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Re: Evolution challenges Christian dogma

Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 11:30 pm
by ant
LanDroid wrote:No it's not a stretch. The Bible clearly states sometimes it is indeed God's will. They are not one time miracles, these things happen routinely throughout that document. To this day hurricanes and tornadoes are attributed to God's Holy Wrath against Gay Pride Parades. I don't know exactly how it is determined which natural events are actually supernatural and which are not. Presumably those involving the destruction of homos are supernatural and those (like the following, too close to home) involving lightning bolts that destroy Jesus sculptures or Christian churches are not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGTBFPte-MY
You are speaking of literalists inane interpretations of scripture, and I disagree with your assertion that the verses you referenced explain natural phenomena. It's not even close to an attempt to explain natural regularity. It's a testament to the wrath of a God and his ability to manipulate nature through a "prophet." :roll:

It's unbelievable how you see that scripture as a statement of "this is the reason it rains every winter. this is the reason some bugs can fly. this is the reason it gets windy sometimes."

Re: Evolution challenges Christian dogma

Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 7:12 am
by geo
ant wrote:
LanDroid wrote:No it's not a stretch. The Bible clearly states sometimes it is indeed God's will. They are not one time miracles, these things happen routinely throughout that document. To this day hurricanes and tornadoes are attributed to God's Holy Wrath against Gay Pride Parades. I don't know exactly how it is determined which natural events are actually supernatural and which are not. Presumably those involving the destruction of homos are supernatural and those (like the following, too close to home) involving lightning bolts that destroy Jesus sculptures or Christian churches are not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGTBFPte-MY
You are speaking of literalists inane interpretations of scripture, and I disagree with your assertion that the verses you referenced explain natural phenomena. It's not even close to an attempt to explain natural regularity. It's a testament to the wrath of a God and his ability to manipulate nature through a "prophet." :roll:

It's unbelievable how you see that scripture as a statement of "this is the reason it rains every winter. this is the reason some bugs can fly. this is the reason it gets windy sometimes."
I'm sure you're going somewhere with this, Ant. Maybe some day . . .

The Bible itself is a historical document, an artifact of ancient myths and beliefs. It certainly contains many beautiful and even wise passages (along with a whole lot of other stuff that's so irrelevant even religious people ignore it). The passages LanDroid quotes are excellent illustrations of of primitive beliefs: that God controls the weather, causes floods and earthquakes to punish, the earth is fix'd, etc. And, yet many people still view the Bible as a religious document, the holy word of God, to the point that Billy Graham invokes the Bible to "protect" marriage in North Carolina and many people buy into that. It's that stupidity that we rail against, not the Bible as a historical document.

Re: Evolution challenges Christian dogma

Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 7:34 am
by Robert Tulip
Interbane wrote:About the bible explaining things... It's obvious it's a man-made book, whose tales do not sync with reality.
My view is that the Bible has an underlying accurate core of ideas that does sync with reality. I've discussed this before regarding precession of the equinox as a cosmology that provides an original framework for the Biblical myth.

Precession is the star clock for the earth, and was known as such by Biblical authors. Main Bible stories are allegories for the reality of the cosmos, seen through the lens of precession. The story of Jesus matches up to evolution by presenting a vision of how humanity can evolve culturally towards ideals such as love, truth, peace and justice.

The trouble is that to see how the Bible syncs with reality you have to completely junk most conventional theology and start from scratch with an atheist scientific perspective. The idea of the supernatural is totally opposed to evolution and is dangerous and stupid, causing people to hold beliefs that could cause human extinction. God won't save us.

Very few people have any interest or aptitude for a scientific reading of the Bible. Believers accept unscientific junk, and scientists are so offended by the junk that they cannot imagine there is any truth behind it. This is why there is so little space for exploration of how the Bible might have an accurate core.

Conventional faith is a bit like if biologists only focussed on the useless junk DNA, and ignored the coding DNA, the part that actually does anything. The 'coding DNA' for the Bible is the allegory for precession as an accurate long term explanation of time.