Otokonoko, I think your comment was not naïve but concise and astute.

George, - “the number of those who accept [evolution] theory vastly exceeds the number of those who do not. …these 20th century theories; theories that our ancestors could never have understood.”

For someone who has read some philosophy of science, I shouldn’t need to tell you, science is not a democracy, and also, Darwin’s ideas arrive from the 19th Century.

I’ll admit to not being a biologist, but I know enough about science to know that it is not done by counting votes (even be it 99% to 1%). It is more precise than that.

When you say, ‘theories that our ancestors could never have understood’, are you including Darwin himself amongst these our predecessors? It is true that he was ignorant of important 20th Century discoveries such as Mendel’s genetics, etc, and though he was detailed in his research, his qualifications were mainly in theology.

To think that the ideas of some other 19th Century near contemporaries of Darwin, such as Freud (psychology) and Marx (economics), in their day, were also considered scientific, but today they’re thought of as quaint philosophies.

Darwinian evolution (and even new improved, modified models thereof) could go the same way, except that that would create a huge philosophical vacuum, with nothing but a supernatural Designer to replace it. Today’s philosophers cannot accept that. The whole issue is philosophical, not empirical.

Waterboy,
I repeat that I object to being called a Biblical literalist. I don’t think such a thing even exists. E.g. When it says, ‘If your right hand sins, cut it off’, no sane person takes that literally.

Our aim always is to find the intention of the author. When looking for such intention, the first place I start is in the words and the grammar of the text. I believe that God, as the inventor of language, is perfectly capable of communicating clearly. The Bible is His message, and I expect it to be comprehensible and internally coherent.

I don’t, like you, see any rupture between John chapters 10 and 11. It seems a continuous text. In both chapters 9 and 11, we see accounts of marvellous miracles with similar accompanying themes of Jesus attracting the envy and hate of the authorities for his actions.

I don’t agree with George’s suggestion of us needing an authority or arbiter to step in and explain what is clearly written. The Bible, rough and raw, is capable of speaking for itself, as it has to ordinary people for centuries.

Yet it seems clear that we hold radically different presuppositions. I wanted to ask you the same question that I asked Rhian earlier (Rhian never responded), and that is, did the Resurrection truly happen, or did Jesus’ body rot away as in the normal course of events after death?

I think from your last post, you have declared where you stand on this. For the record, I’ll answer my own question. I believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus, with the promise of an afterlife for all believers. For me, Christianity is inconceivable beyond these parameters. But that is not just my opinion. It is the teaching of the apostle Paul, “And if we have hope in Christ only for this life, we are the most miserable people in the world” (1Cor. 15:19).

You say, “Faith is not particularly about what you 'believe'.” I read Paul saying exactly the opposite throughout 1Cor 15 (e.g. v.11). What you believed mattered to Paul.

Mick

I agree we have very different dispositions.

As far as the resurrection is concerned I regard it as a literary construct. As a naturally sceptical person I'm inclined to doubt its biographical value... but then... I wasnt there. I cant say for certain what happened and I dont worry about it much. As a model for understanding Jesus, His life and death, it works. That's good enough for me.

For me the Bible is authoritative rather than authority. Paul had a certain world-view which I do not share. Im fairly sure Jesus would have had some dispute with Paul's interpretation of His life, particularly Paul's interest in personal salvation and its relation to resurrection.

You say you have an interest in the 'author's intention' yet you ignore serious questions about authorship and accept uncritically much of its cultural baggage and seem to ignore the possibility that interpretation might go way beyond 'finding the author's intention'. You accept that it contains literary devices used for effect, to make a point. Yet you refuse to draw the obvious conclusion that it is literature through and through. You describe it as if it was some sort of direct communication from God when, in reality, it is a very human book with all sorts of errors and constrained to a particular world-view that is no longer viable.

As a record of Gods dealings with a wayward and troublesome people the Bible is authoritative. That does not, however, particularly elevate its biographical value. At the risk of repeating myself I believe there is something deeply wrong with religious fundamentalism. It seems to me life-denying, sterile, unintelligent and dangerous. Fundamentalist churches are often just cults using Christian language to bolster some self-proclaimed authoritative figure, pastor or evangelist.


Enjoy your Bible as I enjoy being engaged with this life here and now. There is another thing Paul got wrong.

Mick,
you are right, science “is not done by counting votes” but if you are not a specialist that is all you have: For instance, I accept the warnings about climate change, CO2 emissions, because the majority of specialists say so.

By ancestors who could not understand modern scientific theories I meant those whom the Bible was originally aimed at, some thousands of years ago. I can try to explain relativity theory to a ten year old but I cannot do it the same way I would to a university student.

I wholeheartedly agree that “the whole issue (of whether there is an Intelligent Designer) is philosophical” not scientific, so as a Christian I can believe in Him without forcing other scientists - with other philosophical outlooks - to accept Him as part of science.

You could not be using elctronic equipments if quantum physics, as it is understood by physicists and applied by electronic engineers, was not right, verified by praxis. Nevertheless, there are philosophical questions connected with how to interpret the wave-particle duality that do not have universally accepted answers. Some people even use some of these interpretations to "scientifically explain" some aspects of Christian faith - e.g. God's intervention in the material world without violating its physical laws. However, I would not pay too much attention to a person philosophising about the complementarity or uncertainty principles who does not know what e.g. a Hilbert space is.

I suspect there are similar technicalities in biology connected with evolution that I do not understand, which does not allow me to criticise the theory as such. I must also be careful when criticising other people’s INTERPRETATIONS of what is known about evolution, unless they present them as CONCLUSIONS reached using SCIENTIFIC methods. Of course, I can choose my own interpretation, probably comprehensible only to those who share my world-view.

Also, I am afraid, “a huge philosophical vacuum, with nothing but a supernatural Designer to replace it” sounds very much like the “God of the gaps” argument that backfired so many times in the past.

When i was little i believed in the tooth fairy and santa.Now i'm older i would like to know why so many religious people over the years have murdered anybody who didn't have the same opinions.I can understand fighting a war to protect your home or family and your way of life.What i find difficult to comprehend is"religion is about being good and loving your fellow man".Therefore if someone doesn't agree you burn them at the stake,feed them to the lions,drive planes into crowded buildings,gas them, or in the case of one famous man ,crucify them.We can't prove one way or another about any god's existence but i'm sure he wouldn't approve of the things done in his name ,if he does exist.I try to be a good girl,just incase.

haygirl,
by comparing religious beliefs to the tooth fairy and santa you seem to indicate that you do not understand religion beyond what is taught at primary, or even pre-school, level. Whether that is the fault of your RE teacher - as unfortunately happens more than often - I cannot tell.

If your understanding of mathematics was on a level where you could compare it only with counting apples and oranges, it would be hard to explain to you how useful maths is in its applications for science and technology. Applications, that are good, but too often also bad. Without maths you would not have the plane that can bring you to Europe in about 20 hours, but that one can also ram into a New York skyscraper killing three thousand people. Without e.g. Christianity you would probably not have Enlightenment and modern science, as painful as the birth was for the “Mother”, (who is still worried, mostly unnecessarily, that her “baby” strolls too war away). However, neither would you have the passions that fuelled Medieval and pre-modern wars, that, albeit, 20th century managed on its own, without a direct input from religion.

Another example is sex, without which you would not have rapists, child molesters etc. but I do not have to explain to you that the sexual drive can serve also useful, pleasant and beautiful purposes.

You will always find people who abuse things meant to serve humanity, like religion, technology, sex etc. And the stronger, more psychologically entrenched these things are, the greater the abuse