Religion, Scripture and logical thinking

a reply to: randyvs

I believe in God. I have a loving, caring relationship with God.
The Bibles and Religion are my issue.
They are not an issue I lose sleep over, just something I write about a lot.
I love to be open minded and think "Why" and "How"

Make sense?

Hope so.. lol

a reply to: Kusinjo

HA HA

a reply to: Develo

OR........
Westboro Baptist Church









Now these are images from Google, I never created them. They are just images.
I know many people here in Scotland who think THIS Cult Church stands for all of Christianity.
It is like saying "All Muslim's want to kill you" or "Islam want's to take over the World, all of Islam"

Stupid and uneducated

a reply to: shauny

Well yeah it makes sense to me ! There isn't
much difference between us at all.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

And "lucid" means "easy to understand".

Or, alternatively (and still definition number one):

showing ability to think clearly, especially in the intervals between periods of confusion or insanity.
"he has a few lucid moments every now and then"
synonyms: rational, sane, in one's right mind, in possession of one's faculties, compos mentis, able to think clearly, balanced, clearheaded, sober, sensible; informal: all there
"he was not lucid enough to explain"
antonyms: muddled, confused

a reply to: Akragon

His peers are likely Christians considering he is a NT scholar... I wouldn't expect them to agree with the things he says

They have the same Greek manuscripts available to look at, they don't change.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

i realise that... what im saying is a Christian will come up with his own interpretation based on his faith...

a secular scholar, or in his case even an agnostic will not always come up with the same answers...


Christians have a tendency to try to explain everything away instead of admitting to error or contradiction

a reply to: Akragon

Christians have a tendency to try to explain everything away instead of admitting to error or contradiction

I've never seen one that didn't have a simple explanation.

a reply to: NOTurTypical


That doesn't surprise me in the least honestly...

On the other hand I've seen many that have no explanation other then admitting its contradiction...

Yet Christians will always come up with what they consider a simple explanation no matter how ridiculous it might be

Point being as I've stated previously... an agnostic NT scholar will find contradiction where theres contradiction

A Christian scholar will attempt to explain contradiction and wander into the illogical to explain it... where in any other case aside from dealing with said persons religion that person wouldn't even bother trying to explain something that's obviously contradicting another part of the same theory... they would simply admit to the obvious and move on

the need to defend ones religion far outweighs anything else...

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: NOTurTypical

Yet Christians will always come up with what they consider a simple explanation no matter how ridiculous it might be

Wasn't it an atheist who said:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

a reply to: Leahn

If you're feeling honest, you can finish the quote instead of cutting it off where it serves your purpose:

The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

Lewontin wasn't denying methodological naturalism, he was supporting it. If you want to see further evidence of that, read the paragraph immediately preceding your quote-mine, which is taken from his review of Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World".

originally posted by: iterationzero
a reply to: Leahn

If you're feeling honest, you can finish the quote instead of cutting it off where it serves your purpose:

The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

Lewontin wasn't denying methodological naturalism, he was supporting it. If you want to see further evidence of that, read the paragraph immediately preceding your quote-mine, which is taken from his review of Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World".

The end of the quote is irrelevant to the point at hand, which is to show the irony of atheists pointing at Christians giving what atheists consider 'ridiculous explanations' to justify the beliefs they accept at face value while at the same time gladly agreeing with Lewontin's claim that they ought to accept materialistic explanations at face value regardless of how much they go against common sense, how counter-intuitive they sound, even when they are patently absurd stories, even when they are just-so stories unsubstantiated by evidence because they are a material cause.

It is the pot calling the kettle black.

And don't you just sound like a Christian trying to explain a complicated biblical passage by claiming it is being cited out of context?

a reply to: Leahn

The end of the quote is irrelevant to the point at hand,

Not even remotely irrelevant, especially given the paragraph that precedes the one you quoted, where Lewontin points out things like:

Many of the most fundamental claims of science are against common sense and seem absurd on their face. Do physicists really expect me to accept without serious qualms that the pungent cheese that I had for lunch is really made up of tiny, tasteless, odorless, colorless packets of energy with nothing but empty space between them?

He's making a very valid point that many things in science are, in fact, not common sense at face value.

which is to show the irony of atheists pointing at Christians giving what atheists consider 'ridiculous explanations' to justify the beliefs they accept at face value while at the same time gladly agreeing with Lewontin's claim that they ought to accept materialistic explanations at face value regardless of how much they go against common sense, how counter-intuitive they sound, even when they are patently absurd stories, even when they are just-so stories unsubstantiated by evidence because they are a material cause.

Except they are supported by evidence. You seem to be missing that most giant of all points in your rush to quote mine to defend your argument.

It is the pot calling the kettle black.

