Several things about the documentary. The guys who made the documentary never said they have made a definitive case that this was the Jesus family tomb. They repeatedly said that they thought the evidence was compelling enough to warrant further investigation. That seems to me a responsible position. Second, the director/journalist behind this explained that they only conducted DNA testing on the Jesus and Magdalene ossuaries because they were the only ones with readily available organic material. They say the other ossuaries looked like they had been swept clean. They would very much like additional more robust DNA testing to be done on the other ossuaries and the bones that were removed from them and reburied. Third, so far I haven't seen any substantive critique of the meat of this case. It seems that the age of this tomb is from roughly the right time period. No one is claiming that nine of the ossuaries were faked. (The James ossuary which is held in a private collection is in dispute) The translations of the inscriptions seem reasonable. The critics last night did not question the translation of the inscriptions themselves, just that the Mary Magdalene inscription actually referred to her. So at a mininum you have a tomb from the correct period that appears authentic, with names and relationships that largely correspond to figures in Jesus' family. I would say that is enough evidence to justify a great deal more research.
Yes I agree but when you say: You are making a faith statement that you choose not recognize it because it contradicts what you believe. To newplayer's credit he has pulled back from his absolutist statement, although by a miniscule amount. Also to how this particular tangent of the debate got started was in regard to what qualifies as an atheist. If you don't believe in a deity then you are an atheist. If you don't know, which you are describing, then you are an agnostic. I'm applying the statement to someone who insists on being called an atheist. Again I agree with you which is why I further introduced the point of fundamental atheists vs. practical atheists. You can fully accept Occam's Razor and still believe in God because given infinite possibilities and infinite odds everything is possible. In general any materialistic problem is generally dealt with on a limited context. When we talk about a universal context then ou are getting into the realm of the infinite. You're actually hitting upon this in your response to Rhester: If you don't know and never know how can you make a statement regarding something like the existence or non-existence of God with any certainty? Without definate knowledge any statement is a statement of faith. Human nature though is to be curious and to ascribe meaning. For any practical consideration the initial cause of the Universe, or how it came about, doesn't make sense yet that hasn't prevented millenia of people to speculate on that. Whether the Universe was created by a quantum disturbance that rapidly inflated into all of the matter and energy that we see now or came from a turtle farting is irrelevent to my daily life. That doesn't meant that as humans we don't try to understand. The beliefs that there was an initial intelligence that has always existed and always will or else that everything came about randomly are beliefs that can't be proven or disproven and are thus both beliefs.
You can be both at the same time. You can not believe (or lack belief) in deities. You can also not know. Very few atheists are of the "strong" type that assert absolutely that deities cannot or do not exist but do proclaim that in the absence of evidence for the existence of something, you remain skeptical of its existence. Belief in deities as being necessary to be a cause of the universe does not conform to Occam's Razor because one is introducing a concept which has not proven itself to be true in any scientific sense and which is an unnecessary concept at this point in time. I mean if you wanted to be more complex in terms of explaining the need for causes, you would say that God needed a God of God who needed a God of God of God, ad infinatum. The simplest explanation by way of Occam's Razor is to say that the universe needed no cause rather than introduce the "God" level which caused the universe but which itself needed no cause. They are both beliefs but they are not equivalent beliefs. One is based on actual observation and data as far as we can tell at this point in time and in conformance with Occam's Razor principle which states we do not introduce complexities unnecessarily. The other is based on nothing but faith and argument and introduces a complexity which is not shown via any observation or evidence.
You see, you didn't show me any evidence that you know more about evolution than I do, and you have shown me that you are a religious person. So, naturally, I believe with more than 50% certainty that you don't know more about evolution than I do. The thing is, once you start deviate from the literal interpretation of the bible, you may as well throw the bible out of the window -- because you don't need when you are willing to let your own brain decide what's good for you. And he'd be a wacko if he stated in his book that human evolved directly from single-cellular organisms. He didn't say that, did he? That's just abusing the terminology to the nth degree. If you believe in supernatural power at work and you don't believe there is a supernatural being, then you are just contradicting yourself. There is nothing divine about science -- it's just a bunch of mathematical models designed to describe the world, all of them can be wrong to varying degrees and everyone can question them. It seems that Einstein has given many contradicting accounts of his religious beliefs, I don't seen either of us convincing the other, so let's just agree do disagree. Tell that to Kurt Wise.
