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Post by Admiral Lithp on Apr 18, 2009 21:00:49 GMT -5
Science and religion are diametrically opposed. Choose. No, dogma and science are opposed. If you have too many "this absolutely HAS to be true, no exceptions" doctrines, yes, your religion is incompatible with science. However, I'm pretty sure there's nothing in Buddhism that cannot be reconciled with scientific theory, except maybe if reincarnation was disproved. Which, quite frankly, will probably never happen.
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Apr 18, 2009 21:10:39 GMT -5
Rather than throw up my hands and say "Goddidit", I look at what science has said and say to myself "That's how God did it".
Of course, I also believe that the majority of the Jewish scriptures were myths in a way. Especially concerning just how human God appears to be in them.
(Actually, I've met some pretty liberal Jews who might agree with me, or they might not. I dunno)
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Post by itistime on Apr 18, 2009 21:28:46 GMT -5
And thats fine. That is why I used my Father as an example. Where does the scientific questioning end and your faith begin? You say you believe in Evolution, which is possible, but put the rest of the biblical stories up to scientific scrutiny and which side do you take? Again, you cannot successfully merge the two when you have one, science, that questions and attempts to debunk everything, and another, faith, that is reliant upon certain ideologies & belief in the invisible. Most (sane) Xians will say they do in fact believe in Evolution. But somehow, these same Xians cannot accept science's debunking of the creation myth or Noah's Ark. Because if they do, that would put every biblical claim up to scientific scrutiny. I am also a Christian and have no problem believing in Evolution so I'll give your question a go. Oh, and for record, I do accept science's 'debunking' of the creation myth and I do acknowledge that the story of the great flood was either a sizeable local flood or it never happened in any form what-so-ever. I assume you have heard of the story of the boy who cried wolf. A boy kept screaming that a wolf was attacking him as a joke and all the townspeople who kept rushing out to help got annoyed when they found out there was no wolf. Eventually a wolf did actually attack the boy and when he cried out that he was being attacked, no one believed him thinking he was just playing another joke and he died as no one rushed out to help. This story never actually happened (that we know of), but that doesn't mean that the message behind this fable is any less invalid. Likewise, just because God did not actually create the world in seven days, nor did Noah collect 2 of each kind of animal does not mean that there are not great spiritual truths to be learned from these stories. So yes, by all means put up every biblical claim to scientific scrutiny; it is no skin of my nose. The problem with that approach is that there are certain claims in the bible that are unable to be put under scientific scrutiny. For example, how can we use the scientific method today to put the biblical claim that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead? This was a one-off event, and short of using science to create some form of time machine that will allow us to go back 2000 years and witness these supposed events for ourselves, there is no way for us to determine if this is the case or not. This is where faith comes into play. I do not know for sure if Jesus was God or not, I do not know for sure if he rose from the dead or not. What I do know is that when I have placed my faith in God my life has been enriched beyond measure and that is proof enough for me. I realise however that that is not proof enough for you, and that is fine. Finally, I have never, even as a child ever thought that Science and Religion need to be in conflict. In my eyes, it is like if I supported the New York Yankees baseball team and the Boston Celtics basketball team. Yes, it may seem like a strange combination given the intense rivalry between New York and Boston sporting teams (or so I've heard, I live in Australia myself!), but there would be nothing inherently contradictory in my choice of teams. Likewise, Science and Religion address different questions. Science is fantastic, it tells us how we evolved to become who we are today, and it has brought us right through the Stone Age to our high tech world that we live in now. Yet despite these great accomplishments, it will never be able to give meaning to our lives. People try to feel this void in many different ways, for example they may become big proponents of human rights or of animal rights, prehaps they might try to feel this void in their lives by buying as many possessions as they can. Regardless, this is the area that Religion seeks to address. Religion can give us meaning, while Science can give us none. There is no need for Science and Religion to be in conflict...
