Re: Science, religion...thoughts
 

(I know I said that I wasn't going to reply, but this seems like a quick and non-debating questions, so I'm going to answer it first.)

Yes, I believe the whole bible as fact. I don't believe that snakes talk to people now, but I believe that they did that one time. And I do believe that people used to live 800+ years and don't any more (which God Himself said that in the future people wouldn't usually live longer than 120 years). And yes, I was saying that you can belive in a god and evolution but not really Christianity and evolution. If I understand correctly, evolution suggests that humans used to be something else other than human and came from the same thing that monkeys did.....which isn't possible going by the bible, because in the bible humans were created directly. Plus, according to the bible, humans have souls and aniamls don't; so I don't see how humans and animals could have come from the same thing.

Re: Science, religion...thoughts
 

You can believe in evolution and the Bible. A literal interpretation of the creation in Genesis is debatable. I don't accept evolution, simply because I believe Genesis is literal, but there is definite support for a non-literal interpretation. And many Christians, Catholic and Protestant, believe in the Bible and accept the theory of evolution. Just because you don't believe in evolution doesn't mean that it's not possible. It's not restricted to your own interpretation or understanding. Yes, there is a definite meaning to Genesis, but there is strong support for both. And TBH, it has no effect on the soul, so I don't get into it. I find the arguments for the literal support of Genesis quite pitiful, and I also find conservative Christianities defenses against evolution, or Apologetics, laughable. It's really a failed attempt to "disprove" evolution. I do believe there is support for a intelligent creator, but I also don't believe there is much argument against evolution. I believe the two are plausible. Why do I believe intelligent design over evolution? Well, I believe it, because... eh, I suppose you can just call it "blind faith" on this one. But, really, I just trust Christ over science (perhaps still deem-able "blind faith").

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Evolution does suggest that but it also suggests humans originated from reptiles, fish, and other animals. Many of those animals aren't seen today as living creatures, some are but those that are, humans evolved independently from. For example, before humans were bipedal (i.e. walk upright), humans walked in a way similar to that of crocodiles. If you ever want to see a living dinosaur, you're best chance is to look at a crocodile or alligator. According to the bible, humans were made as is however, there are current animals not mentioned in the bible yet they exist currently. My question to that is, those that aren't mentioned in the bible yet do exist currently, how do you explain it?

That's incorrect. If we're going to discuss what an animal is, we use biology because that is where an animal is defined. Humans are animals because we are part of the kingdom Animalia.

As for talking snakes existing, well... that's something I consider to be of fairytales, Hollywood movies or psychiatric patients. You can choose the one you're of, fairytales or psychiatric patients.

But sticking with the literal interpretations, I have a question for you: why can iron chariots defeat god? I'll have to find the exact passage unless you know the one I'm referring to.

Although I rarely agree with you and what you post, I got to say, I agree with you regarding evolution. I was actually expecting you to be posting some of the deluded "this-disproves-evolution" Christian stuff along with Megan1 or even in more support of it than her. I'll wait and see how you respond a bit in this thread, as I think I may have to reconsider some of my views on you as a person and my dislike/like.

Re: Science, religion...thoughts
 

Also, in regards to humans being made "directly," this isn't exactly so. The bible discusses many things in a very brief amount of time. That is, it wasn't just "poof" humans. Adam had to go into a "deep sleep" in order for God to create Eve. Many events in the Bible seem instant, but possess a long amount of time. I mean take the Gospels for example. In 20 pages or less is about 30 years. Saying humans were made directly, or instantaneously, is like suggesting you put water in a freezer and it magically turns to ice. It took time.

This also brings, I'm sure, to your mind (as it does mine, Megan) that the Bible gives the amount of time in "days." However, when the Bible gives any amount of time or number, it is VERY figurative, and VERY meaningful. That is, just because it says a day doesn't mean it was a literal day. The number could have a specific meaning, rather than just a "day." We find this in Revelation, in the New Testament. Many people, which I'm sure you're one (no offense), take the 1,000 year reign literal. But the reality is far from it. The 1,000 year reign was NOT a belief AT ALL until the past 100 years from Lewis Sperry Chafer. In fact, the majority of Christians understood the 1,000 year reign the way I understand (not to sound boastful -- I don't mean to sound that way), in that it is a figurative number. The word for 1,000 given in Greek was one of the largest numbers they had back then. Which simply, is saying that it's going to be a LONG amount of time, not necessarily 1,000 literal years. In fact, the Bible supports that the 1,000 year reign is already taking place since Christ has been here! Taking the 1,000 years literally, would be like understanding Alpha and Omega as God having a lifespan, that He had a beginning and that He will have an end. This was the belief amongst John Calvin, Martin Luther, and a lot of the great reformers, and even the early church. I'm not saying tradition is the best resource, but I am saying that the Bible states if we go back to the beginning we will find life. That is, the truth of the Bible can be found in the times past.