Scientists accept things that aren't common sense at face value precisely because they have evidence to support them. Fundamentalists, which don't represent all Christians or even a relatively large number of Christians, accept things that aren't common sense at face value in spite of the evidence. Hardly the pot calling the kettle black.

And don't you just sound like a Christian trying to explain a complicated biblical passage by claiming it is being cited out of context?

Again the difference between a fundamentalist and me is that I'm providing evidence that it's being cited out of context. In other words, when I say you're being dishonest by quote-mining, I can provide evidence to support that.

a reply to: Akragon

On the other hand I've seen many that have no explanation other then admitting its contradiction...

The only ones that I have seen that people insist are contradictions are translation issues. For example, people claim that God called a bat a bird when describing which were clean and unclean. They never bother to check the Hebrew word used which means "flying creature" and even included flying insects. It's not a contradiction, it's a translating issue.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

Which, again... does not surprise me...

Its not like you're in the habit of looking for them... obviously, since you believe there are none except "translation issues" when there are hundreds through out the old and new testament

And im not just talking about birds and fishes

a reply to: Akragon

Its not like you're in the habit of looking for them...

I've seen hundreds of people make claims over all the years, and while I've never seen one that didn't have a clear answer to, many of the so-called "contradictions" are really translating issues that arise when translating Hebrew or Greek into Latin then English. But those issues fade immediately when a person just refers to a Concordance or Lexicon. (see bat/bird example above)

when there are hundreds through out the old and new testament

That have a simple and concise explanation to if people would take a few minutes to do a search/study.

originally posted by: shauny

The Genesis flood narrative is similar to numerous other flood myths from a variety of cultures. The earliest known written flood myth is the Sumerian flood myth found in the Epic of Ziusudra.

There is no scientific evidence supporting a global flood. Searches for Noah’s Ark, sometimes mockingly referred to as “archaeology”, have been made from at least the time of Eusebius (c.275–339 AD) to the present day. Despite many expeditions, no scientific evidence of the ark has been found.

Now let’s apply logic.

Good luck with that. lol. To believe this myth actually happened would necessitate being impervious to logic and reason to begin with.

It was proven life can live in many places, just lately life was found to live on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) Now this brings huge implications to the Bible argument. Life can exist half a mile below and in Ice. Life can exist near a Lave fisher 5 mile down on the seabed, life is extraordinary, it is more than amazing. We have the ‘Creationism Vs Evolution’ question and it can be hard to believe either. If Man (Why always man?) came from Apes then I ask ‘Why do we still have apes and not what they evolved from’ You follow? If we came from Apes where is the lineage from before Apes? What did Apes evolve from? Therein we have the ‘Missing Link’

We don't really have a "creationism v evolution" question. We have "evolution" which is a fact (life evolves) and the theories/hypothesies that posit that all life on this planet evolved from a universal common ancestor, which is now generally accepted as a common fact.

Suppose it could be relevant to how it all started/abiogenesis, if there was anything to indicate creationism. There has never been any "scientific" reason (outside of religious imaginations) to indicate creationism is even relevant to this subject (it's relevant to cultural mythology).

We didn't evolve from modern Apes. Humans (and Gorillas, Chimps, Orang utan) are Apes .. Great Apes. We are more closely related and share a more recent common ancestor with these creatures than we do with others (the Chimp being the closest/most recent). We evolved separately, but from a shared, common ancestor. In a way, we are that same lineage that Apes came from, but have obviously evolved over millions of years into what we see at the moment. There is no sudden point where a species stops and new one begins, it is a slow change happening all the time. There could be (probably are) many more species like this that we don't know of because they became extinct.

The "missing link" is a bit of a misnomer. We will never find all fossils, but what we have certainly supports evolution. Not to mention molecular biology, geology, geographical distribution etc.

It's worth looking at what we do have of the fossil record, rather than pics like the one you put up. The hominid fossil record is quite compelling.

Good thread though. In reality, I doubt there is any science that is incompatible with religion/belief in god. There are some very good scientists who actually believe in god, yet don't let it bias their work. It is completely incompatible (ie. it utterly destroys) biblical literalism/fundamentalism though.

As far as atheism goes, it's diverse. It only really has the commonality of lack of belief in a deity. I can't think of any way logically, scientifically, historically, morally or philosophically that any of the gods of religious myths could possibly exist. There could be something though. A lot depends on your definition of what god is.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

unfortunately neither Concordance's or Lexicon's can explain away contradiction...

Nor can translation errors...

Example... John (and Paul) said Jesus made himself equal to God...

Jesus said he was not equal to God...

Like you said... it really just takes a little searching or a few minutes of study to find contradicions... the book is riddled with them