All people make guesses. Some are better at guessing, or they are simply luckier than others in getting nearer the truth. Some people simply have more information to make more educated guesses. For a reason these people are more often right than others. Even they may be wrong. It may be a result of them being biased about the issues or simply misinterpreting the evidence, not because of all that they know, but because what little they do not know.
As it seems economical experts have made some bold guesses, that did not prove to be correct. As a result the world economy has plunged into a recession. It is typical to the guessing, that usually it is motivated not what seems to be correct, but what we would choose to be correct. People rather believe a pleasant and compelling suggestion, than the complicated truth. On the other hand fear is the key for many to believe in a particular guesses.
Fear of the outsider, or unknown is a powerfull factor in this mind game of guessing. If there is a rehabilitation center for alcoholics, or drug addicts, or a nursing home for the disabled being build in the neighbourhood, the ugly head of fearfull guessing raises its head. Suddenly there are loads of people who argue that they fear for their children and especially that their property value goes down. They are outraged, if their concerns are not tolerated. As if we were expected to tolerate the most vile intolerance of some. Having lived close by to alcoholist rehabilitation centre, insane asulym and a hospital giving treatment to drug addicts I would say, these were better built around rental housing. Just because the bad guesses those who actually own their houses may cause harm to the people who need these public services. For sure it will cause more harm to the children of these intolerant people, as they will pass on to the next generation their hate of the unknown. People like me in rental flats could not care less if the neighbouring building is a re-hab center. Nor are their children harassed by their strange neighbours.
What do we know? You and I know the world is round since some authority has told us so, but to verify that idea we only need to look at the horizon. It curves and the rest of the world is somewhere beyond. Hence, the information we have about this matter is rationally acceptable. We may wonder, how did our ancestors not come to think about such an obvious matter. What on earth made them think the world is flat, when it does not look it? Would we have come to question that the world is flat, if the same authority that told us it is round had told it to be flat?
If we had lived in them days when all people still thought the world is flat, we would propably have accepted it to be so. The reason why someone ever even claimed the world is flat, is that they did not know, what is the shape of the world, so they made up an explanation they thought sounded just right. It was a guess on the shape of the world. That they chose the world to be flat, shows how little they knew or bothered even to think about the matter, when looking at the horizon would have told them immediately, it to be a poor guess. A number of world views were built on such guesses. This one claimed the world to be disc on the back of a giant, that one said it is a disc held up by invisible pillars. None of them represents anything than a poor guess of the matters. These wild guesses have since been shown to be totally and utterly nonsense. But instead people would have given up all the nonsense invented to explain the world beyond the horizon and all the unknown matters in it, they canonize these unplausible guesses. People like to say these mythological explanations are not simply nonsense, but defend them by claiming them to be metaphysical, or metaphors for something completely else. However, they were not metaphors to the people who invented them, nor to the countless generations who believed in them for centuries.
What if something in a religious text, that was for centuries understood as a factual truth, is proven scientifically to be false? Is it honest to claim it to be actually meant to be a metaphor? If that piece of religious fancy is actually a metaphor, how can we tell, what parts of religious texts are actually to be accepted as facts and what are mere metaphors? Some parts of religious texts abide to the scientific testing and others are possibly beyond our capablity of testing. But why should we believe anything to be absolutely true, if there is no way of proving such? All those things that science can not prove to be true or false may also be later found out to be mere metaphors for something completely else. Is for example god in the Bible just a mere metaphor, a metaphor for universal moralism, or the creative force of life energy? Maybe it is just a metaphor for the national spirit of the twelve jewish tribes?
There may be a day, when the science can prove the existance some particular god or gods, but until that day we will have to choose whose guesses on the matter are plausible to us. If it is just the authority who claims to know that a particular god exists because it says so in the same book that claims the world is supported by the invisible pillars, or that it is a flat disc on the back of a giant tortoise, should we trust such an authority?
Science is not a religion or a philosophy. Neither is it an ideology. Therefore it itself has no bias to find previoulsy invented world views wrong. It is just a bunch of the best guesses on what can be verifiably found true by people who have researched a particular issue, with the best tools and methods available. It has no dogmas, it is under constant change and very unconservative by nature, though some scientist may hold conservative ideals and every scientist has their own particular world view with included bias.
If we are to choose either the theories science presents, or the religious ideals that contradict those theories on how the universe around actually is, honestly we can only accept the religious ideals by abandoning reason and embracing faith. Faith is not build on reason. It is built on feelings, or to say it in other words, it is based on the subconscious.
Scientific theories may be later proven to be wrong, but they are not wrong because they contradict some particular system of superstition. Science can take alteration, how about religions? Certainly most of them have been altered many times as the knowledge of the surrounding universe has increased.
To be perfectly honest, I doubt it, if there are any gods that hold any benevolent interrest towards humanity, or that if there are gods, they are in any need for us to worship them. In fact it would be reasonable to expect them to be proud of us, if we finally claimed indepence and as adults took responsibility of our own actions. Certainly they would be appalled by us bickering about whose ancestors had the most correct guesses of gods, when they wrote theirs up. Especially so, as those scriptures have obviously been written in the very limited knowledge of the universe of those past times.
Is the world flat? Was the earth created before the sun? Are there gods? Your guess is as good as mine, but on what do you base your opinion about it?
November 12, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Some of the things you say here are true and noble, but I just have to comment on some of the ideas you just presented here. If for nothing else than to bring a diffrent opinion. Not to make you look foolish. That is not my purpose. These are nothing more than opinions and mine is not more valid than yours or anybody else’s.
”If we had lived in them days when all people still thought the world is flat, we would propably have accepted it to be so”
Propably so but belief in flat earth is not as common as we used to believe. Here is a good article about it (tough my mama told me not to trust wikipedia):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth
”If that piece of religious fancy is actually a metaphor, how can we tell, what parts of religious texts are actually to be accepted as facts and what are mere metaphors? ”
Christian answers says this:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c015.html
”Bible writers used the “language of appearance,” just as people always have. Without it, the intended message would be awkward at best and probably not understood clearly.”
This is the clear purpose of bible writers when they used laguage like this. For example one bible passage often quoted by those in atheist faith is 1 samuel 2:8. There bible speaks about foundtitons of the earth. However if you read the passage in context you will find that 1 samuel 2:2 says ”there is no Rock like our God” do christians go around worhiping rocks because of this passage? Of course not. You have to read this as a poem about God. Not take its literal meaning! Pillars of the earth in this context are metaphores. Later in 2:11 chapter story enters narrative mode again and starts an historical account.
This explanation I provided is just one example of how bible is to be read. Just apply the same judgement to it than you would to any other literature. If something is clearly metaphotical interpret it methaphoticaly. If something is narrative treat it as sutch. In order to see what bible is about you have to look at the big picture. The grand narrative.
Here is a nice article about grand narrative or metanarrative:
http://www.postmodernpreaching.net/metanarrative.htm’
”Science is not a religion or a philosophy. Neither is it an ideology. Therefore it itself has no bias to find previoulsy invented world views wrong.”
Science has bias for sure! For example google found this nice article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100421172558.htm
“If we are to choose either the theories science presents, or the religious ideals that contradict those theories on how the universe around actually is, honestly we can only accept the religious ideals by abandoning reason and embracing faith. Faith is not build on reason. It is built on feelings, or to say it in other words, it is based on the subconscious.”
That is the nature of faith. We jus have to belive it. But you dont have to give up reason to belive in God. Besides your ”faith” in science is just as valid a religion as mine in God.
”Science can take alteration, how about religions? Certainly most of them have been altered many times as the knowledge of the surrounding universe has increased.”
Religions are not ment to be altered acording human fancy. Science has not explained away God and it never will. Bible is believable as ever and there is no scientific evedence that bible is incorrect or false. Some might claim it to be so, but their evedence is not strong enough. We just need to interpret it with a grain of common sense. What it all comes down to is faith. I see no intellectual barriers in believing the God of the bible. Way I see it one is free to believe ether way, God or no God, without any intellectual hangover.
And if we learned anything about universe it’s that we know very little. More we study mysteries of the universe more we realize that our understanding of it is limited indeed.