Essentially, we wouldn't read a paraphrase from John MacArthur on the Bible to read the Bible, we'd read the Bible. Thus, the closer we go back to "Jesus-times," the closer the interpretation of the Bible we get, which you will not find Pre-millenialism in that era. So, to my knowledge, it is heresy, not damnable of course, but heresy none the less. Not simply based on tradition, but the teachings of Christ prove that this 1,000 year reign is figurative, and that we are in this time right now. Martin Luther considered a 1,000 year reign even childish. Look into Amillennialism.

The issue is, when you take the Bible literally, you run into all sorts of problems. For example, if I ask you, "Do you take the Bible literally?" I'm sure your answer is, "Yes." As most conservative (and I am conservative, believe me) Christians do. But then let me ask you, have you cut off your hands? Have you plucked out your eyes? Have you ate Christ's flesh? Have you drank His blood? Have you carried your cross? You see? It goes on and on. You can't simply take the Bible literally. There are rules to understanding the Bible called hermeneutics, and it suggests that Genesis account of creation could essentially be figurative. I don't agree with this, but we can't rule it out simply because we believe differently.

Re: Science, religion...thoughts
 

First - I'm religious & I believe in the existence of God. However, I'm also majoring in Microbiology & Immunology with specialties in Evolutionary Genetics.

I'm Catholic by birth, but I don't think my religious beliefs follow the Catholic regime. What I believe is exactly as I said - "the existence of God". As I study and learn more about the sciences, my belief in God gets stronger. The chemical reactions, the enzymatic processes, the exact concentrations of ions, transcription of DNA, translation of mRNA... I don't think all these things could've just happened by chance. Someone somewhere must have planned for these things to happen. We gave that higher figure the term God, so I believe in the existence of God.

I don't think the Bible should be taken literally. The Bible contains a lot of texts relating to God, but the Bible itself was composed, edited, and translated by people, just like us. Even if it does contain texts about Jesus and God and all other holy events, I don't think it can 100% accurate. In my opinion, creation stories in Genesis are just that - stories. I believe the creation stories are symbolic and metaphoric accounts for what really happened - the Big Bang, evolutions, so on.

I have no idea if God loves us or not. I believe that if He doesn't love us, he at least doesn't mind us since He did make us. (:

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If you don't interpret it figuratively, do you interpret it literally? If so, are there talking snakes, do plants not need sunlight (Genesis 1:11-14), giants walking on Earth, people living 800+ years, etc... . For the last one, you mentioned ambiguity of how long a day was and although that does apply to years also, it means some people died early in life while others out-lived them hundreds of time.

Excellent, I like having discussions regarding science with someone who studies in it. Since you're in Canada, where do you study? I'm at University of Toronto studying in double major biology and psychology with minor in criminology, so my specialty is neuroscience and pharmacology, although I took a course in comparative vertebrate anatomy and evolution.

I always ask someone this, why must have it been planned? Is it because it'd be such a big coincidence if it wasn't planned, which is the usual argument I hear?

When you say "made us", do you mean god making humans directly or indirectly? If indirectly, such as evolution, do you subscribe to theistic evolution or to biological evolution (i.e. scientific)? I ask this because from your metaphorical interpretation, would that mean god consciously directs evolution?

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Nick,
I'll respond more tomorrow because I am tired. I personally take Genesis to be literal, so yes, I do believe people lived hundreds of years. There's a whole chemistry and study about this from Christian scientists and historians of how this would be possible pre-flood. Notice that the years decline after the flood. There's science reasoning behind it. However, I personally just find it as being as simple as this: If God can make the Universe out of nothing, if Christ cured crippled, if Christ rose from the dead, etc. There's nothing that's necessarily absurd as long as you have God. But if these things happened naturally,without God, yes, they'd be quite weird. Anyways I'm tired so I'll respond tomorrow. I have about 12 hours of sleep under my belt this past week...

