Dan,

"It may seem reasonable, but could never be definitive." - Dan

It might seem reasonable that the Christian scriptures are ancient, yet is that assertion truly definitive? The World could have been created yesterday and we born evolved along with false memories of our own life histories. Yet, on the balance, few would proceed on this assumption.

I used the example of trees because one can count the tree rings.

Moreover, some forrests grow from root systems. The roots renew and die at known rates, and trees grow from these roots. Some root systems have been dated back 80,000 years, albeit, live trees growing from these systems are younger.

You might retort and saying, "this is all trickery". Yet, if this claim holds true, one cannot deny that all of history is an illusion.

If some trees are older than 6,000 years (and the Earth is not flat) then this case is equally problematic for the Protestant Ethos as it is for the Catholic; as extrapolating Relda's comment, to the effect that Orthodox Protestant view holds scripture infallible, shows.

Being human allows us to weigh evidence and draw conclusions. It would seem -throughout history- that Churches have positioned themselves outside the realm of religiosity, to the realm of science; wherein, the knowledge of ancient peoples compete's with modernity, contrasting the knowledhe of peoples whom built oxe carts with those whom build space craft.

Of course, today, many Christians do accept the findings of modernity, siding with secularists on matters of science. For them, presumably, the "intent" of scripture is different to the literal words of scripture.

I suspect that people who believe we live in a flat Earth, which is only 6,000 years old and that people lived alongside dinosaurs and vegetarian lions accompanied Noah on the Arch, will be around for sometime to come; yet, day-by-day this world-view shall diminish.

AJP,

Thanks for some very interesting posts. I tried a few Google searches and see where you are coming. Yes, one must wonder if the misinformation and dysfunctional terminologies are deliberate. If so, it would seem those controlling the deception, know what they are doing. Here, as I have noted on other threads, the Catholic Church seems to accept or deny the legitimacy of The Shroud of Turin depending on its audience. The Protestants don’t think aloud on apostolic progression. Only the Seventh Day Adventists among the larger Churches see Saturday as the Day of Rest, from scripture. All seem to be baking a cake, as if cakes only have one exclusive recipe, of which, each to its own has special knowledge. And as you aptly illustrate are willingly to deceive in pursuit of Church goals.

The three ages of history are found in Jewish, Christian, Marxist and nationalist mythology.

According to the Talmud, "The world as we know it will exist for 6,000 years (beginning with Adam and Eve). The first 2,000 years were defined as 'chaos.' The second 2,000 years marked the years of Torah. The final 2,000 years will include the Messianic Age."

Jewish mystics explain the 2,000 years of chaos are the years before monotheism made its appearance on earth with Abraham. The years 2,000 to 4,000 represent the second period of two thousand years designated for Torah. According to this reckoning we are in the Messianic Age which will conclude with his arrival. Since this is the year 5,769 on the Jewish calendar, we still have a maximum of 231 years left on the "warranty" for earthly redemption.

Possibly Joachim of Fiore propounded the first Christian three stage version of history. Sometime between 1190 and 1195 this Calabrian abbot got an inspiration. The book of Revelation was his key. One part of the Trinity presided over each stage. The first was the age of the Father or the Law, the second was the age of the Son or the Gospel, and the third would be the age of the Spirit. The age of the Spirit would be the millennium in which all men would be contemplative monks undergoing mystical ecstasy and singing the praises of God continuing until the last judgement. No mention was made of women. Since Augustine had maintained we were already in the Millennium with the advent of Christianity Joachim's theory of history was at odds with Augustine even though he had the encouragement of three popes.

Secular philosophers picked up Joachim's speculations. He probably would have been unhappy if he could have foreseen that the theories of historical evolution of the German Idealist philosophers Lessing, Schelling and Fichte and also Hegel would embody the Joachite fantasy of the three ages. Comte had the idea that history went through three phases, an ascent from the theological to the metaphysical and finally to the scientific stage.