Phew! Each of these subjects is as big as ocean and depate about them still goes on in internet and literature. This is just my five cents on these dificult subjects.
Peace
November 12, 2011 at 12:36 pm
And ups! besides my many typos i managed to break that one link. correct is:
http://www.postmodernpreaching.net/metanarrative.htm
November 12, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Thank you for commenting and links. I will look them up with better time and maybe even comment on them. I totally agree with you that our knowledge of the universe is very limited and it leaves out a gap big enough for gods to exist. It is only the likeliness of such entities in the light of what we actually do think we know and how the guesses on such things seem to be formed. I also think these are far too subjects to be solved here, but it is fun to consider them from our different angles.
I hope you and others reading this understand it was not meant as an attack against christian or any other particular faith. That is why I chose the shape of the Earth as an example of guessing, because it was commonly shared world view by most people in ancient times regardless of their faith. It is noteworthy that this image was first questioned by the Egyptians allready during their hellenistic period. They even measured the circumference of the Earth far more precisely than Columbus centuries after them. At the time they were ruled by pharao Ptolemaios, who accepted the new idea of the shape of the world, but it was his previously embraced “faith” that prevented him from accepting the notion that the Earth was not the center of the universe by the very same scientists in his employment. Why? Because the idea of the shape of the earth altered his mundane world view, but the idea of the Earth being on orbit of the sun contradicted his religious feelings. It did not fit in with the idea of the sun being a god Apollo/Ra. So, he made a choise between the two given ideas by priests and by scientists. He chose the priests, because it was the absolute truth he had allways known and because it was politically wise of him not to contradict the priesthood. Priests and preachers controll the minds of religious people and they are a political force to be recognized, because from those groups the most fanatical zealots are also to be found. When scientists make new discoveries they are allways in danger of finding out something that somehow undermines the absolute world views given by religions and that is same as threatening men of power. Luckily for us, scientists are often singleminded people who are so fascinated by their own discoveries, that they publish them givin no heed to the danger of this sort. This has shaped our western society towards secularism, which nowadays, in so many aspects, gives more value to science than the superstition of previous generations. That in itself, tells a tale of guessing being the main source of inspiration of ancient scripture.
Much of my point was about how people believe in such guesses regardless of what it says in the ancient scriptures or the scientific knowledge they have access to. Many people find horoscopes intriguing and “almost” believe in them, though they are quite aware that those were written by the apprentice journalist.
Regarding the Bible (as it is the most known ancient religious scripture here in our western culture), it is full of much more obvious flaws than the shape of the Earth, but it served well my point about the changing understanding of religious text. Regardless if a god knew and even told the original writers of this most holy text the real shape of our world, the countless generations in between them and us have actually believed the description of the invisible pillars to be the actual concrete pedestal on which the flat Earth stands on. Not a metaphor for gravity, or whatnot. It might be completely irrelevant to the essential message of the Bible, if that is the salvation of the soul, but there is a snag.
The snag being, that as we now know that the previous interpretation was totally wrong, it only goes to show out the possiblity that any of the many present interpretations of the entire book may later present itself as just as wrong. If the essential message is the salvation, the book is not very good or effective way to communicate about it between the humanity and an allmighty god, because the many interpretations are so much dependant on the outside information and cultural context of the reader not the writer. For over 2000 years, most people believing in the absolute truth of the Bible have had no access to any information about the cultural context in which it was originally written. The interpretations of it have been made in their own cultural context, and they have also led to various different interpretations that may have led their souls to be Hellbound (at least according to many sects of christianity).
There being of course also other snags related to thisone, about the nature of the alledged god as benevolent, since there seems to be none, or a very narrow chance of salvation for people outside the cultural sphere and understanding of the context which make the stories of this particular scripture plausible, but that is of course a nother topic…
In general I think it is OK to have faith on things. I have still some faith on humanity. It is not a reasonable idea, when one takes a look on how humanity acts, but even the minimal faith I have in us carries me through. I see religions more of matters of mysticism. The realization of the missing information, not the absolute knowledge about the supernatural, nor the universe. They make no sense to me and are not intellectually or logically contestable, but all require the emotionally based faith in some particular and often rather absolute truth, that is not subject to any proof, or even evidence.
Honestly speaking, I find it rather unplausible to believe one obviusly aborted execution led to an actual death, that somehow magically resolved all evil we as humans have done in the eyes of the creator of the Universe. In my knowledge and put in cultural context it seems rather obvious fancy and falls among the many other religious and idealistic representations of whishfull thinking. However, there is that slight chance that it is true and if the idea gives you strength it is not a bad thing as such. I myself believe you are capable of being a good person with or without faith.
Peace.
November 13, 2011 at 1:35 pm
None taken at least from my part. But do be careful when you say things like bible has flaws whitout specifying what flaws. Contructive criticism at least in my opinion requires exact accusations not generalizations.
You are definately right there when you say that the most fanatic zealots come from the religious circles and reigion is used to control men. I also think that using bible like this is a big misuse of its message. Jesus certainly did not come to form a political kingdom. His kingdom was very diffrend indeed. To force ones ideas on others is wrong and against idea of the bible. Everyone is or should be free to take it or leave it as they wish.
I think therein is also an answer for your idea of interpretations. I belive that the bible is inspired and unfailable but there are no inspired explanations of the bible. Everyone must make their own. Bible is a complex book that requires careful study and knowledge about history, textual criticism, hebrew poetry etc.. That is why there are so many interpretations.
Denominations sometimes demand blind obedience to their way of intrepreting bible. But that should not be so. There must be fredom to make ones own intrepretations based on ones own research. Bible in many places can be looked at from many difrent angles. Of course there are places that are 100% certain like rescurection or virgin birth but some are not so straightforward. So we believers need to be likeminded on issues like is Jesus Son of God and not so strict on issues that are less important. Hope i’m making any sense here.
One thing is sure. Something very strange indeed happened 2000 years ago and I see it doing its ”magic” still today. Narcotics abusers and alcoholics get a new life. Hungry get fed and sometimes even miracles happen. If this is delusion give me more of it pleace!
Fact remains that belief in miracles is a BIG leap of faith. But I think your faith might actualy be biger leap than mine. To believe in humanity despite the evedence is a great leap of faith indeed!
Shalom
November 13, 2011 at 10:48 pm
This is how different opinions, even in matters like the worldview and beliefs, should be discussed. So, that arguments are between matters and not between people. I also like the idea of mutual respect, very much indeed. I hope I manage to show respect towards any faiths I do not share myself. Because regardles who is right, we do need to get along with people in this world.
Yes, you are absolutely right that random accusations like my comment about the flaws in the Bible should not be made, at least, if one is not prepared to demonstrate what they mean. I will go to the other flaws I personally see in the plausibility of the Bible later, and hope to be able to do even that in a respectfull, but candid manner.
If there truly are any gods that are -in manner of speaking- “benevolent” towards humanity, it sets some very interresting conditions on what could be expected from them. Would they have the power to contact every person on a personal level, or could it be somehow justified that they set us up in a contest of blind faith? The ability to interprete ancient scripture seems to give a rather unfair advantage to some individuals in many forms of religions. It seems even more unfair, when one considers the fact how many people, even today, are illiterate. Of course if these entities are limited or somehow barred from contacting us in other way than through some very old books, that would serve as an excuse, but then, that would put their divinity under some suspect. Would it not? I for one would expect that if there were any actual gods, their existance would not be even debated. To me it would seem like the least thing one might have the ethical right to expect them to reveal themselves to us all, so the concept of faith would not be even required when discussing gods. This is just my humble opinion and a bold guess I have made about this all, and I truly, truly hope it will not hurt anyone.
Indeed something special happened 2000 years ago, when an agitator with a nonviolence message rose tell once again to all people to do the right thing and an economical and military empire brutally silenced him, as they so often do. Something remarkable happened also some 2500 years ago when a prince gave up his riches and became an ascetic, and told people to do the right thing. Also something very special happened 1400 years ago, when a merchant gave up commerce and united warring tribes under one message of social justice. Something special happened some 2300 years ago when a king decided to fight corruption and reorganized land so that the poor would not have to beg. Just few decades ago, one could say some very strange things have happened. For example when an agitator with a nonviolence message rose and an economical empire with terrible military might gave up and let his nation to become free. Or when a two preachers on two continents with non violence message, could convince two empires with economical and military might to give up on racism. History is full of these events, may they be seen as miracles or not. That is where I draw my faith in humanity, though I am skeptic about it. It is my guess, that there is a point in having faith in humanity, and I actually hope there is some point to have faith in the many guesses of different gods people have made.
