Biblical literalism

[prometheus]

It makes it sound as if the theory of evolution is an idiology.

This is how wikipedia describes the issue:

Evolutionism, from the accusative of the Latin evolutio, "unrolling" + the Greek ιςμος, "suffix of action or state", is generally used by creationists as a pejorative label for the scientific theory of evolution.

In the creation-evolution controversy, those who accept the scientific theory of biological evolution by natural selection or genetic drift are often called "evolutionists", and the theory of evolution itself is referred to as "evolutionism" by creationists. This label is used by creationists to suggest that evolution is similar to other "isms", such as creationism, evangelism, Judaism, socialism, communism, Catholicism and fascism. In this way, creationists bolster their claim that the scientific theory of evolution is a belief, dogma, ideology or even a religion, rather than a scientific theory. The terms "evolutionism" and "evolutionist" are rarely used in the scientific community as self-descriptive terms.


It's better to say 'those who subscribe to the neo-Darwinian synthesis' or something like that.

[rimv2]

It makes it sound as if the theory of evolution is an idiology.

This is how wikipedia describes the issue:

Evolutionism, from the accusative of the Latin evolutio, "unrolling" + the Greek ιςμος, "suffix of action or state", is generally used by creationists as a pejorative label for the scientific theory of evolution.

In the creation-evolution controversy, those who accept the scientific theory of biological evolution by natural selection or genetic drift are often called "evolutionists", and the theory of evolution itself is referred to as "evolutionism" by creationists. This label is used by creationists to suggest that evolution is similar to other "isms", such as creationism, evangelism, Judaism, socialism, communism, Catholicism and fascism. In this way, creationists bolster their claim that the scientific theory of evolution is a belief, dogma, ideology or even a religion, rather than a scientific theory. The terms "evolutionism" and "evolutionist" are rarely used in the scientific community as self-descriptive terms.


It's better to say 'those who subscribe to the neo-Darwinian synthesis' or something like that.

Yeah, but we all know who controls wikipedia .

*Insights more controversy*

KEEP THE TOPIC ALIVE BABYYYYYYYY!!!!!!

  can't sleep again.

[prometheus]

Well, you have words like 'Chemist' and even 'quantum mechanist' and since naivety is a virtue I would like to think there is nothing wrong with 'evolutionist' or 'Darwinist'.

[rimv2]

Well, you have words like 'Chemist' and even 'quantum mechanist' and since naivety is a virtue I would like to think there is nothing wrong with 'evolutionist' or 'Darwinist'.

I bet you're a chemists. Am ah right, huh?

[pianowelsh]

far from lacking in intelligence and logic as it may seem has been suggested. A true approach of taking the word of god literally requires an enormous ammount of wisdom.  It touches every area of life! The bible opperates in context..you cant just life a verse out of context and say the bible says this lets go do it. You have to know the whole context of what the bible is saying and Fundamentally you need to know the Character of God whose word it is.  This is not to say you have to be immensely intelligent to be a christian...anyone and everyone can because where things are difficult to understand the Holy spirit which indwells the believer helps you know what God has spoken.  BUT it is not too simple for the most brilliant minds in the planet...noone has plumbed the depths of Gods word fully - there is always more to learn from it.   Disregard anyone who says it is superficial or nonsensense...they either havent really studied it or are poor scholars!  I know atheists who have studied the words of scripture and though they dont believe Jesus they recognise the vast wisdom of the bible.
If you want to know about the context of the 'I have not come to bring peace ' verse then PM me - im not going to air it here...some people cant handle it.

[timothy42b]

far from lacking in intelligence and logic as it may seem has been suggested. A true approach of taking the word of god literally requires an enormous ammount of wisdom. 

If you read the Noah's Ark story in any other book, and people tried to tell you it was historical fact and not a just-so story, wouldn't your BS detector go into the Red Zone? 

I hope it would.  It should.  There is no part of that story that stands up to common sense. 

Same with Joshua's long day. 

How does it take an enormous amount of wisdom, as you put it, not to be able to notice that?  And to continue to defend those stories as fact despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? 

[ramseytheii]

far from lacking in intelligence and logic as it may seem has been suggested. A true approach of taking the word of god literally requires an enormous ammount of wisdom.  It touches every area of life! The bible opperates in context..you cant just life a verse out of context and say the bible says this lets go do it. You have to know the whole context of what the bible is saying and Fundamentally you need to know the Character of God whose word it is.  This is not to say you have to be immensely intelligent to be a christian...anyone and everyone can because where things are difficult to understand the Holy spirit which indwells the believer helps you know what God has spoken.  BUT it is not too simple for the most brilliant minds in the planet...noone has plumbed the depths of Gods word fully - there is always more to learn from it.   Disregard anyone who says it is superficial or nonsensense...they either havent really studied it or are poor scholars!  I know atheists who have studied the words of scripture and though they dont believe Jesus they recognise the vast wisdom of the bible.
If you want to know about the context of the 'I have not come to bring peace ' verse then PM me - im not going to air it here...some people cant handle it.

