What Do I Believe?

[◊ crazyguy123 ◊]

 

 

When humans kill their babies, it is evil because they are attacking the image of God. 

 

In the Bible, your god commands humans to kill babies. Is it perfectly okay when your god commands it, but not when humans do it for their own selfish purposes? Sounds a bit intellectually dishonest if you ask me. Personally, I think your argument is invalid because of the very fact that your god commands humans to kill them.

[Ravenstar]

Okay.. now I have to reiterate that for some people bible god is necessary. They would be sociopathic barbarians without it.

 

You make claims that are clearly non-scriptural. There is NO text in the bible that says there was death or even meat-eating animals in Genesis.. you are making shit up now to be comfortable with it. I remember one text saying 'and the lion will lay down with the lamb' - which suggests that there was no death before the fall. I have to go to work now and don't have time to shred your obvious sophistry. Your assertations are baseless, unless you can cite.

 

 

Still wondering why the Enuma Elish, written BEFORE the bible and having no references to Yahweh (though the Canaanite works do, as the brother and rival of Baal, along with 68 other sons of the high God El - you know the original god of the hebrews before they started following the mountain war god, yahweh) shouldn't be taken as a proof that the bible is pretty much a collection of myths and stories and BORROWINGS from other cultures.

[HymenaeusAlexander]

 

However, I’m butting in here because I want to try to help you understand some things that you may not be aware of.

I’m aware of many arguments, none of which are damning to the claims of the resurrection.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Were you just looking for an opportunity to insert a retort? I enumerated two things. One was to make you aware that not everyone on this board is totally unfamiliar with your version of the gospel. The other was to remind you that, as the one making claims, you have assumed what is known as the “burden of proof”. I’m sure you are well aware of many arguments that are not at all damning to the claims of the resurrection. I can build straw men all day as well.

 

 

You have assumed a sizable burden of proof here and yet you keep trying to shift that burden to your detractors in this thread.

If you are looking for proof, there is none. God’s word makes it clear that no one is persuaded to believe through their own reason. It is possible for anyone to hypothesize an alternative to the evidence. Even a simple “I choose to believe there is some other explanation” is sufficient rational grounds to deny the resurrection.

Then why are you even making references to things like evidence? You are being deceptive and disingenuous with statements like this:

 

In terms of the scriptures, these were validated by Jesus, who proved his authority to do so by raising himself from the dead.

 

I can go over to my bookshelf and pick up a collection of translated Greek manuscripts claiming to contain eyewitness accounts of the risen Christ.

 

… the disciples knew Jesus, they touched him, they ate fish with him. Jesus spoke with them about specific things, including Peter's betrayal.They did not see a hazy apparition from across the sea and decide it was Jesus.

If Peter knew that his testimony about Jesus' resurrection was a lie, why would he volunteer to be crucified due to his hope in the resurrection, rather than just deny him?

 

The Bible is a library of texts, including many historical narratives. Virtually all of recorded human history comes to us through recorded historical narratives. While it is true that people in the Bible, like Jesus make theological claims, the historical narrative itself is evidence on its own, particularly when the details in those narratives is heavily corroborated by external evidence about the culture and time.

Regardless of the theological claims, historians consider the Biblical narratives generally accurate.

 

Unlike a novel, many of the Biblical texts are written as historical narrative in order to record actual events. Not only are the scriptures the most ancient texts ever in widespread use, they are the only ancient religious texts which record historical detail as history, including references to real world places, times, people and events.

 

I can sympathize with your position. It is difficult to trust an account that describes events out of our own experience. At the same time I do this all the time. I do not understand exotic dark matter, and it is utterly out of my experience to measure and detect. However, I know that I will never personally measure and detect everything that there is to measure and detect. And so I trust accounts of credible witnesses who have measured and detected these things.

 

Surely, few can match Thomas' skeptism, who despite the testimony of all his fellow disciples would not believe until he touched the wounds.

 

One thing that lends credibility to the Biblical accounts of the miraculous is their nature and people's response to them. None of the miracles are susceptible to vaudeville type trickery. The responses to them is not they they were fraudulent, but that they were demonically achieved. The people healed were not unverifiable. The blind man and his parents in John9 were even brought before the council, and the man was publicly excommunicated.

 

Furthermore, we should be reluctant (as so many modernists have done) to dismiss the supernatural out of hand. We live in a universe that once was not. Our plenum of existence demands a supernatural and uncreated first cause. Jesus Christ broke into human history claiming to be that uncreated, supernatural first cause.

I could give more examples, but what we have above is just a smattering of “evidence” and arguments that you put forward in an apparent attempt to compel people to accept your assertions as true. That is, by definition, an attempt to prove something. By all appearances you are attempting to do the very thing that you admit cannot be done. You pretend things like reason and evidence matter and then you admit they don’t? Why are you wasting our time offering these things? Why do you pretend to adhere to some kind of Natural Theology and then fall back on some kind of presuppositionalist or fedeistic approach?

 

Scripture teaches that belief comes in the mystery of hearing the word through the operation of the Holy Spirit, and that unbelief comes through our nature, sin, and false teaching which turn us away from hope in Christ and toward the self-righteous justification of our sinful desires.