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Apr 18, 2009 21:49:56 GMT -5
And thats fine. That is why I used my Father as an example. Where does the scientific questioning end and your faith begin? You say you believe in Evolution, which is possible, but put the rest of the biblical stories up to scientific scrutiny and which side do you take? Again, you cannot successfully merge the two when you have one, science, that questions and attempts to debunk everything, and another, faith, that is reliant upon certain ideologies & belief in the invisible. Most (sane) Xians will say they do in fact believe in Evolution. But somehow, these same Xians cannot accept science's debunking of the creation myth or Noah's Ark. Because if they do, that would put every biblical claim up to scientific scrutiny. I am also a Christian and have no problem believing in Evolution so I'll give your question a go. Oh, and for record, I do accept science's 'debunking' of the creation myth and I do acknowledge that the story of the great flood was either a sizeable local flood or it never happened in any form what-so-ever. I assume you have heard of the story of the boy who cried wolf. A boy kept screaming that a wolf was attacking him as a joke and all the townspeople who kept rushing out to help got annoyed when they found out there was no wolf. Eventually a wolf did actually attack the boy and when he cried out that he was being attacked, no one believed him thinking he was just playing another joke and he died as no one rushed out to help. This story never actually happened (that we know of), but that doesn't mean that the message behind this fable is any less invalid. Likewise, just because God did not actually create the world in seven days, nor did Noah collect 2 of each kind of animal does not mean that there are not great spiritual truths to be learned from these stories. So yes, by all means put up every biblical claim to scientific scrutiny; it is no skin of my nose. The problem with that approach is that there are certain claims in the bible that are unable to be put under scientific scrutiny. For example, how can we use the scientific method today to put the biblical claim that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead? This was a one-off event, and short of using science to create some form of time machine that will allow us to go back 2000 years and witness these supposed events for ourselves, there is no way for us to determine if this is the case or not. This is where faith comes into play. I do not know for sure if Jesus was God or not, I do not know for sure if he rose from the dead or not. What I do know is that when I have placed my faith in God my life has been enriched beyond measure and that is proof enough for me. I realise however that that is not proof enough for you, and that is fine. Finally, I have never, even as a child ever thought that Science and Religion need to be in conflict. In my eyes, it is like if I supported the New York Yankees baseball team and the Boston Celtics basketball team. Yes, it may seem like a strange combination given the intense rivalry between New York and Boston sporting teams (or so I've heard, I live in Australia myself!), but there would be nothing inherently contradictory in my choice of teams. Likewise, Science and Religion address different questions. Science is fantastic, it tells us how we evolved to become who we are today, and it has brought us right through the Stone Age to our high tech world that we live in now. Yet despite these great accomplishments, it will never be able to give meaning to our lives. People try to feel this void in many different ways, for example they may become big proponents of human rights or of animal rights, prehaps they might try to feel this void in their lives by buying as many possessions as they can. Regardless, this is the area that Religion seeks to address. Religion can give us meaning, while Science can give us none. There is no need for Science and Religion to be in conflict... *jaw drops* More or less what he said.
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Post by Tiger on Apr 19, 2009 2:13:41 GMT -5
I am also a Christian and have no problem believing in Evolution so I'll give your question a go. Oh, and for record, I do accept science's 'debunking' of the creation myth and I do acknowledge that the story of the great flood was either a sizeable local flood or it never happened in any form what-so-ever. So we've established that the Bible is fallible and should not be taken as fact. Why do you accept that some of its extraordinary claims are false but cling to the idea that others are true? Duly noted. Not beyond a shadow of a doubt, no, but we can establish a few facts about the life of Jesus. First, there is no contemporary non-Biblical account of his life. You'd think that a historian would think to at least mention a man who was supposedly so influential, even if he couldn't really walk on water or turn it into wine. Second, the Biblical accounts of his life didn't appear until over thirty years after his death. Given that life expectancy back then wasn't much higher than that, and the literacy rate in an out of the way place like Galilee was probably less than 1%, it seems unlikely that the gospels could have been written by anyone with firsthand knowledge of Jesus' life--and anyone who's played Telephone knows how reliable word of mouth is. Thirdly, said Biblical accounts contradict each other in multiple places. As I said above, we've established that the Bible is fallible and not 100% true. Why should we believe this claim but not others? I've become much happier since becoming an atheist. To each his/her own. Except that the practice of studying the world around us by finding and interpreting empirical facts is incompatible with the idea of an omnipotent super being who has never left any evidence for his existence. The supernatural, by definition, cannot exist. If it existed, it would be called the natural. Learning about the world around me has brought meaning and purpose to my life that faith in God never did. I must confess that I never understood how the idea that we're in the thrall of a higher power (especially such a horrible, wretched creature as the God of the Old Testament) somehow brings meaning to our lives.