If the Bible is indeed a form of communication between humans and a particular god, then you are absolutely right about the personal interpretation. I think there are propably no two exactly similar interpretations of any given book. If there is a god with any interrest towards human individuals it would be very ulikely for there to be two exatly the same relationships between said god and any one human being. It would seem, that we agree on this matter?
The complexity of any given religious system or an ideology allways leads to different interpretations. Words like orthodoxy and fundamentalism are just weapons to claim one particular interpretation is more valid than the other, but objective truths are not achieved by just claiming one truth to be the absolute and others to be obsolete. In any given aspect of human culture, closest we get to an assumed objective truth is usually, when we come to a consensus of our different opinions and guesses on the matter. That has a down side also. That is the fact that every time a consensus is formed, something essential is lost. At least something essential to one party. It is often worth it, because only from a consensus, can the project move on. If no consensus is achieved, it usually means some form of violence. Evidence is the tool that tells us whose guesses might be to the closest to the objective truth. We will never quite reach it, but what we accept as plausible evidence decides, what do we believe in. What we find believable, regardless what we would like to choose to believe in.
Peace, love and understanding.
November 14, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Now, I have read all the pages linked by “Let me guess a bit too”. I must say that it is somewhat funny how, I feel like I have actually discussed all the points those show not even having yet read them here in the comment section, but that of course, only goes to show how on topic these links were.
First: The wikipedia article was a good one. The medieval times are even today described as the dark ages. The actual point however was that the scholars knew the earth was round, but for some reason did not see it necessary or even healthy to try to educate the masses about this view. European scholars were part of the church as an institution, and that massive engine had a purpose to stay in power. And shaking the minds of people with revolutionary ideas would have been contraproductive. Now, it is arguable, did they cling on to that power for the sake of power itself, or the benefits powerfull position gives to an individual. Or perhaps they saw the position of power as necessary in serving the purpose of saving souls by strengthening force of implemented social culture of one singular truth leading many people ot have faith in something of which the masses have no actual understanding about. So, that when as few people question the faith, then most of them are saved. In that case they did not have much faith in a god to reveal itself to every individual. One can hardly blaim them for that, as it is not in the habit of any gods to reveal themselves to most people. Though one might expect that from an allpowerfull entities.
Second: What a pity it is that for the last 2000 years there has not been an internet where a christian believer, or any person hoping to avoid Hell, might find the explanations to the strange implications in the Bible. And on the lines of what I said about the illitercy before, it is not reachable to most people in the world today. If salvation from eternal pain is only achieved by believing in a particular god or even particular sort of faith in that god by a particular sect that worships said god, it seems hardly the work of a benevolent and allpowerfull god. I know this is a serious topic and apologize if this is too playfully said, but I can not help myself here.
Third: About the bias of science. No, science itself has no bias. It is as I previously said the different scientists have bias. That is natural as they are mere humans, not gods.
We can make guesses on what the science will be able to explain in the future. It allready has explained the need for a god away. It has not explained away the possibility of a gods, but to me it seems the conflict between fundamentalist religious movements and scientific world view tells a tale of how much the discoveries of science have undermined the absolute necessity for a god. One has to remember that science is not a movement set against any particular religion and many scientists are adherents of religions and most come from cultures where some form of religion is taken as given truth. It is their discoveries not the men themselves that cause horror among those who read the scriptures alot.
Fourth: The idea of a “metanarrative” was an interresting concept.
This is from that article: “Jesus himself believed in a biblical metanarrative. In Mark 1:15 he announces, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.” In saying this, he indicates that God has been working out a plan through history. The Kingdom of God has finally arrived and Jesus saw his life as a fulfillment of this plan.”
This kind of proves the metanarrative (if there actually is one to be found from the Bible, and as many people feel they have found it, it must be there) to be fictional. Jesus says that the end of days and time is near, but as we know it has been some 2000 years since that and the world has not come to an end. Just like Tolstois The War and Peace, the story line of the Bible gives enough historical accounts to bind it strongly in history, but also the writers have added their own subplots and possibly even characters to the storyline. That is the key to writing a believable historical novel. You have to have your grand facts right. Yet, we know Tolstoi wrote the book and some of his characters were fictional. But the Bible has no such publishing information as the historical novels do. The writers of the scripture propably wanted to write their story to be not only a believable story but read as a true story. Still it is not a history and as a giveaway there are the many miracles and other supernatural phenomenons. This applies to most old chronicles and folk stories not to mention the religious scriptures. To the people of the time of the writing the supernatural events were quite believable. It is only the ever growing knowledge of the world by scientific work, that has made those more fancifull parts (like the flood, genesis and Noah being swallowed by a giant fish or a whale) to show as fancy to the post-modern eye.
In the end if the metanarrative of the Bible is a god revealing itself, it is revealed to the people in the book, but for some reason not for most of us who have lived the 2000 years since the book had the last addition of stuff in it.
November 14, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Or you look at the metanarrative of the bible and wonder how on earth did all those 66 writers get their story straight. Take for example isaiah 53 that is considered classical messiah stuff. Probably written in around 700 B.C and full of prophecy of Jesus that was filled in scary detail several hundred years later. Coincedence? Could be.
But that is not the main point. I said earlier that the bible is a complex book and that I still say. The power of christianity has never been intellectual pondering of every little aspect of the scriptures. It has always been about normal often illiterate people coming to faith and doing the exordinary.
Strange thing is that kingdom of Jesus is spreading fastest in the countries that have highest illiteracy rates. It is about these people finding answers to their problems that are often spiritual like demon possession. It is liberating to them when they simply pray for a relative and bang! they are cured. In the west this would take years of therapy with uncertain results. Or that village in africa where people were so afraid of the spirits that they couldn’t plow their land (spirits in the soil). When christianity came they could take up farming and make their life better.
When we start to read the bible as educated westerners we are actually at disadvantage. We just can’t take anything at a face value. When home mothers in India just start to tell stories about Jesus to people and Bang! stuff happens.
New Testament was actually not written as a church manual but as an description of the events happened. Thus it contains very little information about how we should set up our churches. How to govern them, how to babtise, what day to worship etc. Early christianity was not about that. They did not see that stuff important enough to write about. It was about a simple message. Jesus has come to save the lost. Finally we are free. And again Bang! Rome turned upside down.
Then a sad thing happened and church became institutionalized and part of Roman government. And picked up many pagan customs like priests and christmas etc. (yes early church probably did not have priests, they were governed by a group of elders and as a whole assembly together) Now we are collecting sad harvest of crusades and witch hunts that should have never happened. Not at least if the people would have followed the message of Jesus.
But in a nutshell. Faith is never about intellect of a person but the power of God. In this a Helsinki university professor and a illiterate farmer in Uganda are in same position. Both equally sinners in need of salvation.
What comes to creation if you are christian you can pick creationism or intelligent design. Both are kosher and i won’t start explaining about them here or this answer will reach China in length. Google will uncover a lot of information about them and some cool scientific facts about the gaps in theory of evolution.
And finally about that 2000 years wait. What are we mere humans telling to God when he should come or not. To a God a day is as a thousand years and thousand years is as a day. He will come when the time is ready and bible says that people will not be ready to greet him. (isn’t that a cool ending to this or what!)
Still more peace and above all love
November 15, 2011 at 12:27 pm
I agree with you that the Bible is a very complex book and also that the power of christianity (or any religion for that matter) is not in pondering the scriptures, but rather in simple faith. The mythical ritual, or the veil between what is known and what is not.
The coherency of the Bible, or possible existance of a metanarrative, is not such a surprice nor any great wonder. It was a long and strong tradition where those who added the later parts were quite aware of the contense of the previous parts. That is how religions and mythologies evolve. All of them. By lending authority from the ancients. Most of the contradictions in the Bible are between writers who describe the same events (and of course what we have since learned by way of science), not between generations.
