K£vin,
>> the problem for Catholicism and some emerging forms of Evangelical Christianity is their reliance on the "supernatural".<<
Whatever the problem for Catholicism, that indeed is going through a crisis, it could not be the same as that for Evangelical Christianity that, on the contrary, is thriving.

As I said before, Jesus indeed did not teach any theology, even less philosophy as it is understood today, which is perhaps one of the reasons the present Pope defends Christianity’s appropriation and development of the Hellenic philosophical tradition. The “reliance on the supernatural” has a different form for the good old lady taking verbatim everything that is in the Bible (and what she hears from the pulpit), and a different form for an educated, even philosophically inclined, 21st century Christian. Jesus spoke (and speaks) to BOTH, however the latter needs the “appropriation and development of the Hellenic philosophical tradition” to understand the metaphysics of the “supernatural” coming with it.

relda,
of course, you are right on the Spanish Inquisition; the correction I had in mind concerned only the number(s) of claimed victims.

As for postmodernists, I would value more Pascal’s comments on (even Enlightenment’s correction of) Christianity, although here I am probably biased since I know (the French) postmodernists only through their peculiar - to say the least - view of science (c.f. the Science Wars of the nineties).

I agree that Buddhism is a soft version of atheism in the sense that even if they accept the “supernatural” (not all Buddhists do) it does not involve a personal God. Nevertheless, Christians can learn a lot from their practice.

K£vin,
Miracles and magic (i.e. the supernatural) are theologically problematic because of their implications for theodicy. Quite genuine questioning (if you don’t take the fundamentalist position) arises viz, why does God miraculously intervene in the lives of some people and not others? On what basis does God intervene in the laws of nature, and for whom? Does God capriciously tweak the laws of nature he created to teach some human beings lessons, to rescue some persons from tragedy and not others, to reveal wisdom to a few and not all? etc...etc..

My view, and that of many others who accept the premise of ‘Christ’ianty is that the Christ of faith is a theological interpretation of the historical Jesus. The historical Jesus and the Christ of faith are, of course, interdependent, but they are not identical and both are historical constructions. In the historical Jesus as the Christ of faith, Christians apprehend God active in history since the beginning of creation of the universe, as exemplified by the prologue to the Gospel of John.

In considering the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, in Vatican II, they have come to a position on religious pluralism that is often called the "inclusivist position." The inclusivist position "affirm[s] the value and dignity of all religious paths." So, without delving too intensely, it is perhaps sufficient to say, being faithful to Jesus as the Christ means being open to others and to the future, which means that Christian absolutism in any form is idolatrous and is the opposite of faith – Tillich expresses an "ultimate concern", present to all. The fundamentalist error is one of confusing faith with belief, which transforms theology into ideology and confuses ideology for thought.

R. S. Thomas, the late Welsh poet and Anglican priest puts it nicely, “Religion” he says, "has to do ... with vision, revelation, and these are best told of in poetry.... Jesus was a poet.... In another sense, he is God's metaphor.... [And] how shall we attempt to describe or express ultimate reality except through metaphor or symbol?" ("A Frame for Poetry").

Dan

You wrote
".. Does this mean that Hebrew is incapable of describing a sequence of historical events using straight forward narrative, so that the order of the events are clear and without danger of misinterpretation from different levels of meaning? Can’t they tell their history in a straight forward manner, and aren’t we capable of recognising such passages and relating to them?"

The Hebrews understood that it was impossible to speak directly of God, so they used metaphors, myths, poetry and narrative (story-telling) to tell 'salvation-history' rather than trying to "tell their history in a straightforward manner". Again you must remember that they did not share our 'scientific' and evidential understanding of history so it simply does not make sense to suggest that we might find any such 'history' in the Bible. They saw no problem in collecting traditions (even from other cultures) and crafting them into narratives, parables or poetry to make their 'theological' point. Without doubt the Bible contains many historical references that we can confirm using modern, scientific, evidential techniques but it also contains 'legendary' accounts of 'historical' events so we would be foolish to accept any Biblical account of apparently historical events without external corroborating evidence. The parallel with drawing scientific conclusions based on Biblical texts should be evident.

The truth that the Bible conveys is not carried in the literal sense of the text because the Bible is 'about' God's dealings with Her people and that requires metaphor, parable and poetry as one simply cannot 'explain' God in simple, direct (straightforward) language. The 'extra levels', as you describe them, do not confuse the meaning because they 'are' the meaning. In many cases, 'forcing' (yes, forcing, because myths and metaphors are not meant to be taken literally) a literal interpretation on a Biblical text distorts its meaning and such is the case with the Genesis accounts of 'creation'.

Dan, Evo et al,

The Australian Skeptics Society recently orchestrated an online 'sting' by sending out phishing emails a la Nigerian banking officials. Y'know the ones. Whoever replied was sent an email warning them of the pitfalls of taking seriously emails that were either too good to be true or so outlandish that even a two-year old should have picked up on it.

It is not possible to sway by reason one who has not reached a position through reason. Runner is in reality a covert agent for the Skeptic Society. He just hasn't sent you that email yet.

Bernie.

Point taken.

EVO

Runner,

I think Dan's struggling here enough without your input.

<<Where is my evidence? Speak to the thousands of scientist who can plainly see that what we observe on the earth is exactly what is written in Scripture.>>

It doesn't matter what you believe – only why you believe it.

In the United States – which has more Creationists than any other industrialised nation – only 5% of scientists believe in Creationism. But in the relevant Earth and Biological sciences, only 0.15% of scientists believe in Creationism. That's a mere 700 out of 480,000 scientists.

Again though, this is only in the United States. In every other industrialised nation, this drops below 0.10%.

Creation “scientists” like to misquote other scientists to create the illusion that an increasing number of scientists are doubting evolution – and you've fallen for it.

Not a very honest or Christian way from them to behave, is it, Runner?

<<Proving evolution however ends in a lot of garble with no substance or evidence.>>

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't make it “garble”.

As for evidence though, there's mountains of it. I've posted about 100 or so posts with plenty of evidence. Dan can't disprove any of it, so I'm not going to start repeating it for you.

<<...[depression] proves that evolution is wrong.>>

No it doesn't. You don't even know what you're talking about, do you?

If anything, depression is consistent with evolution since evolution doesn't aim to get anything perfect like a designer would. So long as enough organisms live long enough to carry on their genes, then evolution is doing what it's supposed to.

Take the eye for example. It's hardly a perfect design with all it's flaws like blind spots, retinal detachments, etc... What would you say about creatures like Planarians and Marine Snails that don't have fully evolved eyes yet?

Or is God just testing our faith?

<< It is easy to observe that morals, sickness and perversion is increasing and not decreasing (which if there was any credibility to the evolution theory would be happening).>>

Continued...