Right Kevin, this thread was directed towards Stahrwe and his literal interpretations.

If you know anything of the history of science you know that some of the most heated exhanges take place between scientist who disagree about theories. The image of a Spocklike researcher in a lab coat dispassionately and logically making a case for his or her theory is a myth. WHy does it have to be that way with our discussions either?

Robert Tulip wrote:

stahrwe wrote:

johnson1010 wrote:There is no legitimate argument that i have seen in support of belief in supernatural phenomena.

In that sense, the matter really is settled. The problem being that so many are willing and somehow able to convince themselves to be wrong. The source of all this is the inability to conceive that we are not the center of the world. That we are not the most important thing to ever exist. That we are not THE REASON for existence.

It is childish and silly. Blaming the universe because it does not conform to our imagination is beyond pointless. Even the most eloquent theologians i have read or heard come to the root... they just really wish it were true,and so are willing to perform mental gymnastics to remain in their misty world of magic and gods.

The problem is that the proof doesn't look like proof to you. Look at Romans 1:16, and the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. Only something supernatural could have brought Jews and Greeks together at that time in history and in the intimacy that was the early church. Don't believe me? Read up on Antiochus IV Ephiphanes and what he did to Jerusalem and the Temple. There's your proof.

The 'proof' is not proof. Romans and Acts make much more sense if read as fiction than as fact. The writers of the New Testament fervently wanted to provide a story that could be believable to a mass audience. The Book of Acts is part of this myth-making, containing highly implausible accounts. A good source on these questions is Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus by Earl Doherty

If the writers of the New Testament were trying to appeal to a broad audience they would not have included the Jerusalem Council or any mentionof Jews and Greeks being together. You are functioning from a total lack of understanding not only of the Bible but also of the historical and cultural facts of the period. The Jews had just been trough a terrible time that started with the Hellenization of their culture eventually lead to the desecration of the Temple by the Greeks and the eventual revolt of the Maccabees to drive the Greeks out. The last thing the Jews would have been up for was more time with Greeks

robert tulip wrote:Regarding day 4, the original simple point, which Stahrwe has spammed the board to deny, is that the seven day creation theory is laughable as an actual account, and even contains an internal contradiction in its claim that the sun was created three days after light. Effort to avoid this main point is based on a set of false creationist premises, aimed more at patching a tottering worldview than actual dialogue or learning.

I guess I don't know what the definition of the word spam is. Perhaps is means that when I answer a challenge question it is spam but the challenge question is not. I wish to state categorically that you continue to misrepresent my position. I do NOT repeat NOT say, nor have I ever said that the sun was create three days after light. It is totally beyond my understanding as to why you continue to misstate my position. I have been as consistent and clear as I can possibly be. I will respect anyone who disagrees with me but not someone who continually presents my position inaccurately.

Despite these problems, I don't agree that the matter is settled. We still have the problem of what communities will come to believe after Christianity. There is much within the Bible that remains valid. The secular claim that the Bible is irrelevant and obsolete is wrong. A revised scientific Christian faith is likely to emerge as an alternative to the traditional fantasy.

Robert Tulip wrote:I am now reading The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock. He presents a compelling argument that it may be historically true that the Ark of the Covenant was taken to Ethiopia soon after the reign of Solomon. Hancock's method in exploring this outlandish claim is impeccably scientific. He goes to original source documents and locations and researches in depth in epics such as Parzifal and locations such as Chartres Cathedral to try to find out answers to his questions. This forensic style uses the best available tools of historical research. Hancock finds that the Knights Templar, who controlled the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for a century in the middle ages, provide an apparent link to this cyptic story of the presence of the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia. It shows that generally accepted ideas are often ill-informed, and that new research can deliver startling findings, if we apply sceptical and logical methods.

Be careful, someone might think you believe the ark really existed.

robert tulip wrote:One of Hancock's important points is that Wolfram, the author of Parzifal apparently laid down clues about Ethiopia and the Biblical Ark of the Covenant in his text, with the intention of concealing them in a popular narrative and transmitting them in code to future generations.

It seems to me that the authors of the Bible did the same thing. They above all wanted to write a book that would be plausible to a mass audience, but could see that their main messages, of continuity with ancient mythology, were not amenable to the temper of the times and had to be concealed in a book that would preserve them until more enlightened days.

An example I gave in discussing The Jesus Mysteries by Freke and Gandy was the fish story in John 21, where Jesus tells them where to cast and they catch 153 fish. 153 is a quasi-magical number, used by Archimedes to make the Christian fish, which has a length to width ratio of root three, very close to 265/153. No ratios using smaller numbers are closer to the actual dimension. Similar analysis shows a cosmic ground for the holy city of Revelation in the physics of the Great Year.

Thought of this style is anathema to fundamentalist literal accounts of the Bible. Yet, once we start to read the text against a mythic cosmic framework, it all begins to fall into place. The mathematical symbolic language of groups such as the Pythagoreans informed the Biblical authors, but the hostility to such language was so intense that the authors elected to obscure their real meaning by code. So, it is far from settled that the epistemic status of the Bible is resolved. Yes, inerrancy is wrong, but that is just the start of an interpretative analysis.

Perhaps we could actually read the text of the Bible book by book and you could try to show how it fits against a mythic cosmic framework. I would be up for that but I suspect you, and the other will not be.

If you know anything of the history of science you know that some of the most heated exhanges take place between scientist who disagree about theories.

What is your point? I'm sure scientists get very heated over some subtheories of comparative anatomy theory, which is itself a subset of descent with modification theory, which is one of the two theories of evolution. If you claim that such a heated discussion is evidence against that subtheory, I'd need to point out to you that that is a fallacy.

Despite these problems, I don't agree that the matter is settled. We still have the problem of what communities will come to believe after Christianity.

"The Matter" meaning the veracity, not utility. There is some utility of course. Take for example the mysterious effect of AA and their "steps", which includes an appeal to a higher power. There is also utility in the charity of churches, as you mention often. But utility is separate from veracity.

Interbane wrote:

If you know anything of the history of science you know that some of the most heated exhanges take place between scientist who disagree about theories.

What is your point? I'm sure scientists get very heated over some subtheories of comparative anatomy theory, which is itself a subset of descent with modification theory, which is one of the two theories of evolution. If you claim that such a heated discussion is evidence against that subtheory, I'd need to point out to you that that is a fallacy.

My point had nothing to do with any theory it was intended as a query as to why we can't have discussions of the Bible book by book. Who cares if I say it's real and you disagree and Robert Tulip comes up with some Astrotheological tie in? Isn't that what makes life interesting?