as just that, a history. Given the context in which the books were written that seems to be the most reasonable conclusion.

I mean it could be argued that nothing in the Bible is supposed to be taken seriously, that the whole thing is a joke. And it would be rather difficult to demonstrate conclusively otherwise. But I doubt many people hold that as likely, believers and non-believers a like

I'm not sure those are the only options. I think what we're looking at here is a confusion over what 'literal' and 'historical' mean to us now, and meant in a pre-scientific age. Is Robin Hood historical? The Iliad? Gilgamesh and Enkidu?

cordially,
Scofflaw

stevejazzx

PDN wrote:

Actually it is a million miles away. Idolatry is the worship of a false god. That is a completely issue from whether someone understands a piece of literature as being poetry or as a scientificly accurate description. (When in a hole, sometimes it's best to stop digging).

A small minority of theologians believe that Moses wrote Genesis, but most would agree that we don't know the date in which it was written and therefore we would have no way of knowing which generation 'directly followed', or what they did.

I would certainly agree with you that the first readers/hearers of the Genesis account, and probably a number of later generations, would be able to clearly tell whether the account was to be taken literally or not. Unfortunately that is of little assistance to us since we have no records of whether they understood it metaphorically or not. We do know that early Hebrew thought used metaphors extensively, but we cannot say with any certainty whether that is the case in the creation accounts.

Grand then we agree on something...it is an excellent question that Scofflaw asks not becasue we don't know the answer, I think answer is pretty much goes one way, that they did mean 'it' litereally, but it raises the point that we could never really be sure what the 'it' is and how it was dervied. On the basis of our current understanding we could never say that those histories, myths, legends srtories etc. all formed into some kind flawless manuscript, in fact they almost certainly didn't but yet 70% of Americans believe it is the literal word of God, not to demean your outlook or study or belief but there must be some kind guilt by association at this early stage in the 21st century. I mean are you not cheerypicking, compartmentalising or being selectively intellectual? I really do respect your belief but I don't understand where you got it from. You are obviously well read (based on your input in other threads) but I can't get around idea that a person would have to bypass so much information to argue for a biblical God in a very similar way that JC bypasses so much information to argue against evolution.

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

I think what we're looking at here is a confusion over what 'literal' and 'historical' mean to us now, and meant in a pre-scientific age.

Possibly, TBH I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make

As far as I'm aware there is little reason to believe that the people who wrote the Old Testament didn't believe that these stories actually physically happened. That is what I mean by literal. When the early Hebrews wrote down their creation stories that the world was created in 6 days by their God they believed that this actually happened. Or at least if they didn't they didn't suggest this in the writing.

That at least seems to be the general consensus among historians and Biblical scholars.

indough

Aren't we to assume, if the bible (and Genesis in particular) is truly the word of God, that those who wrote it were simply reporting on accounts given to them by God? Would God have explained in great detail how he created the universe, or would he have dumbed down a little and used metaphors for what actually happened?

I suspect if all this were true then he would have had to explain things in ways that the original writers would have understood.

The original writers and followers would probably not have been able to get past those metaphors and taken it literally, he probably would have found it safe to assume that we'd be able to understand his method, and use our scientific knowledge to adapt his teachings.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Possibly, TBH I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make

As far as I'm aware there is little reason to believe that the people who wrote the Old Testament didn't believe that these stories actually physically happened. That is what I mean by literal. When the early Hebrews wrote down their creation stories that the world was created in 6 days by their God they believed that this actually happened. Or at least if they didn't they didn't suggest this in the writing.

If you mean that they really meant that the world started with an act of Creation by God, yes, I'm sure that they meant that.

If, on the other hand, you mean that they would have expected, had they been physically present at the moment of Creation, they would have seen and experienced exactly the events recorded in Genesis, I doubt it.

Finally, if you mean they would have expected to be able to trace and detect exactly the falsifiable evidence of the exact actions recorded in Genesis, as JC claims, no, I think that's a post-scientific viewpoint.