Right ..... I'm sorry, but the sentence in bold is what lost all the appeal of your advice to me. I'm still far from convinced.
Others have shown that your ideas about evolution don't follow scientific evolution. Here is a small sample. This goes against fundamentalist Christian creationism yet is science. Who are you, non-religious person to tell a religious person how they have to believe in religion. Believers can come to their own conclusions. Every single church and person deviates from a straight literal interpretation of the bible. It has to be interpreted. Nobody today believes this part literally. So no matter what somebody made the interpretation that we didn't need to literally follow that particular law. Furthermore the bible itself invites that kind of growth. There are passages in Romans that talk of one person believing one day is holier than others, and some people believing that all days are the same. The point is that the kind of interpretation is allowed, and that nobody should try and interfere with the other's belief. This is from a sermon by Rob Bell. The first part of the sermon talks about Satan when tempting Jesus quoted directly from the bible scriptures. Yet Jesus saw it a different way. He understood the deeper meaning beyond the words. When Jesus was later questioned by the Sadducees and quote scripture to him, he tells them that they don't know scripture even though they have quoted it. Jesus then tells them that the bible is of a living God Right there Jesus invites people to see God as something that will grow, not stay exactly the same that can only be interprated one way. There is more from Bell Obviously it wasn't the evolutionary step right before homo sapien. It was the originating one though. Not at all. Power is not a being. It is something beyond a being. Yet the way it works the intricacies, nature itself, is surely divine, at least to me. When I see nature in its magnificent setting, and I know the science that created that is certainly beyond human, and I believe is overflowing with the divine. fair enough
I'm not sure how a pissing contest over the knowledge of evolution is a proper response. I've taken more bio and evolution classes than I can bear. As for our last discussion, the theory of evolution is mostly hindsight (because of the scale of time needed to validate it). We're using incomplete references from our past to match the current data (genetic, physiological, geographical, and geneological evidence). The sheer complexity of evolution makes our reductionist approach a very crude way of investigating its intricacies. That's just another way of saying that we can't prove macroevolution in a lab. If the universe is tens of billions of years old, and the earth 4.5, there's plenty of room for an interfering God to work. You can definitely believe in God and believe in Macroevolution. Dawkins might not agree, but you aren't Richard Dawkins. If God is omniscient, then it's possible to create a message that translates well into all periods of time. 300 years ago, there were no scientists in society. 600 years ago, slavery was still practiced. Civilization changes over time. The Bible has shown to many that human nature doesn't. To read the Bible with a literal interpretation is to remove a good chunk of context of when it was written. I take rhester's advice as saying to challenge your beliefs with your heart and not your mind. Metaphorically, an objective heart is an oxymoron. As human beings those are two components that aren't always balanced. A crucial part of faith is to acknowledge that you can be wrong and punished for your convictions. That's just the same as trusting another person.
In other words, what Gould said was basically that the environment plays a huge role in the process of evolution -- I've never said anything against this. I'm someone who doesn't interpret the bible literally, in fact, I don't believe in everything the the bible says. Does this sound familiar? My whole point is that if you are going to use the bible as your only source of guidance and morality, then you should only follow what the bible literally says, but as soon as you start interpreting the bible using your own judgment, then the bible is useless. For example, if you are gonna use a ruler to measure everything, then you have to use that ruler to measure everything, but once you start questing the measurements of this ruler and start using another ruler to measure the first ruler, the first ruler becomes pointless -- because you can just use the second ruler to measure everything including the first ruler. Now, if bible is your only ruler, then that'd be consistent-- but obviously rather troublesome. So, if you are gonna believe something in the bible, it should not be because it's written in the bible, but should be because it makes sense to you according to your common sense and experience. Did I say anything different? What's "beyond a being"? Oh, let me put this in another way, what's beyond energy and matter? That's certainly a romantic way to see the world -- but not the scientific one. Stars and gravities and gamma rays don't have emotions, they don't care about your thoughts or purposes or spiritualities, they operate according to cold, objective laws of physics some of which is currently beyond our human understanding, but there is no reason to worship it.
