Sishir- I personally believe curiosity is critical to Christianity as is rational thought and logical reasoning. Asking questions or seeking is fundemental to faith. An unquestioning follower will fall into error, without exception. Independent thought is critical to understanding. I personally feel if the answers are not logical and rational then the questions have not been sufficiently researched and answered. Most matters of significance with regard to the Christian faith have to do with God's character, man's morals and the question of life after death. The Bible gives systematic and logical answers to questions of moral government and God's character. But science is not a subject of the Bible. I certainly understand that. Maybe ID proponents are trying to make the Bible a science book. I don't try and do that. I believe if God had that purpose it would have been written entirely differently. I do think it is fair to say that of all sciences origins has the least basis in pure logic simply because reproducing evolution and reproducing creation have never been acheived. Without a working model for the development of species either through evolution or creation we have a Crime Scene Investigation scenario. Did OJ do it? I would never use science to justify God, however the Bible states that in creation His eternal power and Godhead are manifest (Romans Chapter 1). You have always shown me civility and I respect you for that. Never stop learning and searching for truth. I value truth as the ultimate prize.
Hilarious. I was about to write the exact same thing. Grizzled is so incredibly biased and argumentative that responding is a complete waste of time.
Very good post. Personally, I never view Creation or Christianity as science, so I never bother and will never be capable of proving it as a science, by using scientific means. It's faith, and as a Christian, I view it as Truth, or to borrow a scientific term, some sort of axiom, no need to prove and cannot be proven. The question of whether it's true will be asked by every single rational non-Christian, and it was asked by me before I became a Christian. The question is answered for me now, and it wasn't proven by any scientific means, and i can't describe it in scientific terms. Every Christian became Christian in different ways, so there isn't a proven path per say to guide someone there. However, I would just tell my non-christian friends, that just don't rule it out entirely, because there is no scientific evidence for you to rule it out now. You are not forced to accept it, but an open mind to get to know it won't hurt. If the time comes, you will get your answer your own way. We feel the fellowship with God, but it's not really convincing to others. I would suggest my friends to ask more questions, the more the better, and read the Book and open his/her heart. Don't be afraid that you feel you are not objecting the idea forcefully. Someday, you will understand when others talk about that God speaks to you. There are friends become Christians afterwards, and there are still a lot just shrug it off. But asking questions is always a good start. Just my 2 cents.
Rhester and Svpernaut; Thank you again for your comments and they are helping me understand where you are coming from. My comments were less regarding a science vs. faith argument but closer to what Grizzled was talking about a literalist interpretation of the Bible. Speaking again as a non-Christian I find it difficult to accept that the Bible is to be taken as litterally given that there are contradictions in the Bible between the different Gospels and the Testaments. As to the New Testament overruling the Old Testament I've wondered about that too since isn't the whole Bible holy and I'm not aware of parts of the New Testament specifically saying. That some part of the Old Testament is no longer valid, I could be wrong here since my Biblical knowledge is limited. It seems to me that it is a matter of interpretation regarding where the Old Testament is overruled by the New Testament. Again I'm not questioning the rightness or wrongness of your beliefs but am curious about your views on these issues.
The Bible doesn't contradict itself other then the New Testement overiding parts of the Old Testement and this only happens because the Savior has come. There is no need for the old ways of faith (ie no need for live sacrifices) all you must do to enter the kingdom of heaven is accept the fact that Jesus is the son of God and sent as an offering for all man's sins... but that doesn't invalidate the Old Testement. The New Testement does not contradict itself, most people who believe it does are referring to the gospels which were the same stories written by different men from different perspectives from their own interpretations of what God showed them... so simply because Mathew says "Judas went away and hanged himself" and in the book of Acts 1, Luke writes "Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." Hardly a contradiction, simply a different interpretation of what happened. Neither of the writers were present when Judas killed himself, so they were told or shown what happened by God and their interpretations differed slightly. Luke acknowledges in Acts that his accounts are different...
Two questions: 1) So how do you reconcile contradictions such as the one you referenced above? Which interpretation is "true"? How should one interpret the interpretations? 2) How does this gel with your quote in question 1? Is the bible a collection of stories written by men with different perspectives/interpretations, or is it god-breathed scripture, i.e., the literal word of god? These are serious questions, I am not trying to get into an argument, yet you seem to contradict yourself. Please explain.