Take for example how Matt claims in his gospel that the dead were rising from their graves in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified. Why have the other gospel writers found this not important enough to mention? Does it actually mean that Jesus was not the only person who has returned from the realm of death? What happened to those “zombies”? Why is this not mentioned in any of the Roman annals? Surely it would have been an event worth mentioning. Or could it be, that Matt was actually not divinely inspired, but just a man whose expectation of his spiritual leader dying instead of providing the golden age promised in ancient prophesies, was a bit disappointed and he needed to emphasize to himself and others, that what he wanted to believe in, was not all lost and it was still significant on some level? He used his understanding of the “metanarrative” of the Bible to that end, but did it make the book more reliable or exactly the opposite? That is a possibility to be considered, right?
The disadvantage you describe, where an educated person is less likely to find the Bible as plausible communication effort between humanity and a god, is true enough. In my view that is true because information and knowledge makes us less susceptible to any fancy stories. If you understand basic starting points of science and what humanity has learned about the universe and the evolution, then the description of the creation in the Bible seems less plausible explanation even if it is reduced to the metaphoral level. In comparisson to scientific research results on these matters and the human mind as in psychology and how cultures are formed the biblical description is to be found among other mythological stories of creation and to be found just as plausible as any of them.
Read how the world came to be is described in Kalevala, and tell me how that is less plausible than the Genesis in the Bible. One may have faith in either as metaphors for what scientific research has reveald to us about how the universe, Earth and life has formed into existance, but neither give any hint why one would be more true than the other. Neither is closer to the scientific explanation, that is the one formed with the most likeliest method of guessing closer to the objective truth.
The gaps in the theory of evolution are being filled all the time. That is how science works. The gaps in ancient scriptures are not filled by any means. So the bold claims by ancient people have to be explained as metaphors. But there are no metaphors in the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is supported by other grand theories of nature, so if were to discard the idea of evolution, then we would need to discard also the understanding of astronomy, geology, psychology, sociology, and a great part of medical knowledge based on the theory of evolution and replace them with blind faith.
The fact that more informed people are less likely to have faith, is not exactly just a modern (or postmodern) phenomenon. Ansgarius “the apostole of the north” wrote over 1000 years ago, that the worst kind of pagans are “the men of their own power”, who have abandoned rituals of any gods. These were men who had travelled far and wide and who had seen many different religious practices and in general were more informed about the world than the general population in the Nordic countries. They certainly did not have the scientific research of our time to ponder on the facts of any given religious scripture, but they propably had seen wonders of the different areas of the world and enough of how much the different gods actually lend aid to humans in real need, to have doubts about the willingness of gods to actually help those who ask for it.
The “demon posession” of people, or fields seems to me even more superstitious stuff than horoscopes or religious bans of eating some form of farm animals. There are several cultural reasons as to why people believe in demons, spirits, gods or the soul, but none of them have reliable evidence to show these things actually exist. What is common to all of them, is how they all fall in to the area of people making wild guesses of things they are unable to (at the moment) comprehend, but have a need to have some form of controll over, if nothing else to at least name the strange phenomenons and their own fears and hopes. Stereotyping is a very natural act of the human psyche, and less informed people are allways less ready to confront new situations, so they are more eager to name and group the strange phenomenons in boxes, by which to handle them. To me it seems this is the source for the need of absolute truth and in turn that is the source of religions.
The “bang” you refer to when Roman Empire turned around because of christianity was actually just the moment the church became institutionalized, or rather when the emperor Constantinus the Great decided to support christianity. To him it was about politics and efficiency of the empire, but it was a turning point in a slow process that led to the decline of the Empire and to the so called “dark ages”. And they were not called that just for nothing either. It was the christians that destroyed much of the scientific research records achieved and collected within the Roman empire, though some of the northern barbarians crossing the borders of the empire had some part in that too
To me, the concepts of the so called “intelligent design” and creationism (and maybe one should ad the “young earth” ideology) seem like obvious attempts to counter the research results of science. They are not founded on any actual research, but are just as feeble stories as any ancient mythology. As I said, scientist are not set out to prove as fairy tales all the mythical stories religions and folklore give as truths, but to find out how things actually are. If science gives results that prove some guesses the writer of the religious scripures, or other mythologies have made, it embraces those just as well as those that counter any such guesses. Creationism and ID presuppose one particular religious guess to be correct and builds from that. This is a method that will eventually not result in any objective truth, but that is not even their purpose. It is only to strengthen faith in something people wanted to believe in the first place. It is a bit like Soviet economics. The production plans have to be met, so the results any production reports give, is an impression that all is well regardless of what the reality of the production is.
I agree that the building of religious organisations like the church as an institution is a questionable course of action, and in my view this is so regardless if there is a god or not. Why would a creator of the entire universe need go-betweens like priests to converse with humanity? On the other hand I can, once again, raise the question why would such an entity need a book in the same role? Especially a very complex book, with a legion of possibilities for different and excluding interpretations?
In my opinion everybody has the right to believe anything. That is called religious freedom. And I consider it a human right. A fact is that what people find plausible is rarely even their own aware choise. That is why I find the “believe this or suffer for an eternity” ideology shared by many, if not all religions, to be unfair. However, when individual beliefs affect other people or social norms of a particular religion are expected from outsiders, I find there is a great danger attached. Not when a non muslims visit a mosque is it wrong from the muslims to expect for them to remove their shoes. Or when non christians visit a church that the christians expect them to remove their hats. Those are more of a question of respect towards a host, than actual religious matters. But for example when an adherent of either previously mentioned religions expects that a secular state should not let homosexuals to be married in legal terms, just because that is an abomination to their god. It is a matter that does not concern their god in any way. How much is it a sin in the eyes of either god, is not relevant even if they actually exist. Sins are between the human individuals and their gods, not a question that should in any way determine morals of a society. It is within the right of religious freedom not only to believe the way you feel, but also not to believe.
Live long and prosper.
November 15, 2011 at 7:51 pm
“The coherency of the Bible, or possible existance of a metanarrative, is not such a surprice nor any great wonder. It was a long and strong tradition where those who added the later parts were quite aware of the contense of the previous parts. That is how religions and mythologies evolve. All of them. By lending authority from the ancients. Most of the contradictions in the Bible are between writers who describe the same events (and of course what we have since learned by way of science), not between generations.”
You did not read that isaiah part I pointed at? Did Jesus act out the suffering servant part. And other messianic references as well? Would have needed to be very mad indeed to go and get killed on a cross! And very good actor at that. Of course the writers of the gospels were very aware of the prophesies of the old testament. But so were the pharisees and all the other advertisaries of Jesus. They would have said something somewhere if there was any error. But I also realize that you need to believe in the inspiration of bible to see that.
“Take for example how Matt claims in his gospel that the dead were rising from their graves in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified. Why have the other gospel writers found this not important enough to mention? Does it actually mean that Jesus was not the only person who has returned from the realm of death? What happened to those “zombies”? Why is this not mentioned in any of the Roman annals?”
There are always possibilities to consider. We christians believe that the bible is divinately inspired not dictated. Writers were not robots. They described the events around Jesus for future generations and God used that as His voice.
A beliver who is a police once said that because gospels difer it ads to their beliavability. If for example four persons would describe a crime exactly the same, their testimony would be very much a suspect. Surely they have cordinated their eyewitness accounts? Same with the gospels. If they wanted to give an false account, surely they would have cordinated every little detail. I imagine that only Mathew saw or heard about the dead rising. It was not that unusual for persons who been around Jesus. They saw Him raise Lasarus. Why not some more? And it needs not be in roman annals, it is already in Matthew that is historical proof enough. We take history seriously from much more uncertain sources as fact. Why not this? Because it is a miracle!
There is also the criterion of embarassement. That means that if someone wants to portray other in a good light they certainly don’t want to put embarassing material of the person they are speaking good of. For example in the gorpel of Mark:
- Jesus next of kin tought he was mad (3:21)
- Jesus could not perform miracles in His own hometown (6:5)
- Jesus calls Peter (A head of the congregation) satan (8:33)
- Jesus denies that he is good (10:18)
- Jesus can not carry His own cross (15:21)
- Disciples (later leaders of congregation) are constantly portrayed in bad light. They are portrayed as cowards and foolish.