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Post by MozMode on Apr 19, 2009 11:50:09 GMT -5
I am also a Christian and have no problem believing in Evolution so I'll give your question a go. Oh, and for record, I do accept science's 'debunking' of the creation myth and I do acknowledge that the story of the great flood was either a sizeable local flood or it never happened in any form what-so-ever. So we've established that the Bible is fallible and should not be taken as fact. Why do you accept that some of its extraordinary claims are false but cling to the idea that others are true? Duly noted. Not beyond a shadow of a doubt, no, but we can establish a few facts about the life of Jesus. First, there is no contemporary non-Biblical account of his life, which is something you'd expect of a man who was supposedly so influential, even if he couldn't really walk on water or turn it into wine. Second, the Biblical accounts of his life didn't appear until over thirty years after his death. Given that life expectancy back then wasn't much higher than that, and the literacy rate in an out of the way place like Galilee was probably less than 1%, it seems unlikely that the gospels could have been written by anyone with firsthand knowledge of Jesus' life--and anyone who's played Telephone knows how reliable word of mouth is. Thirdly, said Biblical accounts contradict each other in multiple places. As I said above, we've established that the Bible is fallible and not 100% true. Why should we believe this claim but not others? I've become much happier since becoming an atheist. To each his/her own. Except that the practice of studying the world around us by finding and interpreting empirical facts is incompatible with the idea of an omnipotent super being who has never left any evidence for his existence. The supernatural, by definition, cannot exist. If it existed, it would be called the natural. Learning about the world around me has brought meaning and purpose to my life that faith in God never did. I must confess that I never understood how the idea that we're in the thrall of a higher power (especially such a horrible, wretched creature as the God of the Old Testament) somehow brings meaning to our lives. Good responses! Yeah...yeah, what he said.
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Post by MozMode on Apr 19, 2009 11:53:47 GMT -5
And to add, for me, finding a "meaning for my life" in a mythical being nobody can see, touch or smell was not compatible for about 19 years of my life. The past 3 years I've been living as first an agnostic, then a full on atheist and have actually spent time figuring out what I want my life to stand for and what I want my life to mean. Instead of accepting 2000 year old dogma to be what I stand for, I actually figured out what I wanted to stand for myself. Religion never filled any void except an hour on Sundays I could've spent doing more constructive things. It may be like that for you or for others, but for me, notsomuch.
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Post by cailinban on Apr 19, 2009 14:41:37 GMT -5
What I don't understand - and this is a genuine question - is this: If Genesis didn't happen, and evolution did, then we never had a Fall, so we never had original sin, so there was nothing for Jesus to save us from, so the whole basis of Christianity falls.
How do Christians who accept evolution reconcile this?
(Leaving aside for the moment the fact that original sin isn't mentioned in Genesis)
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Apr 19, 2009 15:00:37 GMT -5
What I don't understand - and this is a genuine question - is this: If Genesis didn't happen, and evolution did, then we never had a Fall, so we never had original sin, so there was nothing for Jesus to save us from, so the whole basis of Christianity falls. How do Christians who accept evolution reconcile this? (Leaving aside for the moment the fact that original sin isn't mentioned in Genesis) From one viewpoint... "original sin" doesn't matter because we all still sin. From my viewpoint... Jesus didn't come down to allow himself to be sacrificed to absolve us of our sins. Jesus came down to demonstrate what an ideal person would be and then proceeded to sacrifice himself to demonstrate just how much God cares. (Either that, or the crucifixion was the consequence of his ministry)
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Post by MozMode on Apr 19, 2009 15:14:52 GMT -5
What I don't understand - and this is a genuine question - is this: If Genesis didn't happen, and evolution did, then we never had a Fall, so we never had original sin, so there was nothing for Jesus to save us from, so the whole basis of Christianity falls. How do Christians who accept evolution reconcile this? (Leaving aside for the moment the fact that original sin isn't mentioned in Genesis) From one viewpoint... "original sin" doesn't matter because we all still sin. From my viewpoint... Jesus didn't come down to allow himself to be sacrificed to absolve us of our sins. Jesus came down to demonstrate what an ideal person would be and then proceeded to sacrifice himself to demonstrate just how much God cares. (Either that, or the crucifixion was the consequence of his ministry) But thats one of the biggest aspects of atleast Catholicism, that jesus died for our sins. It's in many of their prayers, it's taught in Sunday schools everywhere. Now I don't know what the rest of the Christian world believes in regarding original sin or not, but when I was Catholic, that's what was preached. If a Christian doesn't truly believe in the creationism story, the Adam & Eve deal, talking snake, bite of forbidden fruit, so that nixes the original sin bit, thus making that aspect of Christianity null. That's just what I gather from my days in the RCC.
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Post by Paradox on Apr 19, 2009 21:04:21 GMT -5
What I don't understand - and this is a genuine question - is this: If Genesis didn't happen, and evolution did, then we never had a Fall, so we never had original sin, so there was nothing for Jesus to save us from, so the whole basis of Christianity falls. How do Christians who accept evolution reconcile this? (Leaving aside for the moment the fact that original sin isn't mentioned in Genesis) Not all Christians believe in the doctrine of the original sin, in fact. I don't buy it myself. It's worth noting that religion does not necessarily mean dogma.
