Wouldn't it be easier if...?

Zascar

I'm not a particularly religious guy - but I'm definitely not an atheist. I go church with my family on occasion and I might say a quiet prayer from time to time, but the one thing that almost pushes me away further, is certain people's insistence in belief in the various far out stories in bible.

The bible is a series of books written thousands of years ago by various different people - it's hardly dictated by God himself like the Koran is supposed to be, yet so many feel its important to believe every word. Throughout history there have always been crazy stories that we aren't expected to believe any more, except in the bible. There seems to be so much that you are expected to believe in Christianity, but when they exist elsewhere they are fobbed off.

So it says in the bible that God made the world in 6 days, which most people do not believe any more due to science. So why can't they just say "God created the Universe" long before the big bang. That's reasonable to believe isn't it? I saw a documentary a while ago and even some senior people in the Vatican don't believe it - and acknowledge that certain parts of the bible are obviously just takes with the main purpose of making a point - but we can still get that point without throwing logic out the window, can't we? Many scientists who laugh at creationism still believe in a higher power due to the statistical improbability of the cosmological constant - why can't the church go this way instead?

Our world has changed so much in the last 100 years but the church has failed to adapt sufficiently. In light of recent events I think some things need a serious makeover.

Interested in your comments on my thoughts. I'm not trying to start an argument just a discussion

santing

I completely agree. Let's give God a complete make-over in light of our enlightement. Let's rewrite history to suit our knowledge or taste.

It's definitely much easier that way. But if it solves our problems and the God-shaped emptiness in our heart?

Joe1919

You may be interested to read some of what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say. I personally think that its a mistake not to see how the bible uses metaphor.

Summa Theologica Question 1. The nature and extent of sacred doctrine
Article 9. Whether Holy Scripture should use metaphors?

I answer that, It is befitting Holy Writ to put forward divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things. For God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature. Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from sense. Hence in Holy Writ, spiritual truths are fittingly taught under the likeness of material things. .......- that spiritual truths be expounded by means of figures taken from corporeal things, in order that thereby even the simple who are unable by themselves to grasp intellectual things may be able to understand it.

Reply to Objection 1. Poetry makes use of metaphors to produce a representation, for it is natural to man to be pleased with representations. But sacred doctrine makes use of metaphors as both necessary and useful.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1001.htm

Fanny Cradock

The bible is a series of books written thousands of years ago by various different people - it's hardly dictated by God himself like the Koran is supposed to be

Actually, this isn't strictly true. AFAIK, the Koran doesn't claim to be dictated directly by God, Gabriel was supposed to be the conjugate between God and man, he s the one who interacted with Muhammad. Christianity does claim that parts of the bible were dictated by God. For example, God's interaction with Moses - the result of which was the commandments - and Paul's encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus is an example of another direct encounter. If one believes in a God, then I don't see why it is a problem to think that he has directly interacted with his creations at various times.

yet so many feel its important to believe every word. Throughout history there have always been crazy stories that we aren't expected to believe any more, except in the bible. There seems to be so much that you are expected to believe in Christianity, but when they exist elsewhere they are fobbed off.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. I've not met or heard of anyone who believes every word in the bible to be an accurate description of reality. By this I'm specifically talking about biblical literalism and taking everything in the bible as a literal description. The parables, for instance, were stories that conveyed certain moral messages rather than an accurate retelling of an event. Even the most rootinest tootenist science hating redneck understands this. Indeed, as has been mentioned, Thomas Aquinas, as far back as the 13th Century, had already grasped what you are trying to say.

Aquinas did not think that the opening of Genesis presented any difficulties for the natural sciences, for the Bible is not a textbook in the sciences. What is essential to Christian faith, according to Aquinas, is the "fact of creation," not the manner or mode of the formation of the world. Aquinas' firm adherence to the truth of Scripture without falling into the trap of literalistic readings of the text offers valuable correction for exegesis of the Bible which concludes that one must choose between the literal interpretation of the Bible and modern science. For Aquinas, the literal meaning of the Bible is what God, its author, intends the words to mean. The literal sense of the text includes metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech useful to accommodate the truth of the Bible to the understanding of its readers. For example, when one reads in the Bible that God stretches out His hand, one ought not think that God has a hand. The literal meaning of such passages concerns God's power, not His anatomy. Nor ought one think that the six days at the beginning of Genesis literally refer to God's acting in time, for God's creative act is instantaneous.

Link

However, if you want to go one step further and completely remove the essential miraculous components of Christianity - the resurrection etc. - then you are really only left with a mostly empty shell that is of little value beyond containing some nice sentiments about being nice to the poor and the like.

So it says in the bible that God made the world in 6 days, which most people do not believe any more due to science. So why can't they just say "God created the Universe" long before the big bang.

If one said, ""God created the Universe" long before the big bang" then you would be wrong from both a scientific and biblical perspective. Both hold to an event - a singularity if you will - that began it all. Besides, time popped into existence along with everything else, so there was no "long before".