And so on. Why tell all these bad tings about his Master? Maybe he was just being honest?
This actualy brings us to the core issue in christianity. If Jesus rose from the grave our relgion is the real goods. If not evrything we believe is false. And if you belive resurection then the rest of the bible is true as well. Practicaly every Historian on earth would not doubt that disciples DID have some sort of experience that they interpreted to mean rescurection of Jesus. An empty grave would not have statisfied them, they would just have tought that somebody else took the body. These same men built their lives around this belief and at least Peter, Paul and Jacob were martyred. Why die for a lie? 500 Men are told to have seen recurected Jesus. 500 people can not hallusinate in the same way. Hallusinations come from our subconsious and are never the same.
And yes, creationism is foolishnes to you if you are in the science faith. No scientist in their right mind would even start to consider researching creationism because that would be the end of their carers. Scentific community is revolving around the atheist idea. Anyone saying anything that would even hint about maybe God being true will be laughed out of the room. So you see that they are not so neutral in their worldview after all. They have thus closed out one possible explanation of the creation of universe altogether have they not? Is that not against princibles of science itself? To keep an open mind?
And they ARE doing some serious thinking around creationism. Here are a few sites (again) that come with recomendation. If you go and read some of the articles do try to keep an open mind. There IS in my opinion a possibility of it all being true:
http://www.trueorigin.org/
http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers
This is where we enter faith land again. You will never believe this stuff until you make that leap of faith that God exists and lets Himself to be known in the bible.
We humans always belive in something. What ever that is. Therein should be freedom for everyone to choose whatever they want. It is just what I said in the last post. Religion and state do not mix very well. Some of my brothers and sisters in Christ are doing things they should not.
Some christians are badmouthing gays because they are playing by the wrong rules. They are living in the Constantine era that should never have happened in the first place. Now it is clearly said in the bible that homosexualism is a sin but what that has got to do with me? They have their human rights still don’t they? I have right to keep my faith and they have right to keep theirs. What happened to thou shall not judge? It is not my job or anyone elses for that matter to act as a judge of other people. Let God do that.
It is not fair my friend. God judges as he wishes and christians don’t always behave like they sould. But who said it is fair? It is a fallen world anyways.
November 16, 2011 at 12:09 am
Thanks again for the new links, I will look them up in near future and maybe even comment on them. I must say this is a thrilling conversation.
The whole Jesus dying on the cross to me seems rather unlikely event, even if everything else (not supernatural) in the Bible were somewhat honest eyewittness accounts. And we can not verify that, now can we? The fact that the writers show their humanity like when their accounts are not in line with each other, reveals no existance of a god.
Why is it so important to christian faith to believe Jesus died on the cross? Do his teachings lose meaning if he did not? The part about “love thy neighbour like thy self” and “do not judge”, to me seem just as valuable a lessons even, if he had not actually died on the cross. To me Jesus was a great philosopher, but I see no reason to actually believe he was a son of a god. But as said there is that slight chance however unlikely, just like there is the slight chance that Buddha reached Nirvana.
In the gospels they say Jesus was hung on the cross for a short part of one day and was taken down because of a storm. Now, crucifiction as a punishment and a method of execution was meant to last for days and usually the convicts were only taken down after several days. They were then cast to mass graves, but only after their kneecaps had been broken. That was to prevent them from climbing out of the grave pit, incase they had survived the treatment. Hence, some obviously did even though they were thought to be dead.
There were no doctors present when Jesus was taken down from the cross, none who could have examined him and verified he was actually dead. Of course it is possible he died as a result of the beating by the Roman soldiers, or from a heart attack or a number of reasons like the stab in his side by a spear, but it is very unlikely that he actually died as a result of the crucifiction. And just before he was taken down he did bleed. In them days blood circulation was not common knowledge. For all we know of him, he was this unemployed carpenter in his prime. So, no particular reason to believe he was exeptionally fragile. He was taken by some of his followers to a private grave. Do you honestly think that the people present at the event could have even known the difference of a dead man and a coma patient?
The Roman centurion alledgedly said that Jesus was truly a son of god, but which god did that Roman mean? There were very few Jews in the Roman army and certainly none would have been stationed in Jerusalem. Hence, he was most likely a pantheist and connected this poor man to be executed to the many stories of sons of gods around the Roman empire in those days. Maybe that is why he allowed them to take this man down from the cross before the sentence was actually carried out. (It was carried out in bureaucratic sense, but not in real life sense.) Maybe the motives of the officer supervising the executions was political prudence for the fear of the followers of this man not to start a riot. Or maybe simply of fear for divine retribution. Maybe he was bribed. And as the story tells us, his commander in chief had allready “washed his hands” of the blame of the Roman empire to the death of this non-violence agitator. We do not know how the Romans felt about the jewish priests involvement and the riot they had staged, but from the behaviour of Pilatus, they were in fact reluctant to execute Jesus. Maybe the officer was simply affraid that the storm would cause rust on his and his subordinates armour. It is a pain to polish and maintain steel armour in wet weather (I know). Maybe the Roman officer in response for this execution only did the humane thing, but for some reason the punishment was not carried out to its fullfilment. The execution was aborted. Most likely because of the storm or several reasons. Jesus was taken down and as there are several eyewitness accounts him going about after the event, in my opinion it is natural for a modern person to assume he did not die in the process, just as it was natural to the people of his time to assume he had somehow magically returned from the dead. Especially so by his very followers.
Fanatics often die for all sorts of lies. Sometimes they believe other people and sometimes they make up the lies themselves and may even believe in them. You know this.
I would argue that I am not in the “science faith”. Since one of my main points was that science is not a religion. I also claim that there exists no atheist conspiracy within scientific community set against religion. If a scientist with deep religious conviction makes unscientific claims just to boost his religion, that scientist is surely laughed out of the community, not only by atheist scietists, but also by scientists with religious convictions who also hold scientific integrity. If there are many atheists within the scientific community, it is a result of knowledge and wider understanding, not the result of science being a conspiracy of the atheists. Scientific community is not revolving around an atheist idea. If that were true, how did that happen? Perhaps, because the new discoveries opened their eyes about the superstition of religions? Or how? That was my original point also.
Whose guesses on the universe we find plausible? The (post-)modern scientific community, or the guesses made by shepherders some 3000 years ago? Even if the shepherders loaned some knowledge of the magos to make their case more to the standards of science of their day, their guesses show the obvious cultural connection and the limited amount of information in their reach. If I had to choose on whose medicines a sickness should be treated, the scientists of today or the religious leadership of some cult in the antiquity, the choise would be pretty easy.
I also argue that actually the integrity of historical research does not pass as knowledge something from more uncertain sourcess. For example Tacitus who published his work “Germania” less than a hundred years after the Jesus incident. In that book he describes with detail living conditions of different germanic and sarmatian people even as far as Lapland. From archeological data we have later been able to verify that his information was pretty much corret even on matters that he had learned only from hearsay. On the other hand he also describes cynocephalons, dog headed people and other things we would call supernatural in the same book. There is a reason we do not take the stories of dog headed men as true and historical, alltought written by this great historian. Is this a result of science revolving around an atheist idea? It is the result of such claims having no proof, evidence or other veracity. The same goes for miracles and such. The fact that for thousands of year people believed there are dog headed people somewhere beyond Sarmatia does not make them true. And for all I care, people are quite wellcome to believe in dog headed people in Siberia today, as long as they do not endorce some political decisions should be made based on their belief.
It would seem we agree, that to believe in any religion needs a leap of faith. That was just my original point. That people do make the wildest leaps of faith in what are ultimately just guesses. If a man claims and even believes that he is divinely inspired, when he starts to write something down, how can we verify on that? Who has the authority, let alone methods, to claim otherwise? Anyone who is not convinced, actually. You, me – anyone. The burden of proof is on the man making the claim, but such a claim can not be verified, can it? No matter how many people actually believe him, there is no certainty of his claims being any more valid than a nother person claiming the same, but being inspired by a nother god. In fact, it is the ethical responsibility of the alledged gods to present themselves to support the man making the honest claim. But that never happens. It is just hearsay that some god may have done so, thousands of years ago. It is because the said god is invisible and can not do anything about that. But still gods allmost allways demand loyalty, faith, love, fear and even money or some other form of tribute, though there are only the claims of some poor fellows, who heard voices in their heads.