I think someone already posted a link to an interesting article about that context.  But generally speaking, too much emphasis is placed on the idea of "context."  Usually by those who would not wish the words to mean what they actually say. 

When Jesus says,  "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me," no context will take away the meaning of the words: that you must love Jesus more than your family, and in fact all of humanity.

When Jesus says that he will deny those who deny him, and that they will burn in everlasting torment, no context can take away the meaning of those words.  When Scripture says homosexuality is an abomination, no context can deny the truth.

As Tolstoy, perhaps one of the first Biblical literalists, though not in the way we understand it today, pointed out, when Jesus says, "Resist ye not evil," we should take those words at their literal, face value, rather than trying to interpret them through context, metaphor, mistranslation, or other denial techniques typically employed by so-called "fundamentalists."

Walter Ramsey

[ramseytheii]

And about the character of God, because I think this is often used as another denial technique.  People who are basically good at heart don't want to believe that the Bible, and their God, could actually condemn others to eternities of torment and suffering, and imagine that because of the recurring invocations of "mercy," "grace," "benevolence," "everlasting love," etc., that would not happen.

However it is clear to all that God displays many different characters.  In the Old Testament, the downtrodden desire justice, and call upon God to give it through them, usually through wrath towards the oppressors, or some catastrophic destruction.  In the New Testament, the downtrodden fear justice, and beg God to be worthy of it.  These two Gods do not cancel each other out but show two sides of the same coin, he who would destroy his enemies as well as those who would be his friends.

The Holy Scrit clearly states that those who deny God are destined for a death of eternal suffering, and that they will be handpicked by God, with Jesus at his right hand (or as the English used to say, "on" his right hand), to go into the fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.  God's mercy only extends to those who accept his sacrifice of his son as the act that redeems them; those who do not accept the sacrifice are not privileged to receive the mercy, and will burn forever in the flames of Hades.  I don't see how there can ever be a queston about this...

Unless, you do not believe what the Holy Scrit says to be true.  If you don't, then you should have the courage to say so, rather than trying every trick in the book to deny what is written in black and white.  if you do, you should also be unafraid to say so, as God will not deny those who do not deny him and his word.

Walter Ramsey

[rimv2]

Umm..ack...

Double post

If you read the Noah's Ark story in any other book, and people tried to tell you it was historical fact and not a just-so story, wouldn't your BS detector go into the Red Zone? 

I hope it would.  It should.  There is no part of that story that stands up to common sense. 

Same with Joshua's long day. 

How does it take an enormous amount of wisdom, as you put it, not to be able to notice that?  And to continue to defend those stories as fact despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? 

Noah's arch, contains, rain. Rain exists. Hello

The part about the flood could have been true, until randomly some kid was like, "but what about the animals." Then someone decided to embellish 

Gosh, use yer tinker

far from lacking in intelligence and logic as it may seem has been suggested. A true approach of taking the word of god literally requires an enormous ammount of wisdom.  It touches every area of life! The bible opperates in context..you cant just life a verse out of context and say the bible says this lets go do it. You have to know the whole context of what the bible is saying and Fundamentally you need to know the Character of God whose word it is.  This is not to say you have to be immensely intelligent to be a christian...anyone and everyone can because where things are difficult to understand the Holy spirit which indwells the believer helps you know what God has spoken.  BUT it is not too simple for the most brilliant minds in the planet...noone has plumbed the depths of Gods word fully - there is always more to learn from it.   Disregard anyone who says it is superficial or nonsensense...they either havent really studied it or are poor scholars!  I know atheists who have studied the words of scripture and though they dont believe Jesus they recognise the vast wisdom of the bible.
If you want to know about the context of the 'I have not come to bring peace ' verse then PM me - im not going to air it here...some people cant handle it.

Sounds like a challenge

Ah noticed you keep saying Gods word. What do you mean by this?

[sassafras]

This thread has convinced me to go back to Church!

[sassafras]

This thread has convinced me to go back to Church! The levels of unbelief are amazing.

I do not dwell well with extremes.

Some Christians claim the Devil is behind all reason. I do not believe that.....

I find this thread mystifiying.

[jlh]

It makes it sound as if the theory of evolution is an idiology.

This is how wikipedia describes the issue:

Evolutionism, from the accusative of the Latin evolutio, "unrolling" + the Greek ιςμος, "suffix of action or state", is generally used by creationists as a pejorative label for the scientific theory of evolution.