I saw a documentary a while ago and even some senior people in the Vatican don't believe it - and acknowledge that certain parts of the bible are obviously just takes with the main purpose of making a point - but we can still get that point without throwing logic out the window, can't we? Many scientists who laugh at creationism still believe in a higher power due to the statistical improbability of the cosmological constant - why can't the church go this way instead?

Are you exclusively talking about the Roman Catholic Church? You should actually read up what they have to say about evolution and the universe. (I'm not a Catholic, btw)

According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the “Big Bang” and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5-4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.

Link

ColmDawson

Our understanding of the world has changed a lot in the past hundred years. Every time we learn something new from science, the religious goalposts are moved to accommodate it and the tiny bit that science can't yet explain is chalked up to god.

Saying the Bible is largely metaphorical is only a few steps away from realising that it's largely made up.

JimiTime

ColmDawson wrote: »

Our understanding of the world has changed a lot in the past hundred years. Every time we learn something new from science, the religious goalposts are moved to accommodate it and the tiny bit that science can't yet explain is chalked up to god.

Saying the Bible is largely metaphorical is only a few steps away from realising that it's largely made up.

Of course, you could just be talking complete tosh. In fact, thats exactly what you are doing. You may like, or even believe the anti-theism soundbites that are rife these days. Its still just sh!te that sounds clever though.

Joe1919

Perhaps science is also metaphor. (eg Bohr model etc).

http://www.google.ie/url?q=http://www.ndtceda.com/pipermail/edebate/1999-November/019966.html&sa=U&ei=b7euS9X8Ioe80gSW7PGIDg&ct=res&ved=0CBEQFjADOAo&cd=14&usg=AFQjCNF69BeBt-ZNiRwBDT_jSTZtVtTU5g

'A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a great truth'. Niels Bohr

http://www.google.ie/url?q=http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Quotations/Bohr_Niels.html&sa=U&ei=KbquS_2jI4ey0gTmgfGPDg&ct=res&ved=0CAUQFjAA&cd=1&usg=AFQjCNHNHuJgOnoEcN4nRJp4wMw79mTUFA

ColmDawson

JimiTime wrote: »

Of course, you could just be talking complete tosh. In fact, thats exactly what you are doing. You may like, or even believe the anti-theism soundbites that are rife these days. Its still just sh!te that sounds clever though.

What part of what I said isn't true? Refute my statements, instead of just broadly dismissing them.

antiskeptic

ColmDawson wrote: »

What part of what I said isn't true? Refute my statements, instead of just broadly dismissing them.

The best way to deal with a broad dismissal (yours) is with a broad dismissal (his).

JimiTime

antiskeptic wrote: »

The best way to deal with a broad dismissal (yours) is with a broad dismissal (his).

Exactly my thinking.

ColmDawson

antiskeptic wrote: »

The best way to deal with a broad dismissal (yours) is with a broad dismissal (his).

Nice, but I still think he can do better than that. I'd like to see why he thinks science hasn't encroached on areas of understanding once dominated by religious thinking.

Fanny Cradock

ColmDawson wrote: »

Every time we learn something new from science, the religious goalposts are moved to accommodate it and the tiny bit that science can't yet explain is chalked up to god.

Saying the Bible is largely metaphorical is only a few steps away from realising that it's largely made up.

Your dogmatic presuppositions and postulates are noted. Thankfully, these aren't a logical necessity. Instead, they are predicated on your subjective world view which seemingly places limits on God while simultaneously granting boundless potential to science.

Has anyone here said to you that the bible is largely metaphorical? I don't think so. In fact, I think that's really you voicing your own opinion. If you want to hear different perspectives you might want to listen to this talk from Colin Humphreyes entitled Science and Miracles or Ernest Lucas' talk entitled Science and the Bible: Are they incompatible? The creation story as a test case.

PDN

ColmDawson wrote: »

Our understanding of the world has changed a lot in the past hundred years. Every time we learn something new from science, the religious goalposts are moved to accommodate it and the tiny bit that science can't yet explain is chalked up to god.

Saying the Bible is largely metaphorical is only a few steps away from realising that it's largely made up.

As has already been noted, no-one is saying that the Bible is largely metaphorical.

Some parts certainly are parables and metaphors, and were recognised as such long before science had anything to say on the matter.

Our interpretion of anything, including science or the Bible, changes as our knowledge and experience changes. For example , 100 years ago there were parts of the Book of Revelation that many dismissed as metaphorical because their limited understanding of the possibilities of technology appeared not to allow for a literal interpretation (eg a third of all the life on earth being destroyed in a short space of time, or people on opposite sides of the world watching the same event simultaneously). Which goes to show that even the best of us (including scientists) sometimes interpret stuff wrongly because of our limitations.

krudler

The one thats always made the least sense to me is Noahs ark, its just ludicrous, a parable or moral tale, call it what you will,but the notion that a boat literally held every creature on earth, from all the continents,is ridiculous. What about the ones that hadnt been discovered yet? we're still discovering new spiders, insects, variations of marine life, etc etc

PDN

krudler wrote: »

variations of marine life, etc etc

Yeah, marine life would really need top crawl onto a boat to escape the water. :pac:

krudler

PDN wrote: »

Yeah, marine life would really need top crawl onto a boat to escape the water. :pac:

you know what I mean more the fact there were hundreds of thousands of unknown species of animals at the time, and probably still are, around the world.