My point is that a religious person believing in evolution isn't out of the ordinary, nor should a person's knowledge of evolution be lessened because he is religious. There is only a conflict when that person believes in creationism because of their religion. Except that is impossible to believe in the bible 100% literally. As I have posted the bible itself has messages against that dogma. So you would be disobeying the bible to take it that literal. Besides the fact that it is impossible for people not to make their own interpreations when reading it. As for the ruler it doesn't measure everything. It measures distances. Measuring cups measure liquids. Scales measure weights. A person would be a fool to use the ruler to measure everything. In the same way the bible is a spiritual guide. It doesn't measure history, the age of the earth, or tell the future of the earth. That isn't the purpose of the bible, just as the it isn't the purpose of the ruler to measure weight. I will use each tool for what it was intended for. I agree that you shouldn't believe something in the bible simply because it is written there. That's the whole point. For a deeper understanding it will take all kinds of historical research, soul-searching, etc. It is an endless task. The bible was never meant for people to look at it with unquestioning acceptance. I think that is the point. That science which going by parts is simply logic and lawsof physics and adaptations and evolution, could come up with such amazing beauty, power, majesty and all of that is what makes the end product divine.
I don't remember saying that religious people cannot believe in evolution. I'm saying that it doesn't make sense when people believe in obviously contradictory theories. It is perfectly possible to believe in the bible 100% literally -- you just have to live with its contradictions, something a lot of religious people already do everyday. Geez, the ruler thing is just an analogy. Surely you get that? Does the bible in any way tell you how you should live your life? If it doesn't, then what's its significant in Christianity? If it does, then that's the "ruler" I was talking about. You don't need bible to do your historical research, or soul-searching or whatever that is you want to do. Again, I'd say you are attaching too much emotion to something that knows nothing and cares nothing about your emotion at all.
Just for a sense of perspective I've been rereading some of the threads regarding Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. Newplayer, I don't know how long you've been on this board but I would suggest you take a look at those since you have been quick to state how being an atheist makes you more knowledgeable about Evolution. Here's a good one. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=99931&page=1&pp=20&highlight=intelligent+design
I've read a few books on creationism vs. evolutionism, I don't claim to know about everything regarding this debate, but I don't think they are relevant to any of the things that are talked about here. I also didn't state that being an atheist makes me more knowledgeable about evolution. What I said was that with respect to a particular person that I was debating with, I didn't believe that he was justified to claim to know more about evolution than I did -- because not only he claimed to believe in creationism, but also seemed to suggest that humans evolved directly from single-cellular organism and didn't not go through the phase where they looked like apes. I could be wrong about what he thought of the evolution of humans, and in that case my original statement would not be justified. With respect to your previous charges of my using labels on you, I wrote that particular comment that you quoted before I saw your apologies for using labels. I don't wish this debate to get personal here, so let's just stop right here about using labels.
Yes I agree with you but I would term the non-strong atheists agnostic or practical atheseist. I agree with you again and in the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution threads brought up the exact same point regarding why it was problematic to consider Intelligent Design science since you would empiracally need to prove God and then figure out where God came from. This again comes to why science and religion are different issues. Occam's Razor is a principle that applies to purely materialistic matters where as we are dealing with issues that can never be materialistically proven. Further for Occam's Razor to apply to the question of whether God exist you have to start with the assumption that everything is random so proof of God has to be something separate and distinct from perceived reality. Perceived reality though itself might be proof of God if the assumption is that things can't be random. Depending on what your base assumption is using Occam's Razor then God could be the most likely explanation. The beliefs aren't equivalent since depending on what your assumption is one is obviously inferior. The argument of whether random or planned is equivalent since neither can be proven with any certainty.
The Intelligent Design vs. Evolution threads are relevant as they will give you some perspective regarding why certain posters hold certain viewpoints. Speaking for myself personally I found it interesting to compare how I bring up essentially the same arguments as you have in regard to arguing why I don't believe intelligent design can be considered science. I appreciate that very much. That said though labels is what this discussion has become very much about particularly what it means to be an "atheisist". Its hard then to avoid all sorts of labels but I think as a matter of form we can be clear we're not using them to slur and should be willing to explain why terms are used. I will do my best to do so and please call me out if you think I am not doing so.