Re: Science, religion...thoughts
 

The edit button isn't loading. Also look up some works from Aryeh Kaplan. And in regards to your plant question, without looking up the passage, I believe the plants weren't even growing until later on even though they were planted (i suppose). I think we learn this in Genesis 2 but I don't remember off the top. Anyways night.

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Could you give this scientific reasoning? It's useless to say there is a reasoning but not give it. So, your reasoning you hold is "god can do anything". That's not much of an argument, it's weak and circular. Fair enough, get some rest.

But do you also believe in talking snakes? If snakes talked back then, and snakes exist now, why don't snakes talk now? Also, do you adhere to scientific explanations as well as religious ones for certain topics? For example, if someone is ill and getting worse, do you turn to science or religion as a reason and remedy?

I don't read things when someone tells me to go read a certain book or look up stuff by someone. Sorry, you're going to have to post a link and be specific otherwise, not happening.

The plant passage was in Genesis 1 and the passage, the plants were planted and growing prior to sunlight for them. It's Genesis 1:11-13.

Re: Science, religion...thoughts
 

Nick, again, I'll respond later. However, I'll give you a few likelihoods right now.


Genesis 1 is simply an overview. It's not necessarily what happened exactly. We get the full description in Genesis 2. I understand what you are saying. But this is similar to the way Genesis 1 simply says that God created man and woman in His image at the same time. However, when we get the full description in Genesis 2, we find out this isn't so.

But I also take the stance that in Genesis 1:3 that this is the sun and moon God created, otherwise saying there was evening and morning prior to the creation of the signs in the sky would be kind of pointless. The sun and the moon by the Hebrews were also considered to be separate from the stars. So when God made the signs in the sky to separate the days, nights, months, years, etc. these weren't necessarily considered the same as the sun and the moon to the Jews.

But even if we completely ignore that. Not all plants need light to grow.

In regards to my "God can do anything" response, this wasn't an argument. It's just what I hold, and it's not necessarily circular or weak. It'd be like wondering how a smartphone was made. We don't just assume some guy randomly made a smartphone without any prior knowledge. He needed to know the mechanics of a computer and how to make them compact enough to get it phone-sized. But when you're dealing with someone who is omniscient, it wouldn't really be that difficult. I mean, how did Christ raise form the dead? The best example we are given in that what we sow does not come to life unless it dies. It can't necessarily be explained naturally (unless we assume He never died at all), so it must be because of God. Certainly we have people who "die" and wake back up. But not the way Christ was crucified, beaten, etc. It would be rare for someone to survive after the 29 lashes from a Roman guard, much less being crucified, and stabbed through the ribs. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the likelihood? I mean reason itself tells us that's not likely.

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Oh, a UT student! Haha nice to meet you, I grew up in Toronto (: Currently, I'm in my 2nd year at McGill University.

Yes, exactly that. I believe the world is too complex and too exact to have been a complete accident. The chemical balance in our body, in the environment, in space, everything! - it is so delicate, even a single mistake could've tipped something out of sync and out of control. But that didn't happen, we're all here typing away at TH~ I don't think this universal balance was created by a coincidence, because the balance is still maintained. Unplanned incidents can't be so perfect, so lasting - this is my belief (:

I mean indirectly through evolution. I am taking many many genetic courses as a part of my program in school, so I'd probably have an extremely conflicting time if I didn't believe in biological genetics lol Frankly, with all the scientific advancements and continued research in evolutionary genetics, I think it would be naive to argue against biological evolution. I think God just put together the universe, planned out for a little planet called Earth to develop from space dust, planned for small organisms called Homo sapiens to eventually evolve from pre-existing organisms. But I don't think God cares about us the way most Christians say so. I don't think He cares that some people go to church and others don't.

Just my 2 cents (:

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In regards to the chance argument (and I'm a Christian), it doesn't work. Yes, the liklihood of us existing by "chance" is rare, but if God created us, He would have to be equally as rare as Hos creation to be that intelligent to create it all. Not only that, if we assume that big bangs happen elsewhere, and are not limited to our universe, then the probability of us existing is not that rare at all. Simply, we're just one of the lucky ones who won the lotto, whilst there are other "lucky" universes elsewhere.

Re: Science, religion...thoughts
 

Then ignore those that don't need the sunlight.