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Post by Redhunter on Apr 20, 2009 6:28:11 GMT -5
And thats fine. That is why I used my Father as an example. Where does the scientific questioning end and your faith begin? You say you believe in Evolution, which is possible, but put the rest of the biblical stories up to scientific scrutiny and which side do you take? Again, you cannot successfully merge the two when you have one, science, that questions and attempts to debunk everything, and another, faith, that is reliant upon certain ideologies & belief in the invisible. Most (sane) Xians will say they do in fact believe in Evolution. But somehow, these same Xians cannot accept science's debunking of the creation myth or Noah's Ark. Because if they do, that would put every biblical claim up to scientific scrutiny. I am also a Christian and have no problem believing in Evolution so I'll give your question a go. Oh, and for record, I do accept science's 'debunking' of the creation myth and I do acknowledge that the story of the great flood was either a sizeable local flood or it never happened in any form what-so-ever. I assume you have heard of the story of the boy who cried wolf. A boy kept screaming that a wolf was attacking him as a joke and all the townspeople who kept rushing out to help got annoyed when they found out there was no wolf. Eventually a wolf did actually attack the boy and when he cried out that he was being attacked, no one believed him thinking he was just playing another joke and he died as no one rushed out to help. This story never actually happened (that we know of), but that doesn't mean that the message behind this fable is any less invalid. Likewise, just because God did not actually create the world in seven days, nor did Noah collect 2 of each kind of animal does not mean that there are not great spiritual truths to be learned from these stories. And Aesops FABLES are called FABLES.
Bible stories are called; The word of god.
No one I know of thinks the Boy/wolf story is factually real. The parables from the bible I saw as similar stories, but the story of noah, adam and eve, jesus and the rest were/are put forth as fact. if we eliminate all that is "probably not real" from teh bible there isn't anything left. So yes, by all means put up every biblical claim to scientific scrutiny; it is no skin of my nose. The problem with that approach is that there are certain claims in the bible that are unable to be put under scientific scrutiny. For example, how can we use the scientific method today to put the biblical claim that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead? We can't. That's why it's not readily believed. We can't prove Set existed or not either so your story has the same credibility as Odin or Poseidon: None. This was a one-off event, and short of using science to create some form of time machine that will allow us to go back 2000 years and witness these supposed events for ourselves, there is no way for us to determine if this is the case or not. This is where faith comes into play. Like faith in Set or Odin Or Poseidon. I do not know for sure if Jesus was God or not, I do not know for sure if he rose from the dead or not. What I do know is that when I have placed my faith in God my life has been enriched beyond measure and that is proof enough for me. I realise however that that is not proof enough for you, and that is fine. If the basis for your belief is irrational, it shouldn't be a surprise if others do not see your belief as rational. At least you realize this. Finally, I have never, even as a child ever thought that Science and Religion need to be in conflict. In my eyes, it is like if I supported the New York Yankees baseball team and the Boston Celtics basketball team. No it is not. You just stated that your belief is based on "faith" and it is by definition, irrational. Science can be proven so your comparison between two PROVEN teams is a false one. Yes, it may seem like a strange combination given the intense rivalry between New York and Boston sporting teams (or so I've heard, I live in Australia myself!), but there would be nothing inherently contradictory in my choice of teams. Likewise, Science and Religion address different questions. Science is fantastic, it tells us how we evolved to become who we are today, and it has brought us right through the Stone Age to our high tech world that we live in now. Religion is fantastic, science is facts. Yet despite these great accomplishments, it will never be able to give meaning to our lives. People try to feel this void in many different ways, for example they may become big proponents of human rights or of animal rights, prehaps they might try to feel this void in their lives by buying as many possessions as they can. Regardless, this is the area that Religion seeks to address. Religion can give us meaning, while Science can give us none. There is no need for Science and Religion to be in conflict... Science isn't supposed to give meaning, only understanding.
Religion, if it is an irrational and unprovable thing, can "seek to address" anything it wants but it is still based on "faith" aka, wishful thinking. So it's results are meaningless.
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Post by Comassion on Apr 21, 2009 12:16:20 GMT -5
We often use "good christian" in derision. However, if there ever was such a thing as a truly good christian, it could have been Mark Pryor, Arkansas senator, interviewed by Maher. I also liked the Vatican astronomer, who rejected literal and fundamentalist interpretations of scripture, citing Pope John Paul's call that evolution is compatible with Christianity. I briefly considered joining the Roman Catholic church back in 2005, but right then Benedict became pope, and I opted out. Don't forget the very best person in that film - Reginald Foster! To remind people, he's the old catholic guy that Bill interviews in front of the Vatican. He's one of the world's foremost scholars in latin, and he's hilarious in that movie.
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