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Hegel saw history as a progress of different stages. Just as a single human
being progresses from childhood through youth to maturity, so human cultures progressed from the "Oriental world" through the Greek and Roman experiences and into the "Christian world," (medieval and modern Europe). The idea of an engine of progress, and that history has meaning and direction has powered a great deal of craziness. One on the right side of history has the right and even the duty to destroy those on the wrong side of history. Hegel's apotheosis or fulfillment was the Prussian state.

Followers of Hegel split into left Hegelians the most notable being Karl Marx and right Hegelians who were mainly German nationalists. Hegel opposed individualist concepts of freedom contending that only absorption in an organic society generates self-realisation for the individual.

Nationalist theorists added the concept that all the peoples on earth their group was peculiarly fitted to bring the glory of their nation to the world. Since the nineteenth century nationalisms stemmed from people who in general accepted the Bible that specified the Jews as the chosen people somehow the Jews must be shown to be usurpers.

The Nazi engine of history was the race struggle. In 1923 Nazi Moeller van den Bruck coined the phrase, "the Third Reich". The Holy Roman Empire was the first, Bismarck's Germany the second and the Nazis referred to their Germany after the takeover in 1933 in van den Bruck's phrase as "the Third Reich" or in millenarian terminology, "the Thousand Year Reich". It lasted until 1945.

The Marxist engine of history was the class struggle. Marx’s three stages were primitive communism in scarcity, class struggle under capitalism and advanced communism in plenty.

The outcome of this was the justification of state tyranny under Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini and Mao and the murder of millions. The we/they philosophies of class struggle, nationalism and race struggle supported these murders.

All of the above mythologies are versions of a belief that history is controlled by some higher power and has a higher meaning and are all nonsense.

Dear David f,
What an interesting and concise journey through (parts of) West’s cultural history! Many things come in pairs (magnetic poles and charges in physics, yin-yang, content-form, the binary system that our computers “run on”, etc), and many triples - imaginary as they are - help us to picture reality, something like the focusing system in cameras. One, of course, is the Christian Trinity and you are right that some Christian thinkers linked their mental speculations, mental triples, to this Tripple par excellence.

Another triple that my father brought me up on was reflected on Plato’s three norms, or ideals (primary categories), beauty, truth and goodness corresponding to the (a) aesthetic (“primordial”, “unanalyed”, “semiconscious” experiences, Erlebnis in German), (b) rational, (c) moral.

Oliver,
Could you provide a quote to support your claim that the (contemporary) Catholic Church finds the existence of a tree older than 6000 years and the fact that the Earth is not flat, “problematic”?

Oliver,
I never claimed history was an illusion. I never said history is any type of trickery. No one here suggested that the earth was flat.

You are putting words in other people’s mouths.

The main reason I’ve lost inclination to engage with AJ is his constant accusations of lies and deception. We come here to this website to engage with others and hear different points of view. I aim to put my opinions in good faith. However, one cannot have a civil conversation with someone who thinks of you as a lying scoundrel. It just doesn’t work.

There’s no pleasure in that. But if you want to go down that line, then you and AJ are free to have the discussion to yourselves.

You talk about modernity (in the context of scientific findings) as if these were at odds with Christian beliefs. I and others on this website have often discussed the weighty contributions Christians (and other theists) have made to modern science. AJ accuses creationists of never using the scientific method. Yet it was creationists who invented the scientific method. From the sharp rise in scientific investigation; from the time of Bacon, through the next few centuries; that critical period when the West was forming it’s view of knowledge and science (and entering modernity), can you name one famous scientist from this period who didn’t believe Biblical Scriptures to be true and that the world was something in the order of 6,000 years old?

Oliver, you contrast modernity and building space ships with Scripture believers who built oxe carts. Are you making any serious point or are you just thinking aloud?

Earlier I mentioned how NASA was founded in a country that claims a strong Christian culture. If much of the US population has trouble swallowing Darwin, and prefer some form of creationism, then it might be interesting to investigate how many of the NASA space ships were built by people who thought the world less than 6000 years old.

Why don’t you Google search it? (Our faithful fountain of truth!) You might surprise yourself.