My use of the word "stories" was in the factual sense, not a fictional one... and I would think that was obvious due to my context. The Gospel writers were story tellers, they told the story of Jesus for all to hear... the word story isn't exclusive to works of fact or fiction. The Bible is the word of God, written by men through direction from God. The two passages of Matthew and Acts do not contradict one another. If you’ll notice the reference in Matthew simply states that Judas gave back the money and then hung himself. Matthew uses a very simple statement that does not elaborate or give a definitive timestamp on the events. Meanwhile Acts goes into much more detail about the account. The temple rulers were very likely to have bought the plot of ground, like Matthew says. Remember that the priests said, it was not lawful to put the silver back into the treasury. In other words, they were not taking actual 'receipt' of the money, they instead diverted it to the purchase of a plot of ground. Thus, in a 'legal' sense they were not taking 'ownership' of the money, it was still Judas' money. When Peter speaks of "wages of iniquity", it is not that Judas bought the plot of ground... but that the money he had received to betray Jesus had bought it. The money was Judas' "wages"...but he threw it back, and the priests weren't accepting it. These "30 pieces" were like the blood money and both parties were trying to get rid of. Technically it was still Judas' money, which the priests used to purchase the plot of ground. Thus, it could be said that Judas bought it, because it was 'his money' that paid for it. People also look into the meaning of “hanged himself” and automatically think “he hung himself from a tree and was dead” but, from what I get from the combination of Matthew and Acts is that he hung himself (once again there is no mention of “how” he hung himself) and the rope or whatever he used could have broken causing him to fall “head long”… as far as his intestines bursting, when it comes to hangings and deaths intestines bursting is NOT rare, talk to your local EMT for more info, it isn’t pretty. In closing the simplicity of the take in Matthew makes it nearly impossible to prove a “contradiction” as you call it, and simply because all of the information isn’t there doesn’t mean that it contradicts itself. The simple answer to this question would be that Judas hanged himself and sometime later his decaying body was discovered after it had fallen and burst open... simple as that. Once again, there are multiple ways to interpret what exactly happened and we only have limited facts but you can easily come up with plausible scenarios for what happened without having Acts contradict Matthew. There is no "smoking gun" here proving that the Bible contradicts itself.
I never implied them as factual or fictional. I was intentionally vague. You miss the point. The specifics of this particular story are immaterial to my question/interest. Which is it? If it's god breathed scripture, why the stories and subsequent interpretation by the men/women in question? If it's not - how can one logically claim it to be literal truth? I'm confused because you say it is both "true and complete" yet it is "written by different men from different perspectives from their own interpretations of what God showed them". Still confused.
It is exactly what God wanted them to write, so it is his literal word. God didn't pick up the pen or hammer and chisel but I'd like to think a being that created the universe and all things in it is powerful enough to have his word dictated as he'd like it to be. For instance, the Gospel books all cover the same subject (the life, death, ressurection and meaning of Jesus) and while they cover some similar topics some pay more attention to other parts helping to paint a complete picture of it all (interesting LINK). I believe God does this for a reason to help you find what you are looking for when you need it. Rather then having a complete fact filled focus on the entire subject you can have books that specialize and focus on certain areas giving you different perspectives of the same story... Think of it as a DVD that allows you to choose different camera angles in every scene and with deleted scenes or a director's cut. You see the story unfold differently from each view because there is a whole world in the background that you can only see from that angle.
That is very different than "their own interpretations of what God showed them". The fallability of man not withstanding? How about the fallability of interpretations? Or translation?
Once again... "God didn't pick up the pen or hammer and chisel but I'd like to think a being that created the universe and all things in it is powerful enough to have his word dictated as he'd like it to be." The writers did have interpretations of what they saw, the interpretations of what God wanted them to see and portray to the world. You're looking too far into the understanding of a literal meaning of God's words. God's words are his words regardless of their delivery. A rap song focusing on the gospel of Christ is the word of God just as a country song focusing on the gospel would be. The writers of the Bible got the facts from God and said "this is how it is" not "this is how I think it is"... they delivered the message of the Lord exactly how God wanted them to do so. God is all knowing and knows exactly what they'll write long before he even tells them what to write, so I think he is well aware that it is his words being penned to paper.
