Religion

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ May 8 2006, 07:11 AM) [snapback]251422[/snapback]</div>

Galaxee your sounding a little jaded. Instead of a personal attack how about refuting the evidence with some "scientific" evidence?

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(windstrings @ May 7 2006, 09:02 PM) [snapback]251297[/snapback]</div>

Oh my ... let's see if I can 'explain some of this (I'm not an expert, but I did try to "study to show myself approved" on Bible translations).

First, the NIV is intended to simplify the language quite a bit, and I agree that it sometimes glosses over what are really very active debates among theologians. That's good for folks who want to read an overview of the text without the artificial verse numbers and chapters that are in most of the Bible translations.

King James commissioned the original KJV in 1611 or something, if I remember correctly, and I doubt seriously you could actually read that version very easily, as the typographers used "v" for both "v"and "u", and sometimes "u" for "v". The version you are reading is NOT the original. Here's an excerpt:

To someone intent on the inerrancy of the KJV Bible "above all others", this kind of re-writing of the original 1611 text has to be a concern. Not only have the inspired and inerrent "u" and "v" been transposed in the name of "modernity", the current text leaves out the double vertical lines AND even leaves out an inerrant comma, for heaven's sake.

I encourage all "KJV above all others" to get thee to a bookstore and obtain a KJV with the original language (or order one online at http://www.allbibles.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=1565631609, where you can open a PDF and see more shocking results of modern re-writing of this inerrent text!)

I'm poking fun a bit at you guys, because the vast majority of Biblical scholars hold to what some of you have already said: the Bible is God's word, and true, and inerrent, inasmuch as it is translated properly from the original. Since we don't have any originals, there is an entire field of Biblical archeology devoted to finding artifacts, including ancient texts, and either verifying or "falsifying" the differing versions we have found so far. This process is on-going, and we should use the closest text to the original that we can find (and usually that is the oldest text we can find).

Now, this "Biblical archeology" talk probably scares everyone here, because it is a field of science operating within the Christian community, and is active, and well, and well respected. Darn!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ May 9 2006, 12:59 AM) [snapback]251989[/snapback]</div>

If you go back to Chapter 1 you will see the repeated "then" that I am talking about which is absent in the beginning of verse 19 of chapter 2. If there is a "then" at the beginning of verse 19 I can see what you are saying. But, there is no "then" at the beginning of verse 19. I do not believe that the story has changed as you are trying to claim that it has.
If you read Chapter 2 verse 18 and skip to verse 20b to the end of the chapter it makes perfect sense what it is saying which is 18"And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.†20b But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
23 And Adam said:
“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.â€
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

The emphases is on God making Adam a helper comparable to him which is clearly Eve his wife and "not" the beasts of the field or the birds of the air.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ May 9 2006, 01:10 AM) [snapback]251995[/snapback]</div>

if you provided real and CURRENT evidence, i would gladly. at this time you have provided nothing real to refute in this thread. you may recall i have refuted the majority of your "evidence" in other threads, i think i have demonstrated my ability to knock your arguments down. why should i continue hiking over to the library stacks when i know you haven't even read the article yourself?

i am in this debate in the first place because the way creationists use science in all the wrong ways makes me sick. it is clear that none of you understand science, the scientific method, the development of fields of knowledge, or the fact that the pace we move along is much faster than one new discovery every 30 years. you also don't understand the development of methods, refinement of calibration and the increases in measurement accuracy and sensitivity that are a natural byproduct of growth of technology. this is why our argument will never end- we are on different pages. i spend my days collecting data and discussing it with my peers to interpret what it means and how to proceed. you spend your days... not doing science. who do you think is going to have a clearer understanding of what is going on? and i mean in the current literature...

it was not a personal attack- it was an expression of frustration at the group of people like you who can only provide really old scientific quotes that happen to come off websites (unless you spend all your free time in the local university stacks, which i hardly believe) that spin science for their own purposes who happen to be completely unable to quote current literature because it does not back up what they're saying.

there was nothing in there commenting on you as a person, no matter how hard you try to find it. therefore it does not constitute a personal attack. but feel free to throw big words around if it makes you feel better.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(windstrings @ May 5 2006, 07:55 PM) [snapback]250613[/snapback]</div>

No scientist thinks she has "proved god wrong" because science does not address the question of whether or not there is a god. What science has convincingly demonstrated to be wrong are many of the claims made by people who insist that they know who god is and what god has said and done. In effect, what I say is not "god is wrong," but rather "You are wrong when you assert this or that about the world." Since we both agree that you are not god, the two statements are very different.