It is stunning how many people actually believe they have a radio transmitter set in their tooths, by some secret government agencies. No matter how coherent these claims are in comparrison to each other we do not take them as plausible. The fact that there are several such claims does nothing to verify them. It only tells of the culture where these people have lived. Where did they all pick it up? A miracle maybe? Or maybe they are suffering from similar delusions and have heard the same urban legend. Hey, this could be a good subject for a nother post…
With power comes responsibility, that is the ultimate ethical conclusion. With absolute power also the responsibility is absolute. If a god is claimed to be “benevolent”, that is the same as claiming said god has a tendency towards “fair play”. Lack of obvious fairness on the part of a god makes the claims of the benevolent nature of this god subject of suspicion and at the same time put everything else said about the particular entity in a very bad light.
I refuse to give up of the world, and claim it has not fallen yet. We are still standing. As long as we strive for good, just and better world. You and I my friend. Together, though from a bit different starting points.
May the force be with you, if there is such a thing.
November 16, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Fact remains that Jesus dying on the cross and has been rescurected is central theme to the christian ethos. If Jesus did not arise there is absolutely no point in the whole business.
Thus volumes of books have been written on the subject. And one thing is sure. So much has been lost in the history that giving 100% sure guarantees eather way is just impossible. Our understanding about the events surounding the death of Jesus are mainly centered around accounts of the gospels, few remaining outside sources and arceological evedence.
In book by Gerhard Thissen and Annette Meiz called “Der historische Jesu” they put forward a number of claims and go trough them. They say that it cannot be scientificaly proven that empty grave was there. Altough they cautiously say that historicy of the incedent is better alternative. This is where most of the community stand. Most say that it was probably an historical event.
Some addidional pointers to your comments:
- It is probable that Jesus was not in prime shape due the fact that he was too weak to carry His own cross.
- Usually people died on the cross within three days but this time it was not he case. Torture by the roman soldiers is not nice. Whips they used could penetrate flesh (outch!). So death was probably quicker this time
- A seasoned roman officer propably knows a dead person when he sees one
- Jesus’s opponents propably wanted to make damn sure he did NOT live
- Bribed? I’m not sure of this. But wasn’t that a capital offence in the roman army?
- Bible is clear that His bones were not broken because He was allready dead
- Fact that it is told that women first saw Him rescurected ads to the believability. Women were not very highly tought of in that culture (especialy THAT kind of woman) So why make up a story where they, not for example Peter see him first?
But like I said. If no new arceolocial material comes forward matter stays unresolved.
Conspiracy is too strong a word (alough you never now about those free masons
) it is more a paradigm. The very nature of God’s existence is not scientific. It is not explainable by man. Thus you just have to find an alternative way of explaining universe whitout God. Thus evolution. Thus a bias. And that is why I also call it science faith. A man always puts his faith on to something. Wether it is science or God. Both are belief systems.
Like you said main proof of chritianity cannot be scientificaly explained either way and thus beyond depate(I still maintain that christianity cannot be proven FALSE scientificaly either). Depate just starts to go on an endless circle of proof vs counterproof. It is Holy Spirit that convinces people or not.
A good friend of mine was an substance abuser and an violent offender. Now he has found peace like no other, has a family and was cured of his hepatits C (verified by doctors). And I see stories like this all the time. People are set free. That surely is not a bad thing?
You just know when its right. I can say nothing else. God can, and does give peace like no other. Better than anything this world has to offer. This is my personal experience and there are no scientific mesurements to that
God is a benevolent God but demands obedience. He sets the limits of what is permitted and what is not. Human ideas of fairnes are always relative God’s is absolute. And has been lost in this postmodern world. Fact that this world is fallen is central to the christian ethos (Original sin of man) and in that evedence is on my ballpark. It does not look like improving anytime soon
November 16, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Some of the facts(that study I mentioned) come from this book:
http://kauppa.tietosanoma.fi/9789518844498
A good read if you want to know more about the discussions around Jesus’ death.
November 16, 2011 at 4:10 pm
It is easy for me to agree with you on the unresolved nature about the veracity of a single event so long ago as what truly happened to Jesus. You are also right in that people find some things more plausible than others. Sometimes it is a religious dogma, sometimes a spiritual essence of things and sometimes it is the scientific world view. Most people have a combination of these.
I doubt that the theory of evolution is a result of atheist paradigma. Charles Darwin himself remained a christian through his life, and actually could not understand when his friend and a colleague warned him about the implications his theory would give a rise to. It is true that he borrowed some of the ideas of mechanisms from previous sosiological research that has also affected atheistic views, but the connection is only logical, not designed. There is visible evolution all around us. Human societes evolve, like human being evolves through all his/her life.
Today most major christian sects like the Anglican, Lutheran and even both Orthodox and Roman catholic churches have accepted the idea of evolution, and claim it does not hurt their faith because the description of Genesis in the Bible is only a metaphor for how nature evolves and has grown. That it does not matter there are no Neanderthal humans in the Bible, because the simple explanation to that is they are not relevant to the story of salvation. Maybe so. But why did god set the Earth first and the sun only after, when that does not make any sense (exept to a bronze age sheephereder it might) even as a metaphor.
It is interresting that when Leonardo da Vinci found fossils of seashells in the mountains, he did not consider them to be something left there during the great flood, but correctly that the mountains were once part of seabed and have only later risen to the hights they now stand. This even so the Bible was considered to be the ultimate authority during his time and taken as face value.
I am happy for you that the faith gives you meaning and fullfillment in your life and I am happy for your close friend to have been cured from such terrible state as you described. This could have of course happened without any supernatural involvement.
Never the less, I do fear the ultimate authority a religion gives men to judge each other. History is full of terrible deeds done in the name of this or that god and I can not help, the thought, that in my perspective those gods, if real, were partly responsible.
Put it a nother way, if Superman saw Lex Luthor trying to put a bomb on a railroad in front of a train, was it not his responsibility to stop Lex from doing that? What if, Lex was trying to blame Superman for the atrocity, why would Superman not interfere?
If Allah is real and benevolent, why did he not stop the 9/11 attackers? If Jahve is real and benevolent, why did he not stop the crusaders from murdering the entire population of Jerusalem, even the christians, and from cannibalism? The sorry thing about this is that the crusaders and the jihadists think themselves as good believers. They truly believed in doing what their god wants.
If religions were just human deviced ideologies, the only responsible people directly for the atrocities done in their name would be the actual human individuals taking part in the actual deeds and partly the individuals who did not do what was in their power to stop these. But if any gods are real, they share the responsibility. There is no evidence for the benevolence of a allpowerfull being. On the contrary there is plenty of evidence for the random evolution of life in the natural universe.
Most events in the world around us are completely random, but for some reason some people are not willing to accept it. They want to see some grand plan behind everything, when there is none to be seen. I suppose the thought gives one security regardless, if they draw it from the idea of some god designing, planning, and organizing behind every event, or just the stars having some effect on our fate like with the horoscopes. But when a serious accident happens, it does not look like an angel was watching over the shoulder of the poor bugger who got it, wether that fellow was a follower of this, or that sect of some religion.
It is of course possible that a religion may function as a help to be cured, because of the suggestive elements in it. That would surely explain why so many contradicting religions, and contradicting sects within them, have these almost miraculous healing events. Of course some religions seem to give more value to these wondrous health issues while others concentrate on other forms of the supernatural. But for example the many different originally African religions in the Caribean have very much of these wondrous healing events. Does it prove their understanding of the spirit world is actually true, or that it is typical to that culture to believe any event of sickness either giving up or getting worse is the result of spirits? Maybe spirits is only a byword for bacteria and such in a culture that does not know about the existance of micro-organisms.