Fanny Cradock

As a world wide event, yes, I would agree that it seems like an impossibility.

ColmDawson

'Largely' was a poor word choice, I admit. I stand by my general point though.

I'm not saying science has boundless potential. It's bound by the human brain's ability to understand, and I wouldn't rule out the failure of science to explain something. What I have a problem with is going from lack of scientific explanation to "It was God".

santing

ColmDawson wrote: »

What I have a problem with is going from lack of scientific explanation to "It was God".

Completely agree. But similarly: What I have a problem with is going from lack of faith to "There must be a scientific explanation". If God says He did something - why do we doubt?

strobe

PDN wrote: »

Yeah, marine life would really need top crawl onto a boat to escape the water. :pac:

Well to be fair PDN, if the flood water was fresh, then the salt water life wouldn't survive and if it was salt water then the fresh water fish would die. Also the pressure from the added weight of that level of water would mean many sea animals would be crushed to death. So it would be nessecary for Noah to take a huge amount of different species of marine life on board the Ark for them to survive.

Fanny Cradock

ColmDawson wrote: »

'Largely' was a poor word choice, I admit. I stand by my general point though.

I'm not saying science has boundless potential. It's bound by the human brain's ability to understand, and I wouldn't rule out the failure of science to explain something.

That's fine. But it's not a scientific position, it's a personal interpretation - a faith based position, if you will.

ColmDawson wrote: »

What I have a problem with is going from lack of scientific explanation to "It was God".

So do I. But, of course, we will differ over what point that happens. For you, I gather, it is any sentence where God is mentioned.

wolfsbane

krudler wrote: »

The one thats always made the least sense to me is Noahs ark, its just ludicrous, a parable or moral tale, call it what you will,but the notion that a boat literally held every creature on earth, from all the continents,is ridiculous. What about the ones that hadnt been discovered yet? we're still discovering new spiders, insects, variations of marine life, etc etc

The notion is that breeding pairs of every basic created kind were preserved on the Ark, not pairs from every present species. From those kinds arose all the species we now see.

It certainly was not a parable or any sort of non-historical event in the view of Christ and His disciples. And it is from them that Christians get their theology (or ought to get it), not from their imaginations or the current opinions of academia.

wolfsbane

ColmDawson

Saying the Bible is largely metaphorical is only a few steps away from realising that it's largely made up.

I fully agree.

However, those who like to hang on to their Christian profession do not take those steps. They may make the creation account in Genesis 1 a parable, and the global Flood likewise, and may write of Job and Jonah as bronze-age fiction - but they usually avoid being specific about much of Biblical history and certainly want to retain the crucifixion and resurrection accounts as historical.

You rightly point out how feeble such an approach is.

ColmDawson

santing wrote: »

Completely agree. But similarly: What I have a problem with is going from lack of faith to "There must be a scientific explanation". If God says He did something - why do we doubt?

One reason for doubting is because what is alleged to be God's word was written in books thousands of years ago, by men with a certain bias, and details events which are very often at odds with rational explanation. There's another thread somewhere discussing that, I think.

Also, it's not a matter of science having all the answers. It's one of science trying to find answers and constantly trying to prove itself wrong.

antiskeptic

ColmDawson wrote: »

One reason for doubting is because what is alleged to be God's word was written in books thousands of years ago,

..which is no basis for doubt. Things age and words are words.

.. by men with a certain bias,

There is an assumption that this bias contaminated the reporting.

..and details events which are very often at odds with rational explanation.

There is nothing irrational about the miraculous. All you need is for

a) God to exist

b) God to act

...and you've got the miraculous. Nothing irrational in sight

it's not a matter of science having all the answers. It's one of science trying to find answers and constantly trying to prove itself wrong.

Did you ever see that optical illusion of the young girl/old hag? The one where you can view an image and interpret in two completely different ways? Same data - completely different interpretations possible.

Now increase the complexity of the image and multiply the data going to make it up manyfold. And you've precisely the same problem science faces: a harmonising interpretation is all well and good. But that doesn't preclude a completely different harmonising interpretation. One that is completely other than the first.

Science can prove itself wrong. It can't prove itself right.

krudler

wolfsbane wrote: »

The notion is that breeding pairs of every basic created kind were preserved on the Ark, not pairs from every present species. From those kinds arose all the species we now see.

It certainly was not a parable or any sort of non-historical event in the view of Christ and His disciples. And it is from them that Christians get their theology (or ought to get it), not from their imaginations or the current opinions of academia.

Thats still utterly nonsensical

PDN

krudler wrote: »

Thats still utterly nonsensical

Take it to the Creationism megathread please.