This is what I'm talking about. Yes it would be rare for someone to survive such physical torment however, your explanation boiled down to "it must be because of God". Eventually, you can look at so many complex and unlikely things, and simply keep on saying "it must be because of God" without any further thinking or without trying to describe it in more detail. It's an umbrella term that in a way, covers everything yet it covers nothing in the sense it allows unrelated things to have the same explanation. For example, you can say god made the leg of a horse as it is now and use that same explanation to account for the near-by boulder, tree, cloud and microscope. Everything gets the same explanation yet common sense tells you they're unrelated. You can use more thinking beyond common sense to explain why and how they're different.

Very interesting, my father got his Master's there and did some teaching there.

That's fair enough, it explains how everything is all lined up, however, what about times when something goes askew, such as someone is born with a genetic disorder where they may not live to see their 8th birthday while living in immense pain, slowly withering away? Obviously something went wrong, so if god ensures everything is in perfect balance for the world, why would he let such imbalances occur? This is excluding the times when a mother was doing drugs, exposed to toxins, suffered trauma during pregnancy, etc... . Additionally, if everything was in such order, why do people often encounter mental and physiological impairments as they age?

LOL, now you're getting circular by saying "he would have to be equally as rare as Hos creation to be that intelligent to create it all". It's rare god would've "made" himself that smart? that's getting silly, you might as well say "it would've been so rare for god to want specific names to be used in referring to him". Come on, that's picking at straws hoping something works but nothing works with that silliness.

Given that you're focusing on chance for that, I'm not understand why you say you don't agree with the chance argument. When you mention the big bang happening in other areas, you say it's less rare for us to have been made, which does show you don't agree with the chance argument. I think I must be missing something or not understand part of the post mentioned in the above paragraph.

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I don't necessarily agree with the chance argument, and there is no circular reasoning in my argument. I was showing the circular reasoning in the posters argument. To say it's very rare for us to be here by "chance," then the person arguing that way would have to agree that it is EQUALLY as rare, if not MORE rare, for a God who is that knowledgeable to exist. In other words, if someone wants to say, "The chances are very slim we would just end up here without a designer," well, it's just as unlikely for that Designer to exist.

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Everything in the world is, technically. The point is that evolution is as supported by evidence as, for example, gravity. In fact you could argue that we understand the specifics of evolution better than we understand the specifics of gravity.

Science doesn't attempt to "control" things to begin with; it's the attempt to gather knowledge about reality. If god exists and interacts with reality, science would be able to learn about that interaction.

So if either of these cases is true, why not skip the imperfect "human" stage and simply make us like that? If heaven is good and everything is better in heaven, why not make all people as in heaven?

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Well, from this view: If God came down from the sky, complete with angels, in the middle of Times square during rush hour, would you expect people to believe in him then? No. People would twist it, say it was some hoax. Why? Some people just choose not to believe, while others do. That's their choice and their decision, not a lot you can do to change it.

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I believe in science and God.

I think God exists as God, but shows himself in the math. I believe the order in the universe is devised by him. God created the universe with set laws and limits, of which he obeys. Just because he is God, doesn't mean he just creates out of thin air. I think he wants us to understand the worlds around us, and knowing our universe is the best way to know God. Which is why there was a big bang, he created the universe, through logic we could one day understand and use to advance our species beyond human, the singularity.

As such, I am a major supporter of space exploration, and of scientific research. I think that, as humans, our goal is to eventually transcend our bodies, and reach immortality through science (which at the same time if the physical manifestation of God).

I'm a Christian, I believe in God, and Jesus, but I also think that faith and science aren't polar opposites.

Also, about Genesis, I think by "day" it meant "age", as the order of Genesis is how it would have most likely happened (the formation of Earth, that is), and that it has been misread. I also believe that by the Sabbath being the time for rest, means that God is resting, he has given us free will, and will return when we have breached the "human" threshold.

Hope I made sense to you all.

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You have absolutely no grounds on which to claim this. You cannot know how people would react simply because nothing like it has ever happened. Considering how predominantly Christian America is, I'd guess that people are actually likely to give an experience like this more credit than it would deserve, not less. Appearing on Earth, in person, for an extended period of time would probably be the easiest way to convince most people that god is real. People aren't typically in the habit of abjectly denying what they personally experience, even when they should.