Of course, you (Windstrings) in particular are very much less wrong than some of our other posters, since you understand that the earth is very old, and you understand that it took a very long time to get from its beginnings to where it is now.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ May 9 2006, 01:24 AM) [snapback]252002[/snapback]</div>

Agreed. Most people who insist on using the KJ don't realize that it is a translation of a translation. The only text the KJ translators had available to them was the Greek Text (the "Textus Receptus"), which itself was a translation.
web
Thanks to archeology, (yes, thanks to science), over 5,000 ancient scrolls or portions of text have been uncovered that predate the Textus Receptus by hundreds and hundreds of years. A comparison of all these texts has enabled scholars to see where grammatical errors crept in, or even the penning of spurious texts, which were not in the original writings.
I don't speak Shakespearean English, I don't know if anyone ever did, and I find trying to read the KJ to be extremely difficult. I see no reason why people are so adamant that the KJ is THE inspired Bible when the evidence is that we now have texts that are much closer to the original writings.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 9 2006, 08:26 AM) [snapback]252130[/snapback]</div>

Time is an interesting thing... I believe in the spirit realm many "if not all" - based on how high of a spiritual level you are talking about......time is very fluid. ..... a thousand years in the spirit realm could pass as one day here or vise versa.
We attempt to understand another demension based on our own.
Good luck...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ May 9 2006, 12:59 AM) [snapback]251989[/snapback]</div>

I don't blame you for being confused. Try reading the King James Version. It is much more clear and does not contradict. I'm sorry, I don't wish to type it all in.

It would be a WHOLE 'nother topic to go on about "newer" versions of the Bible.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Randy @ May 9 2006, 01:23 AM) [snapback]252042[/snapback]</div>

But the text clearly says that God raised up the animals of the field after the creation of man, does it not?

Verse 18 clearly indicates that man has been created. Adam is there, and God says its not good that he is alone, and God has declared he will make (i.e., "create") a help meet for him.

And in verse 19, he does just that. Forms a whole bunch of animals ... in fact, every beast of the field and every fowl of the air ... and brings them to Adam. The text clearly says that forming the beasts of the fields and the fowls of the air are created after Adam's creation, in order to find a suitable "help meet" for him. Not before, as in chapter 1.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Randy @ May 9 2006, 01:23 AM) [snapback]252042[/snapback]</div>

So, are you saying a wooden literal interpetation is not in order in this passage because of the internal evidences that it is about the creation of woman, and not really concerned with the specific order of creation? That seems inconsistent with a literal reading of the first creation account.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(keydiver @ May 9 2006, 09:20 AM) [snapback]252171[/snapback]</div>

Its a "culture wars" thing again. When the NIV tried to make the language more gender-neutral, the conservatives had an absolute fit. They thought Gloria Steinham had infiltrated the place. The intent was to make it closer in feeling to the original language, but people thought it was just being PC (and perhaps that was a lot of it).



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 9 2006, 08:26 AM) [snapback]252130[/snapback]</div>

This is a very important point. For example, when medical science looks at a purported miracle and determines that the event is not a miracle at all, but within the normal range of the body's reactions, including remissions of cancer, shrinking of tumors, etc., medical science is not "proving God wrong". It is simply clarifying what is part of the natural process and not that unusual. Because Christians believe "God is truth", we should be happy to have the analysis done.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ May 10 2006, 01:22 AM) [snapback]252628[/snapback]</div>

In verse 19 some translations clearly make the creation of the animals and birds as a previously "past" event. Such as "And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself.
19And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name."
Another words the beast and birds where already created before verse 19 it is them being brought to Adam which is new.

 

"Prayers never bring anything . . .they may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Christmas" - W.C. Fields

 

"it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Christmas"

Of course. Believing in God is exactly the same as believing in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy or garden fairies. Cute when you're five; pathetic after that.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 10 2006, 04:40 PM) [snapback]253056[/snapback]</div>

Except that no wars have ever been fought over whose tooth fairy is the right one.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 10 2006, 01:40 PM) [snapback]253056[/snapback]</div>

My mother tells me that I was five when I spontaneously announced that there was no god and no Santa Claus. While my memories that far back are very foggy, I believe my reasoning was very similar in both cases.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 10 2006, 10:11 PM) [snapback]253249[/snapback]</div>

You're ahead of me. I didn't figure it out till six.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 10 2006, 01:40 PM) [snapback]253056[/snapback]</div>

So is that your problem?... you mother taught you to believe in Santa and the tooth Fairy and they didn't pan out, so now God isn't real either?
What else has not panned out in your life?

Go look in the mirror, now go look up in the sky at night.... your not exactly enlightened to not believe in God.. its more like Blind without sound reason.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Randy @ May 10 2006, 08:29 AM) [snapback]252778[/snapback]</div>

I think that would be considered "cheating" if we follow the lead of some of our brothers here who assert that the King James version is preeminent. But you are right, of course. Some versions do indicate that in their notes or within the text in italics (which usually means the word or words aren't in the originals).

Most of these Bible difficulties have been studied by theologians, and every theological school has its explanation of them. That's why I don't have much patience with the anti-faith folks who assert "you disagree with your fellow believers, therefore none of you are right!" There's a lot of thought and reason that goes into developing a theology based on the Bible,

For instance, the "Liberty Bible Commentary -- The Old Time Gospel Hour Edition" (actually penned by Jerry Falwell's staff at Liberty Bible School and the folks at Thomas Nelson Publishers) states that the troubling verse:

So the usual conservative explanation is that the author just wasn't clear enough for us, but that the context of what we've just read in chapter 1 is that all of creation was declared "very good". So nothing was created after God said "not good" ... the verses that seem out of order are providing more detail to that first account. I think that's a stronger argument than your use of the word "then". Developing that line of argument might be better.