For those who think that we sit around in churches and bemoan everything the scientific community says...this is from a newsletter from the youth group at the church i formerly attended, recapping last week's lesson for the high school kids: We wrapped up our God and Science series on Sunday. This week we took a look at the origin of life. In our society the issue of origin of life is an extremely hot and controversial topic. We talked about what makes the issue so heated and what makes people take such passionate and polarized stances. We discussed the basic premises of Evolutionary Theory, the basic premises of Biblical creation, places where there can be common ground, issues for dispute, and some generally interesting things. In the end, God is an all powerful and amazing God who could have chosen to work in whatever ways he wanted, and science (including evolutionary science) has done much to help us understand what those methods may have been.
You are twisting words. Either the bible is subject to interpretation or it isn't. It's a marvelously circular argument. The bible can't be wrong because it is dictated by god to humans. Humans, who by the way, are inherently sinful and fallible from conception. But that doesn't mean we should question this book which humans wrote and translated and put together, because god wouldn't let them do bad things to his word. But they do because their sinful. But not with the words of the bible, I guess. I'm unconvinced.
Of course the Bible is open to interpretation but that doesn't mean it isn't God's words exactly how he wanted them to be... God gave us free will and imaginations for a reason. If he wanted us all to read one thing and all believe it exactly the same he wouldn't have given us free will to begin with. There is only ONE part of the Bible that we all have to agree on to be a Christian, all the other is open for debate and discussion. My job isn't to convince you, because unless you believe you can't be convinced... faith isn't something that can be drawn out into diagrams or nuggets of knowledge.
Yes archeology is a science but its limited to the study of what can be proven to a degree of reliability to be the work of humans. An archeologist stumbling across something that looked manufactured in an area that wasn't previously known to have human inhabitants would still be required to provide supporting evidence independent of that item to show that humans might've created it. This is why the assumption that something seems complex and ordered that we can't automatically assume its designed. For instance for Mayan pyramids there is much other evidence that humans lived there during the time period. On the otherhand if an archeologist were to discover a Mayan pyramid dating back 10 million years that discovery would be treated with a very high degree of skepticism since there isn't even evidence that even hominids existed 10 million years ago. But as I said without other independent proof regarding an intelligence just the mere presence of a complex and seemingly ordered structure doesn't equal an intelligent created. For instance there have been many things that were initially believed to be man made or intelligently designed that turned out on further study to not be. For instance the Giant's Causeway in Scotland, The Face on Mars and the signals from neutron stars are known as LGM for "Little Green Men" because it was initially presumed that such regular signals have to be the product of an alien intelligence. So yes you can make an assumption but without further proof to cling to it isn't science. Now you're just being contrarian which isn't science either. Just because something isn't popular doesn't make it any more proven. The evidence for Evolution has been stated many times before so there is no need restating it. You've often brought up that you think that the resistance to ID Is primarily due to ideology. I'll agree that there is a lot of ideological resistance but as I said just because something isn't popular doesn't make it any more proven. Phrenologists can rightly complain that the medical establishment is against them but that doesn't make it any more valid as a medical practice. So yes ID is facing a mountain of entrenched resistance from the scientific community but that doesn't mean we give ID a break since its the oppressed idea. If anything that means its even more important for ID to provide supporting empiracal evidence to show that it is more valid than Evolution. Merely stating that Evolution has problems in no way means that ID has any greater validity. ID as the counter and radical idea even as a greater honus to prove its validity if its to gain acceptance over Evolution.
My point about ID is mostly that I believe that there are theories under the general category of ID that are valid avenues to explore. I don’t like the attempts, sometimes quite aggressive attempts, to quash any other avenue of inquiry other than evolution, even by many people in the science community. I think that that’s bad and dangerous science. I think some of that can be understood from Kuhn’s explanation of “normal science” but much of it is also overflow from the long and raging political war between certain creationist groups and certain anti-creationist groups. As for my personal opinion, I think the gaps in the fossil record and the problems of the fossil record in general are the things I’m least sure about. I come at this question from either end and have some level of confidence in at least some of the key factors at the beginning and now, but what happened in the middle is a bit of a muddle for me. I think there are some possible explanations but nothing I’d place a very high confidence level on.