The Roman officer we talked about may very well have been able to know dead from coma patients, or just as well not. There is no record of his experience or even seniority. That is practically all the same as from the view of military skill a man who does not stand on his own feet is practically dead. For some reason he aborted the execution. The custom was to let crucified men hang for several days and they were in no habit of taking anyone down because they thought the victim was allready dead.
It was common knowledge that crucifiction was lethal, but most of the followers of Jesus had propably never even seen one. Most of them did not see even thisone according to the gospels. Only few had come to see it. Jerusalem was the place where the Roman garrison carried out such executions and most of the followers were from elswhere.
The shame put on Jesus was propably enough for his political adversaries. I would suppose they thought that the fact he was crucified proved him as not the messiah. The Jews seem to think so even today. It might even be, that his enemies thought him being alive after the humiliation, would only increase the shame and public opinion of not seeing him as the son of a god. They were partly wrong, but not alive any more when this minor end-of-the-world cult rose to power in the Roman empire. The apostoles did go to exile themselves. Not the dead rising from their graves, like Mattheus wrote, or the breaking of the temple cloth did much to convince the inhabitants of Jerusalem of the divinity of Jesus. Why not? Did these extraordinary things even happen?
If your neighbour would come to you and claimed his house was hounted, would you think that this is an eye wittness account to factual events? Or would you be inclined to think that more likely there has happened something natural, that your neighbour has only interpreted as ghosts?
Yes, I do still agree with you, that this conversation will not prove the existance of gods, nor dispell them out of existance, if they are there, but to me it is fascinating to learn why you believe in the authority that gives you faith, and also to learn about myself why do I find plausible the evidence the authorities I am inclined to accept have presented. Most of these arguments presented here by me are my own. I am not a big follower of truths printed in books. Rather I like to figure out things myself, as “that is the one freedom anyone really has.” And I believe you have a bit of that in you too?
As you have so graciously presented some interresting links, so will I. Here is something for you to consider while I look up the links you provided previously:
http://500questions.wordpress.com/
The fellow who keeps this blog about the 500 questions is totally different from me, in that he used to be a fundie christian, but alltough he still lives in a society that is very religious, he has come to doubt the absolutism a particular religion presents. And he does it in a light hearted, and humorous way. He does not attack anyone, but simply asks innocent questions. Very goodones I have come to find.
November 17, 2011 at 6:20 am
What we have here has been a very entertaining conversation indeed. Who needs TV anyways? But I (and you as well) do notice that this conversation has evolved in to a point where we go:
1. You give a point
2. I counter that point with your Standard Christian Answer (™)
Now that could go on for ever and neather one of us would be any wiser for it
I do have SCA (Standard Christian Answer) to these later questions but I feel likeI allready answered them once. We speak diffrent language and comprehension of the other is minimal to say the least. I guess it is just impossible to comprehend someone from a totally diffrent culture. Other is speaking apples other oranges. Just Does Not Work.
I have said and still say that faith is not in the intellect. It is an supernatural revelation. What makes my revelation any diffrent from say muslim or mormon revelation? Just feels right. That’s just the way it is. Sorry. This is something that only God can reveal to those that come to Him in faith. I know that sounds awfully arrogant and exclusive but that’s how the system is rigged. You need to put your brain to the side for a second because this is a matter for the heart. This is all I can say about it unfortunately.
This does not mean you have to stop thinking about things. That is why I enjoyed the 500 question guy. A busy man he must be to write all that stuff. Feel sorry for him to loose his faith like that.
Sorry again if someone from christian community has offended you. Also sorry for christianity being used as a tool for politics and power. We should be better than that. God forgive us. Christianity is not just another ism. It is a diffrent kingdom than the kingdoms of this world. Give to ceasar what belongs to him and give God what belongs to Him.
Love to all
November 18, 2011 at 1:39 am
Hahaha! I have not watched TV for 6 years. Well, I do look at documentaries from my computer, but I have no television reciever set.
I am sorry if you feel that our conversation is not going anywhere. I just thought I was getting on a brink of something. Of course as it often happens the light at the opposite end of the tunnel might just as well be a railway train closing in – fast. You never know.;) It is true that I also find very difficult to have a conversation with the SCA (and I am not referring to the Society for Creative Anachronism here). That is of course partly because of the different cultural aspect, but I am a firm “believer” in the discourse between cultures (that is to say I really hope it is possible even under hard conditions). The SCA seems like I am not talkin to you, but to an answer automaton, that answers questions I never even posed, but you suppose I am asking because possibly some other bugger asked from someone else something similar. That leaves me in a state where you have answered my rethorical questions, but not my actual questions. I am perfectly happy imagining you asking the important questions from yourself and leaving them unanswered because the SCA did not have a very good reply. I do not need answers to my every question. I think I allready know them, but I ask you, so you wuold ask them from yourself, and not the SCA.
Now I would like to remind you that unless you converse directly with the all mighty (and he actually responds), it is not actually a god you believe, but some human being, or several of them, who has told you a compelling enough story about such an entity. I on the other hand believe in some other human being, or beings, who have told me equally compelling story, that does not involve any gods as anything other than figments of peoples imaginations. We have chosen the authority whose guesses (for how ever certain they are about their truth they may be, that is what these ultimately are), were on some level compelling enough to us, that we found them plausible. And as my actual point, for some reason we found those people to have a very good chance of guessin correctly.
However, there is no absolute knowledge. It is only our own personal experiences and what we take as plausible from other peoples claims of their experiences, that set the limits of our beliefs. Even our own personal experiences might give us the wrong information. We might start hearing voices that were the result of our own psyche going haywire, and interprete them as spirits or even gods. We could missinterprete our own experiences on account of having limited information to the subject. If we had never even heard of the concept of psyche, or subconscious, it would be really easy to jump to the conclusion that the voices we hear are spirits. Now, psyche and subconscious are evidently existing phenomenons, but of spirits there are no evidence we could verify on. So, when guessing wether the backround noise is eminating from the supernatural, or from our own cranium, the logical choise would be the latter, though it does not absolutely mean it could not be spirits.
I do hope you agree with me that if a person claims to have a direct communication line with the supernatural the chances are, he/she should have a serious conversation with a shrink. Otherwise you would be accepting that all the Indian gurus and people with those radiotransmitters in their teeth are actually having conversations with gods, spirits, alien cultures, or secret government agencies.
But in the end, if someone who believed that a god wanted something particular written down could compell you to believe that is so, that person only believed some other person who thought that god wanted it to be written down. For some reason said god did not write it down himself (maybe that god is illiterate, or was simply too busy)it is impossible for us to know why.
I bet it feels just as right for the muslim or the mormon. A lot of things feels right, but the feelings are not always what tells us what is the objective truth. We often go for the feelings in our choises. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that. But how can something both feel right and be against logic and wits. If you have to shut down your intelligence to get this feeling of right, I think you should go through some hard intelligence work, before you let loose again. My emotional and reasonal alarm would goe of, if I would have to accept something as serious as this, by the gutfeeling. I am no jedi, so I do not trust my instincts so much I could ever go of what little intelligence I have.
I find the “rigging” you refer to terribly suspicious. At the same time we have these numerous gods and religious sects all claiming that the salvation from eternal pain is only through them, and that the only thing one needs to do is join them and pay respect to some rules (and of course pay some money, or give other tribute, just to spread the happy message), but the trick is that one needs to give up on intelligent deduction and even so it is only a divine revelation that comes from the said god. Why does this god not simply give the revelation to everybody? It smells like it is not a benevolent god, but a trickster that is out there to fool us. And many people sincerily believe they have found the right way to salvation, but at the same time so many others have the exactly same feeling they have found it from a completely different system of faith. How are people to know who has chosen correctly? As I said, it is not by far fair, nor is it in any measure benevolent, from the alledged creator of the universe, one would expect holds enough power to chance such a bs “rigging”. Do you find it fair?