Understand, let me say it another way, If you want to be sure you don't change your mind then only read what supports your opinion.
But it isn't two contradictory theories. Creationism isn't a theory, nor is it the purpose of the bible. That is like reading Robin Hood and then being accused of supporting contradictory things because you don't believe that the real historical Sherrif of Nottingham was in love with Maid Marrion. That wasn't the purpose of Robin Hood. Well since part of the bible's message is that the book and the God it talks about is living, and shouldn't be taken 100% literally then it isn't really possible to follow it and believe in the bible as 100% literal. Yes I did see it, and I carried your analogy a step further, to help make my point. The purpose of the bible is not to give you set of rules or guidelines to follow in various moral quandries. People often search for those answers in the bible, but I don't believe that is the purpose of it. And it is what Jesus was getting at in the story mentioned in the sermon I quoted earlier. There is a philosophy in the bible, that can help people live their lives, but it isn't just a list of rules. True. But in order to gain a deeper understanding of the bible then you do need to do research and soul searching. I'm saying that is the amazing thing about it. Is that the cold emotionless parts can evoke such emotion, and fit together in just that perfect way.
Creationism claims a supernatural being created the human beings directly for its own purpose or pleasure; evolutionism claims that the human beings evolved from single-cellular organisms and there is no need for a supernatural being. In this context, I see them as contradictory theories. Your Robin Hood analogy doesn't make much sense here. Is it physically impossible to follow all the bible rules about how to live your life, or do you actually refuse to follow all the bible rules about how to live your life? It seems that you misinterpreted by analogy. My analogy is about the source of the rules for living your life. In the context of bible, you can either live your life only to the rules of bible, or you can live your life based on your own judgment. As soon as you start using your own judgment to decide which rules in the bible you should follow, then the bible becomes a middle man that can be cut out -- it can still be a source of inspiration, but ultimately, God is not your master, you are your master. Which one is the end and which one is the means: gaining deeper understanding of the bible, or enriching your own life with research and soul searching? You have to learn to look past your emotions and just face the cold hard facts. Just admiring something emotionally does not help you understand it.
Actually, as I've said many many times, I have no loyalty towards any theory and I will believe anything as long as it's supported by the most convincing logic and facts. However, it's important to note that I don't consider god, ghosts, fairies and unicorns as convincing theories -- unless they pop up in my face and let me and a team of experts examine them thoroughly.
When it comes to God I am in total agreement, I would not expect you to be convinced of anything about God unless He gets in your face. I can say for my own 'change' God got in my face, heart, mind and every other part, both logically, and with the facts. Just because it was a spiritual confrontation at the level of my conscience and intellect did not make it a 'fairy tale' argument. For instance if there are observable physical laws it is logical that there are observable laws of conscience and laws with regard to the intellect. For instance the effect of stress on the human inmune system is studied. some but not all of the causes of stress are observable, the effects are measurable. Another example is guilt. Guilt, anger, and selfishness are all parts of significant cause and effects that are observable and measurable. Fear is another example of a cause and effect 'law'. Whenever we deal with physical observations we measure, therefore we feel validation in results. The same is true with spiritual issues. You have a conscience- the word means con- 'with' science- 'knowledge' This means that your conscience is effected by things like guilt, fear and stress and there are measurable effects in terms of relationships, actions and physical health. God is in the spiritual realm, the realm of conscience and intellect. Take divorce for example. A broken relationship may not have a physical cause that can be observed. But the actions and effects of a broken relationship has causes. You cannot rely solely on physical observations to understand these causes. You must rely on intellect. Your intellect is where spiritual issues are observed. That is why I would suggest you read God's story if you want to draw logical conclusions via the intellect. I am a pastor and I assure you that in regards to the spiritual realm you cannot function without the use of intellect. You can meet God in this realm. We call it the heart, but the intellect is the same and easier to understand. The difference between God, ghosts and fairies is significant. God has an intellect and is a living being that communicates and reasons same as we do. Ghosts and fairies are a part of our imagination. When God communicates with you, what I am saying will become clearer for you. I still haven't had time to communicate to you the convincing proof that God exists. But hopefully that is coming soon. Thanks-