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To be fair, you could point to the prevalence of conspiracy theories regarding certain high-profile events in world history (Moon landings, JFK assassination, 9/11 and so on) as providing some circumstantial evidence that people can quite easily deny what is happening in front of them even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Denial does seem to be a reflex action in some circumstances, probably because the brain is not capable of fully taking in the implications of such events until initial shock has passed. I would agree however that this is circumstantial at best. Another possibility is that those witnessing an appearance of God on Earth would go into severe nervous shock and die thereafter, which would not be much of an improvement on balance...

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That's the point though; people aren't denying things that they personally saw in those cases. The conspiracy theories are either denying the motives behind such things, or denying things that happened at least long enough ago that they're not really in recent memory. In either case, it usually involves suspecting people of tampering with evidence; if a being is clearly altering the laws of nature directly in front of you, I don't think that anyone could really ignore that. As far nervous shock; it's god. Presumably he's capable of not doing whatever he wants just as much as he is of doing whatever he wants, at least if we're still talking about Yahweh. A god who isn't capable of "flame-off" isn't really omnipotent.

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Haha, nothing in the bible goes against science? Uhh... what about creationism? What about the tidbit about the flat earth and that all the planets revolve around the earth? There are so many contradictions, at best
the bible is a bad fiction story.

The things in the bible which cannot be disproved are unfalsifiable hypothesizes. For instance, if I say I can fly when nobody is watching me or when I'm not being videotaped... there is no way you could disprove it. If I say I have an invisible dragon which can't be seen/ touched/ heard/ tasted/ smelled, can you disprove that?

I'm sorry but your whole argument is laughable at best, :hehe:
it's sad how people can still believe in myths from the bronze age when so obviously it's as childish as the tooth fairy. Arguments like this really make me wonder where society is going...

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Think of "God" as a theory, no one can prove 100% he is real. Yet some people believe in it and some do not. Like any theory it is impossible to prove. Simply by saying "No one can prove God really exsists for 100%!" is silly, because no one can prove gravity exsists 100%.

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This is rather misleading. While it's true that no scientific theory is ever 100% certain, most of them are pretty damn close. It's hypothetically possible that gravity doesn't actually exist, but it's absurdly improbable because of the amount of evidence we have of gravity, and the predictive power that the theory of gravity has in real life. God, however, is a much weaker hypothesis. The evidence for any god existing is underwhelming at very best, while the evidence against most of the popular gods is quite damning. So while we can't say with 100% certainty that Yahweh doesn't exist, we can say it with about the same certainty we have in saying that Santa Claus doesn't exist.

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Another person who doesn't understand the premises of science... .

In science, nothing is proven 100%. When you start using that as an argument, to me it shows you're uneducated about science. I'll support that by your age of 13 and having not learned much science yet in school. Although no theory is 100% proven or disproven, many of them have very little opposing theories, making it a pretty strong theory to a point where it'll be called a "fact". For example, there's a lot of evidence of the theory of gravity, there's books on it. However, look at the scientific evidence opposing it. There's very very very little. The same with Louis Pasteur's germ theory, very very very little scientific evidence against it. In fact, it was used to show the idea that life just "pops" out of nowhere is incorrect. Previously, those who opposed it just said it was wrong but couldn't show how it was wrong until Pasteur came along and had his experiments replicated with modern equipment thousands of times with the same result.

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With all due respect, I believe you are confusing what you think is in the Bible with what is actually in there. Creationism is not required by the Bible, it is merely an incredibly strict interpretation of the Genesis narrative, while none of the references to the Earth or the movement of the stars etc. infer anything like the Earth being flat or the planets revolving around it. Interpretations of those verses (most of which are in Isiah and therefore arguably figurative language anyway given he was a prophet) can point to them meaning either a flat or spherical Earth - it is purely the prejudice of the reader which determines which it actually is, not any objective fact.

If that claim is to evaluated, it would help if you would provide examples of such unfalsifiable claims. With the examples you provide, the inherent contradiction of making observable phenomena unobservable renders them false on grounds of logic without their falsifiability coming into the equation - if you claim something as totally invisible you cannot at the same time ascribe physical form to it, while the claim of unobservable flight similarly fails as it would always be observable by satellites etc. The nature of God makes no claims of observable phenomena and so the analogy does not work.

It may well be your opinion that such beliefs are "myths from the bronze age" (although I would point out Christianity is actually post-Iron Age so already there is a flaw in your premise), but that makes it neither objective fact nor self-evident as you claim. I would also advise against making sweeping claims about the arguments of others as, with respect, it does nothing to reinforce your argument and may indeed detract from it.

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Re: Science, religion...thoughts