Here is an important question: Why should a Chinese father who has never heard of christianity, but loves his family and does everything in his power for his loved ones and neighbours suffer for an eternity? I allready can guess the SCA answer that everybody has sinned, but that does not make any sense. What kind of morals has a person who can sincierly claim this kind of “rigging” of the “game” seems like “benevolent”? Of course there is the possibility, that what ever god there might be, is actually a dictator type of psychopat to whom humans are like ants. The interrest said god shows to humans is as much as a catepillar driver who arbitrarily decides to save few ants by not destroying the entire hive, while building a road, but I do doubt if that sort of god could be very interrested in how much an individual ant worships it. It might also be that there is a god that demands worship to satisfy some personal need for ego boosting, but that seems rather petty from the alledged creator of the universe. Does it not?
I have now aquinted myself superficially to the latest links you posted, and what can I say. The paranoia is paramount on those pages. They even claim that the massacres conducted by Stalin and Hitler were the results of the theory of evolution. That is so childish I can only ask, why did the christian world leaders cause massacres before and after Darwin? Pope Urban II lived long before the theory of evolution and sent far greater persentage of European and Near East population of his time to death than the mentioned dictators. George Bush the younger started a war that lead to the deaths of thousands and thousands of people and he was a firm believer in the ID. The difference between him and the dictators mentioned was that he did not hold as much power as they did, hence the damage was less, but he was just as eager to compromise human dignity by torture, as the WWII dictators.
I am going to assume, that it was not a joke on your part and that you at least partly take these pages as valid sources of information. However, what is evident on those pages is that the info they offer is not the work of any sort of scientific research. They are a feeble attempt to counter the results of the scientific research, that they try to form into this common sense language. I can see why someone might find them compelling, but they are full of silly assumptions and mistakes.
They even recognize the fact that they are set up with the assumption of the Bible being absolutely true. This is not how anybody ever got any closer to the objective truth. That is why science does not work like that anymore. Science, wether it is done by a christian, muslim, jew, hindu or even an atheist, works only from evidence, never from a presupposed assumption. That is how perfectly godfearing scientists throughout history have found out about the marvels of nature that contradict the Bible. For some it has been a revealing turnpoint in their lives and faith, but not even nearly most of them. People do retain some security in their lives by holding on to what was true and important them in their childhood, and rarely give up on it even though one piece of it would be revealed as total fable.
The pages you linked to are not even trying to form conversation between them and the scientist whose research they are trying to pervert. They are obviously meant for people who want the Bible to be true, and not only metaphorically so, but absolutely. To accept these pages as plausible source of info, is the same as choosing between the scientific work of generations and one book written by men who claimed to have been inspired by a god. They are set against the theory of evolution, but at the same time they also claim our understanding of geology, astronomy, chemistry, medicin, psychology, sociology and history to be completely wrong. They also give the false impression like there were legions of researchers who share the absurd claims made on the pages, while none comes to light. If there was such a great opposition, they should be able to form a community like those scientists who have had doubts of the global warming, or those doctors who claimed tobacco does not cause cancer.
In my field of expertise of archaeology, those pages frequently attack against claims not ever posed in the scientific community. They are very happy to find evidence of the great flood from the Gilgamesh epic as a story, but completely to fail to make notice that no archaeologist, wether christian or not, has never found any actual evidence of the flood itself. The fact that the Gilgamesh epic tells the flood story might be evidence that there was in fact a flood in the region where both the epic and the Bible come from, but that would be absolutely natural. The fact that the same story appears in two folk epics in the same region is as much of an evidence of such, as there being trolls in Scandinavia, because such things are commonly found in folk tales in their region of origin. For sure a flood could never be such that one would land an “ark” at the Ararat mountain. There is simply not enough water in the world and there are none what so ever traces of such a flood.
Most christians do not find the theory of evolution any sort of threat to their faith. Why wuold you?
November 18, 2011 at 4:43 pm
I don’t watch StupidTube too. So finaly some common ground to work on! Other than that there is not much meeting of opinions. Whahtever I say you are not accepting so It is a pointless argument. An endless circle logic. I have limited amount of time in my day to spend on arguments that are not going anywhere. In some discussions you just have to accept the fact that there can not be dialogue due severe diffrences in opinion. There can be only toleration of others ideas. Some finnish creation sites:
http://www.kreationismi.fi/
http://www.kreationismi.fi/?p=1&id=46
http://www.kp-art.fi/taustaa/
And of course I don’t endorse absolutely everything what those sites say. I merely point you in the right direction and then you have to do what you would do to any site or study. You take what is applicable and leave the rest.
And there IS a sientific community around creationism. But of course that can’t be real science? Right? About 1.5 seconds in google:
http://www.icr.org/
http://www.csfpittsburgh.org/about.php
Now as a homework for you. Find out SCA for great flood. You don’t have to tell me. I allready know many of them. I did my own research years ago and found no compelling evedence for evolution. Not that there is a possibility of it being true. It is just that there is no 100% certain evendence to support eather claim. Thus it leaves plenty room to have faith in eather one. I choose creationism.
What you have is a problem believing in miracles. That is what it comes down to. I bet it is not a scientific argument that 2.1 billion people (growing) adhere to christianity? Surely they all must be hallusinating or worse? That includes a lot of awfully smart people. But still they choose to believe in miracles. I bet at least some of them even in creationism
Sometimes you just have to ditch eveything you know and start from a clean slate.
November 18, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Once again thank you for the links and a nother promise to look into them. Oh, and you do not need to be sorry for what anyone else has done. No creationist has ever been nasty to me, as far as I know, and I have never had enough interrest (nor time) as to inquire the faith of anyone who has really done any actual harm to me. So, my quarrel here is purely between the issues, not people.
I have many friends with totally different opinions and world views to mine, and we sometimes end up in arguments, but what is that between friends?
I am relieved to hear you do not take everything from those creationist pages as given. Actually, I did not even think so, though they got me a bit startled at first. Maybe it is because they were meant for the Anglo-American culture, or maybe it is just my limited comprahension, but to me they certainly looked like pure propaganda.
I do understand that you are busy and hope you agree with me that this is not about winning an argument, but more like an exchange of different opinions and views. I thank you for the time you have invested in this conversation, because it has been meaningfull to me, in understanding a bit about you and a bit about myself. I appreciate the thought that you try to respect my opinions and I do try to respect yours in return. We agree that they differ, that is quite sufficient. As far as I know neither of us would intentionally do anything to harm others, exept for self defence, or to defend an innocent party. Call me naive, but in my book that makes us the good guys.
Yes, I would agree that I do have a problem in believing in miracles. That being a wider sematic question about what do we mean by the word, and how do people in general come to the conclusions that particular extraordinary events might be the result of some supernatural powers at work. I am one of those people who would first look at some natural explanation. It is strange how easy it is to find one, if you actually are not hoping for a supernatural explanation. Like with the example I gave you about the hounted house and the likelyhood of Jesus even dying on the cross.
My original topic was about how we choose our values, in situations like you have, when you started “from the clean slate”. How do we come to choose whose evaluations, of the universe around us, we find plausible. I doubt, if we have come closer to that, but at least we both got to express our own points of view. I really hope we can both think that it was in a mutually respectfull manner, though we both got a bit playfull at times. In a manner, I do think, I have come to understand, how a person might come to the conclusions you have, though I doubt, I could never walk the same path.
I want to remain your friend, even though I will be suffering for an eternity, as a result of my inquisitive and skeptical mind. Well, at least I will be there for my relatives and loved ones, who also end up in that department with millions and millions of your average Chinese people. I doubt, that even if I repented and would end up in Heaven, my eternity there would feel like hell with the knowledge that most of the people I really care for, are in the fiery department being tortured and suffering in agony for ever and ever. Sorry, funnying again about a serious matter.
In my opinion there actually is such a thing as “science faith”, but It is a subject of a nother topic and in time I will be writing a separate post about it. I hope you will join me on it in the comments, or at least read it and laugh.
November 19, 2011 at 7:59 am
No way any offense taken. And hope that applies to you as well.
Unfortunately it is my experience that often times it has been someone from the christian community that has offended a person when there is very much alienation from christian ideas. Glad to hear that’s not the case with you.
You are totally right that this conversation has paid of if it has led to heightened understanding of the other and maybe increased toleration. At least some good ol’ conversation. But I guess this is just too big an issue to ever reach any consensus. And glad that you god a nice topic for another post. I shall read it with interest.
Peace