When someone says they take the Bible metaphorically, I don't think they mean that 6 days is a "metaphor" for 4.6 billion years. The order of creation could be taken for an order of the 'importance' of different parts of creation, or of the reliance of one thing on the other, or of their emotional distance from man, or many other things. Is the age of the earth really important to the Christian message? Not really, so why waste Biblical space on it?

cordially,
Scofflaw

PDN

Wicknight wrote:

Possibly, TBH I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make

As far as I'm aware there is little reason to believe that the people who wrote the Old Testament didn't believe that these stories actually physically happened. That is what I mean by literal. When the early Hebrews wrote down their creation stories that the world was created in 6 days by their God they believed that this actually happened. Or at least if they didn't they didn't suggest this in the writing.

That at least seems to be the general consensus among historians and Biblical scholars.

No, there is a host of biblical scholars who believe that the creation accounts were not intended to be taken as a scientifically accurate description. Obviously my own background means I am more familiar with those in the evangelical tradition, but the following is a small selection of such scholars from the last 20 years:

Gordon R. Lewis - senior professor of systematic theology and Christian philosophy at Denver Seminary. He is the past president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and the Evangelical Theological Society.

Meredith Kline - professor of Old Testament & professor emeritus at Westminster Theological Seminary & Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

James Montgomery Boice - Presbyterian pastor/theologian & founding member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Author of a respected 3 volume commentary on Genesis.

Gleason L. Archer - Professor of Biblical Languages at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California from 1948 to 1965. From 1965 to 1986 he served as a Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois. He became an emeritus faculty member in 1989. The remainder of his life was spent researching, writing, and lecturing. Was one of the 50 original translators of the NASB published in 1971. He also worked on the team which translated the NIV Bible published in 1978.

Bruce K. Waltke - professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Dallas Theological Seminary, Regent College, Westminster Theological Seminary and Reformed Theological Seminary. Has served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society and was on the translation committee of the New American Standard Bible and the New International and Today's New International Version of the Bible. His books include Intermediate Hebrew Grammar, and Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Also co-authored a prominent commentary on Genesis.

John H. Sailhamer -professor of Old Testament at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary & formerly senior professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Author of An Introduction to Old Testament Theology and The NIV Compact Bible Commentary.

Wayne A. Grudem - Research Professor of Bible and Theology at Phoenix Seminary. Prior to that, he had taught for 20 years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he was chairman of the department of Biblical and Systematic Theology. Served on the committee overseeing the English Standard Version translation of the Bible, and in 1999 he was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Millard Erickson - Distinguished Professor of Theology at Western Seminary and author of Christian Theology.

Kenneth A. Mathews - professor of Old testament & Hebrew at Beeson Divinity School. His book, The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll was the first full study of the Leviticus Dead Sea Scroll. He authored Genesis 1-11:26 and Genesis 11:27-50:26 in the New American Commentary (NAC) series and serves as associate general editor of that series.

Norman L. Geisler - Dean of Southern Evangelical Seminary.

C. John Collins - professor of Old Testament at Covenant Seminary. Author of Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary. Also served as Old Testament chair on the translation committee for the English Standard Version of the Bible.

Gordon Wenham - senior professor of Old Testament at the University of Gloucester. Author of Exploring the Old Testament: the Pentateuch and of the IVP commentary on Genesis.

Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. - distinguished Professor of Old Testament and former President of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Author of A History of Israel, An Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics, and The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable & Relevant?

Now we could play a game of 'my list of scholars is bigger (or better) than your list of scholars' but that would miss my point entirely. No-one who knows anything of theology would describe anything as a 'consensus' if it excluded the preceding (partial) list of Old Testament and Hebrew scholars.

Tim Robbins

stevejazzx wrote:

Well it was fun evening but alas I am happily married. She was, to use the parlance of our times, way out of my league anyway. That doesn't mean that I would have...just that emmm well you know...;)

If your wife is reading this: hey house it going? All blokes have fantasy files, seriously its no big deal. Seriously he's a great guy.