The people of Dover have spoken... via Pharyngula Some good news: the election results for the Dover school board are online. Take a look at this: 4-Year Term (vote for four) B Reinking Dem. 2754 H Mc Ilvaine, Jr. Dem. 2677 B Rehm Dem. 2625 T Emig Dem. 2716 A Bonsell Rep. 2469 J Cashman Rep. 2526 S Leber Rep. 2584 E Rowand Rep. 2547 2-Year Term (vote for three) L Gurreri Dem. 2623 P Dapp Dem. 2670 J Mc Ilvaine Dem. 2658 E Riddle Rep. 2545 R Short Rep. 2544 S Harkins Rep. 2466 Reinking, H McIlvaine, Rehm, Emig, Gurreri, Dapp, and J McIlvaine are on record as in opposition to teaching Intelligent Design creationism; all the Republicans in this list supported it. It looks like a clean sweep to me.
To add a bit more flavour to this thread I’ll come at some of the things I think rhester is saying from a different direction. I would describe the central element of the Christian faith in a different, but not necessarily contradictory way, at least I don’t think it is. We come at this from different enough directions that I’m not entirely clear on the points you’re making sometimes rhester, but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. Given that we come from such different directions maybe between us we can cover more ground. I would describe the central element of Christian faith as the individual’s relationship with God. It’s man’s inability to be moral that draws him to this relationship, and it’s the mercy and gift of that relationship that truly revel God’s character. All this can happen without ever laying eyes on a Bible, btw, and if it doesn’t happen the Bible isn’t going to make much sense to you anyway. It’s this relationship that really gives you the “eyes to see and the ears to hear” as it gives you the spiritual context to understand what’s being said and why. I also believe that science and spirituality are part of the same whole, but we have to be open to learning more about each to see how they each fit into the same whole. Indeed the more I learn the more they merge. If we try to stuff either into a box of our own creation and uncritically deny anything that falls outside that box, then we are dead, both intellectually and spiritually. IMO the contradictions are not necessarily mistakes, and indeed I believe they aren’t mistakes. Does it change the message of the Bible if Judas’ death is reported in two different ways? The Bible isn’t a manual to be ingested through rote learning. It’s a document to be interpreted. You have to ask what it means, not just what it says. When the Bible talks about people having “eyes to see and ears to hear” it’s talking about looking past the words to seek the meaning of a passage, and the difference is often quite dramatic. Re: the OT and NT. The NT completes the OT. God didn’t change his mind half way along or anything like that. The OT was about the law which was given to man for the express purpose of showing us that we can’t keep the law and need to seek relationship. (See the first half dozen chapters of Romans.) So the OT is still valid, it’s just not the whole story. The NT completes the story.
Grizzled; This post helps me understand better where you're coming from. To a certain extent I agree with you that science and spirituality are part of a whole in regard they are both ways of perceiving the workings of the Universe. The problem is that they are looking at the Universe in totally different ways and involve different issues. The danger that I see is that there is enough of a misunderstanding regarding science that I think there needs to be a bright line distinguishing science from faith. This is why I will use terms such as "Intellectual laziness" or "Magical Thinking" because IMO that's what happens when you start going beyond a rational, empiracal, quantifiable and systemitized way of answering questions that deal with inherently materialistic questions. For instance as an engineer if you were to analyze a structure that initially according to accepted engineering pirnciples shouldn't be standing would you then say that it must be supported by the power of faith? I believe that as humans we need both science and faith because there are questions that can never be rationally answered but I am deeply concerned when people start reaching for metaphysical explanations for physical issues. What you say makes sense to me but Rhester and Svpernaut were saying that the Bible is literal and that it isn't open to interpretation. I want to stress that I don't know whether there is a rightness or wrongness to either approach but am genuinely curious about as Christians you address this issue.