In the creation-evolution controversy, those who accept the scientific theory of biological evolution by natural selection or genetic drift are often called "evolutionists", and the theory of evolution itself is referred to as "evolutionism" by creationists. This label is used by creationists to suggest that evolution is similar to other "isms", such as creationism, evangelism, Judaism, socialism, communism, Catholicism and fascism. In this way, creationists bolster their claim that the scientific theory of evolution is a belief, dogma, ideology or even a religion, rather than a scientific theory. The terms "evolutionism" and "evolutionist" are rarely used in the scientific community as self-descriptive terms.


It's better to say 'those who subscribe to the neo-Darwinian synthesis' or something like that.

Do you then believe Dr. Eldredge is being self-perjorative in his use of the word "evolutionist" in connection with his name?

[timothy42b]

Do you then believe Dr. Eldredge is being self-perjorative in his use of the word "evolutionist" in connection with his name?

I think it's like cops who wear that Pride Integrity Guts button (PIG). 

He's an isolated case.  I doubt you could find another scientist who does not cringe when he hears the term. 

[timothy42b]

By the way, in Joshua's long day the bible says the sun and moon stopped traveling across the sky.

Well, they really don't, the earth rotates, but of course the authors didn't know that. 

But it doesn't matter much - either we had a long day or not.

I believe not.  It seems a bit farfetched. 

Do you bible literalists believe somehow the Earth actually stopped rotating then restarted? 

[pianowelsh]

I think people who have problems with the bibles literalism?!? if that is an appropriate term (which im not convinced about actually) other than the fact they are unregenerate and under condemnation (the problem common to all outside of christ) is that they are actually quite poor at language. When the passage is descriptive ie the Joshua account we must remember it is as it is being 'seen' or percieved. Did it actually stop - well it could have you know God put it there - he keeps it in the sky..if he decides to stop it he has the power to do so. Could it also be more pictoral..well there may be scope for that in the text. But I have no problem with God stopping the sun. Nor do I have a problem with the flood as you know and indeed only reccently scientist have discovered they were wrong regarding the formation of the English channel in such a way that actually gives more not less credence to creation and the flood as opposed to evolution which as a concept is entirely non biblical.

im not going into the divine plenary inspirtation argument again - weve been there SO many times.  Just accept that perfectly intelligent well informed and reasoning people do actually believe the bible is true cover to cover.  This may be disconcerting for you if you are trying to shore up your own conscience by writing off all evangelical Christian believers as 'nuts' but hey I can live with that.

[ramseytheii]

im not going into the divine plenary inspirtation argument again - weve been there SO many times.  Just accept that perfectly intelligent well informed and reasoning people do actually believe the bible is true cover to cover.  This may be disconcerting for you if you are trying to shore up your own conscience by writing off all evangelical Christian believers as 'nuts' but hey I can live with that.

My argument comes from a different direction.  I actually don't believe that people who say they believe the Bible cover to cover do, and my repeated reminders of uncomfortable passages confirms that.  I don't think evangelicals are Nuts, I think they are not nuts enough.  Would they only have the courage to take their holy book seriously, like the Muslims do - they would have a lot less political power in this country, and be easier to contain.  As it is, the way they pick and choose, they only choose that which angers the most number of people and gets them to give $$ and votes.  The rest, they just leave for the vultures.

Walter Ramsey

[jlh]

My argument comes from a different direction.  I actually don't believe that people who say they believe the Bible cover to cover do, and my repeated reminders of uncomfortable passages confirms that.  I don't think evangelicals are Nuts, I think they are not nuts enough.  Would they only have the courage to take their holy book seriously, like the Muslims do - they would have a lot less political power in this country, and be easier to contain.  As it is, the way they pick and choose, they only choose that which angers the most number of people and gets them to give $$ and votes.  The rest, they just leave for the vultures.

Walter Ramsey

Your perception of a "pick and choose" theology from Christians stems from a lack of understanding of the nature of Christianity and our current understanding of God's laws.  I believe that God still speaks in our day and age, just as He did so long ago.  I would like to quote something I posted earlier that perhaps you didn't read or chose to ignore.

---

We never have had a complete or perfect understanding of God and God's laws.  So it is not surprising that things we used to think were wrong or right are now thought of differently.  Over the years our attitudes have changed dramatically toward things like mixed bathing, listening to the radio, dancing, alcohol consumption, divorce, slavery, etc.  These changes don't mean that we are less moral or have abandoned God's laws, but rather that we have a better understanding of how God's laws apply in our lives today.  In addition it is reasonable to expect some things that are considered right today will be considered wrong in the future and that some things that are considered wrong today will be considered right at some time in the future.  It made good sense for there to be a law against eating pork in old testament times when most pork was infected with dangerous microorganisms.  But todays animal husbandry and food preparation techniques make that law irrelevant.