I call this an "internal evidence" that Christians use to reason through what the passage means. If this explanation seems logical, then you accept that those verses cannot be taken literally, but have to be taken in the context of chapter 1. Because the text itself is telling us it isn't to be taken literally; we know Moses is a smart guy, and wouldn't contradict himself in writing just a few minutes after penning chapter 1.

I'll get back to the idea of internal evidences in a minute. But I want to show the critical analysis of the verse.

Below is the excerpt from the New American Bible, produced by Catholic scholars in the "Catholic Biblical Association of America, and has the distinction of being the first complete American Bible to be translated directly from the oldest versions available of the originials in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek (my edition is dated 1970, and has a forward that mentions the 62nd edition in 1968). The older "Doury" version was translated from the Latin Vulgate version, so it is thought this is a better translation. The verses are nearly identical, but the critical school of theology found different meaning:

Archeology has shown us that chapter 2 is older (this could change at any moment; find a fragment with chapter 1 in it that is older than chapter 2 and the issue is re-framed). It is assumed that since the oldest fragments have the second story of creation, and not the first, that the second story of creation pre-dates the story in chapter 1. There's some validity to that, but it becomes perhaps only the reasonable explanation, and not a definitive one.

So, if anyone is still reading this (I know I have lost the anti-faith folks), here's my point:

Just as the internal evidences show that chapter 2 can be taken as not-quite-literal, so chapter 1 can be taken as allegorical because the sun and moon are not created until the fourth day of "evening and morning" cycles. Would Moses contradict himself within the same chapter? Within just a few verses.

No, something else is going on here. Perhaps God doesn't really want us to think of the creation account as an accurate rendition of how the cosmos were formed. Perhaps there's more meaning in the words we've forgotten ... God saying "Let us make man in our image", God breathing into man's nostrils, God bringing the animals to Adam and allowing Adam to take dominion over them (i.e., naming them), and God bringing out the Lazy Boy and putting Adam to sleep to form Eve out of his rib.

By focusing on the fool's errand of arguing about "days" and "creationism" or "intelligent design", we have lost the original meaning of the verses. We've become political, and those who disagree with us about political and social issues never get past the "culture wars" rhetoric to discover the beauty in the verses. All they see is inept, inaccurate, unscientific bending of ancient concepts to try and make them fit a modern framework that cannot hope to hold them.

(And just in case any anti-faith folks are still reading along, doesn't this exchange look just like the arguments within any field of inquiry, including scientific ones, where debate and reason are combined to come to a conclusion?)


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ May 9 2006, 01:23 PM) [snapback]252330[/snapback]</div>

As you have seen by now, I did type in the KJV version of chapter 2's verses that are "troubling" and indeed, taken literally, they do contradict. There are many, many appearant contradictions in the KJV (if you take things literally). Tonight I posted the explanation of the 2 different creation accounts by both a conservative school of theology and a liberal one. The anti-faith people never take the time to understand that there are thousands of treatments of each one of these troubling contradictions, and none of them attach to the core doctrines of the faith. But they do provide an opportunity for Christians to use their intellect and reasoning ability to study, discuss, debate and decide which interpetation is correct.

That is how it has been from the very beginning in Christianity. Study, discussion, debate and decision. Its why we have denominations. And it's also why the western world was the birthplace of modern science.

 

Yeah,....Nostradamus is some pretty good reading too....interesting, but I don't believe his stuff either.

At least he is more believable because he wrote the stuff himself - and not through translations of translations of Chinese Whispers.

Still believe that something happened a long time ago that spurned people to have this God, but I honestly think it is a result of alien visitation. It makes more sense.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ May 10 2006, 01:22 AM) [snapback]252628[/snapback]</div>

So, what is wrong with the idea that God was perhaps still creating animals at this time? In point of time it was still the sixth creative day. The verb “form†in the imperfect here denotes continued, progressive action. God did not rest from creating until the END of the 6th day. What would stop him from creating more animals AFTER the creation of Adam? I see no confict.

This is one reason why we don't celebrate Christmas. Once children figure out that you were lying to them about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, why should they think that God and Jesus are any different? You're just setting them up, IMHO.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(windstrings @ May 10 2006, 11:14 PM) [snapback]253299[/snapback]</div>

Actually, I have no problems at all. I'm very glad to be an atheist, and it seems to me that it if anyone's "lives have not panned out" it is those who have turned to the crutch of religion. You have ever right to be religious and I have every right to be atheist. We are not living in a theocracy, at least not yet. (Not a democracy, either, but that is another topic for another day). When I look at the sky I see a vast and beautiful universe with not a God in sight.