This sounds like "everybody does what is right in their own eyes"  It is not!!!  Gods laws are absolute, unchanging, eternal, and unfathomable.  However, the best we can ever hope for is a rough approximation to an understanding of Gods law.  Humans trying to understand and infinite God are like the blind men trying to understand an elephant.  At one point the elephant seems most like a snake, at another point it seems like a rope at another point it seems like a tree trunk.  But the elephant did not change.  The blind man's understanding of the elephant changed.  Similarly, our understanding of Gods will for our lives changes but His will does not.

[thalbergmad]

Just accept that perfectly intelligent well informed and reasoning people do actually believe the bible is true cover to cover. 

I wonder if they believe some of the books that did not make it into the Bible, or were edited out.

Let us not forget that the Bible was put together by Man, not God.

Thal

[timothy42b]

---

We never have had a complete or perfect understanding of God and God's laws.  So it is not surprising that things we used to think were wrong or right are now thought of differently.  

That seems eminently reasonable and I agree with it.

Why, then, do you pick and choose a couple of issues that you claim are fixed and immovable?  Particularly scientific ones that no sensible person can defend? 

The world's smartest biologist can make no complaint if you change your intepretation of the Trinity.  But if you insist on claiming evolution is not valid, you make yourself look silly. 

[ahinton]

Let us not forget that the Bible was put together by Man, not God.

Thal

Indeed; one might even counsel "let those [books] that Man hath joined together, let no God put asunder"...

Best,

Alistair

[jlh]

That seems eminently reasonable and I agree with it.

Why, then, do you pick and choose a couple of issues that you claim are fixed and immovable?  Particularly scientific ones that no sensible person can defend? 

The world's smartest biologist can make no complaint if you change your intepretation of the Trinity.  But if you insist on claiming evolution is not valid, you make yourself look silly. 

True.

In fact, a lot of Christian clergy have signed documents claiming that evolution was God's means of creating life.  I guess I'm a little harder to convince.  I will wait for better evidence.

Same with the claims by a lot of scientists that say global warming is man-caused.  I will wait for better evidence.  Especially after reading this exposé:

https://www.abd.org.uk/tggws.htm

[prometheus]

Global warming is exactly the same. Scientific consensus but some have benefit by creating doubt. And some fall for it while the scientists are just horrible at PR.


Most scientist don't care if you believe them or not. They don't care for people 'too stupid' to figure it out themselves.

"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree, you can *** off." That's a quote by an undisclosed New Scientist editor.

[jlh]

Global warming is exactly the same. Scientific consensus but some have benefit by creating doubt. And some fall for it while the scientists are just horrible at PR.


Most scientist don't care if you believe them or not. They don't care for people 'too stupid' to figure it out themselves.

"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree, you can *** off." That's a quote by an undisclosed New Scientist editor.

Although it's also true that a lot of people have benefit by creating hysteria over global warming (extra taxes, etc). 

Regardless of what you or I personally believe about the cause of global warming the fact is that the earth is warming.  We can also disagree on the nature and future of this warming trend. 

That aside, the question we should ask ourselves is how that issue lines up in terms other issues for humanity and specifically what we can do about them.

I’ve found that Bjørn Lomborg's way of addressing / evaluating the issue very encouraging. Check out his short speech on YouTube

.

Also look up Wikipedia article to see what his critics say about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg

[prometheus]

I have seen that Bjørn Lomborg video before. And I agree with him.


He doesn't deny any science about global warming. What he says is that politicians and companies but also civilians refuse to solve problems.


So he says we should focus on those problems that are easy to solve and have a lot of effect on the short term. The reason is is because we just can't do all the things we should.

Another thing is protectionism in Europe and the US. Especially of our agriculture sector. This actually costs us tons of money. And the effect is that third world farmers will go broke.

We pay our farmers to overproduce. Then they dump their stuff on the third world market. I think that in Ghana the last few years 95% of the chicken farmers went out of business.
Attempts to protect their own market, they have to because that's what the EU & US do too, were stopped by the IMF on the highest level.


So a very pragmatic solution. The thing is is that Al Gore, not being a scientist, was able to do some effective PR. But malaria and drinking water are easier ways to reduce a lot of suffering on the short term.


But reducing energy usage doesn't have to cost money.

[jlh]

I have seen that Bjørn Lomborg video before. And I agree with him.

Woohoo!  We've found some common ground!! 

But reducing energy usage doesn't have to cost money.

The reality, top climate economists say, is that cutting U.S. emissions sufficiently to hold greenhouse-gas concentrations at near-current levels soon could cost the United States twice as much per year as it is now spending on the war in Iraq. The financial impact worldwide would be $1 trillion a year worldwide over two decades to aggressively curb global warming.

https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003715537_warmingcosts21.html

That's assuming the controversial science and the mainstream theory for global warming are accurate.

[prometheus]

A lot of energy is wasted. If you don't waste energy you will actually save money.

The money spend on the war in Iraq of course is terrible waste of money.




There is enough money. People just want to spend money on weapons and other things. For example a manned mission to the moon.