And yet you are about to make reference to a “huge piece of evidence”. Why? You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth.

 

Even so, you seem surprisingly aloof to what a huge piece of evidence the texts are. It is not an attitude I've encounterrd much of in recent critical scholarship. If you go back hundreds of years, you will find many bold claims about the lack of historicity in the new testament texts, but most of those claims have fallen in the piecemeal discovery of corroborating evidence over the centuries.

From my perspective, you seem surprisingly aloof as to how unreliable the texts are. It’s like you’ve missed about 180 years of historical-critical analysis. It’s an attitude I’ve only encountered among those who immerse themselves solely in theological writings that confirm their own biases. And there you go again making reference to “corroborating evidence” but without actually putting any forward. We’re not talking about claims that Paul existed or there was a Roman prefect named Pilate. I listed a few of the events and claims we’re talking about and chief among them was the resurrection of Jesus.

 

 

First, you really need some sources to corroborate the New Testament...

The text is continually corroborated, and constantly validated to be free from anachronism. Just a few years ago, higher critics were insisting Pontius Pilate was a mythical invention of the Christians. Now they are insisting the Christians got his title wrong? How much corroboration is needed? I will tell you.

Since you are an unbeliever, there will never be enough for you to trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.

 

But there is enough that scholars, including unbelieving ones, accept much of the general historicity of the accounts.

Which unbelieving scholars? And what do you mean by “general historicity”? First, you’ve made more claims and not offered any sources. Second, we’re not talking about ordinary claims like the existence of Pontius Pilate. Third, even ordinary claims like the Census of Quirinius cannot be reconciled to the text. Fourth, even the texts themselves often don’t agree on some basic, ordinary claims like Jesus’ supposed genealogy. Just how many corroborated events do you think are contained in the gospels, for example?

[HymenaeusAlexander]

 

These are all things that people all over that region should have taken note of, and yet non-Christian sources like Josephus find the lives of John the Baptist and some Egyptian who led a failed revolt more noteworthy than Jesus Christ?

Yet still he notes Jesus Christ, clearly there is some corruption by interpolation, but uninterpolated copies still contain a reference. The Christians in Jerusalem were a rag-tag band living in communal poverty. In contrast, that Egyptian's failed revolt brought armies of Rome against Judea, which was and important political event.

Are you deliberately ignoring the extraordinary events I listed? If we are to take the claims of the book of Acts seriously, for example, then there should be a reasonable expectation that someone like a Josephus would have written about events like many thousands of people in Jerusalem along with many of the Jewish priests rapidly converting to an early Jewish sect that laid claim to a crucified and risen Messiah (Acts 2:41, 4:4, 6:7, 21:20). Wouldn’t it have been noteworthy for over 1/10th of the population of a city like Jerusalem to suddenly convert to this particular religious sect after the preaching of a couple of public sermons by followers of a man who had been recently executed as an enemy of the state? Wouldn’t Roman authorities take notice and make a record of something like that? That’s a pretty damned important political event, not to mention other things I mentioned which you ignored.

 

 

Now I realize that absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence

I’m not a scholar of ancient texts, and I’m guessing you aren’t either. I see little value to us continually posting our lack of expertise at one another.

You don’t need to be a scholar of ancient texts to look at what is offered as evidence. This is a cop-out. Plain and simple. You’ve not even made a decent appeal to authority. You just keep making nebulous references to “scholars”.

 

I respect your concerns with the text and external corroboration, and I agree that they appear damning on their face. When I was in the process of becoming a Christian a little over ten years ago, these same issues were show-stoppers for me.

However, you should also consider that many of these arguments do not hold up well under deep scrutiny. That is why there are non-Christian Biblical scholars who do not put forth these arguments.

At one point I was searching for anything that could convince me that it wasn’t true. I was not even a Christian believer at that point, and I just needed a good reason to write off Jesus for good. However, the strangest thing happened. Whenever I found an anti-Christian argument that had me completely persuaded, I also made sure to deeply examine the rebuttals to the arguments and translations of the source material when I could get it. What was so strange to me was that I investigated these claims, often most persuasive anti-Christian arguments ended up persuading me the most the texts authenticity.

Now you’re acting like studying the arguments and looking at the evidence is what persuaded you. Based on what you’ve stated previously, I have no reason to believe you’re even being honest here.

 

What you describe is the exact opposite of what happened to me. I was a believer. I assumed the Bible was true. Every word of it. I believed there was a God. I knew I was a sinner. I believed I could not save myself from the power and penalty of sin and I believed that faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ was the only way to ever be saved. I even believed that regeneration preceded faith. When I began to seriously consider the arguments of others without assuming they were incorrect from the outset, I reached a point where I was searching for anything that could convince me that the claims of Christianity were true. However, the inevitable happened. Whenever I found a Christian argument that I thought was completely persuasive, I also made sure to examine the rebuttals to the arguments and translations of the source material when I could get that. As I investigated these claims, often what I thought were the most persuasive Christian arguments ended up persuading me the most that the Bible was merely a collection of ancient texts written by ordinary men without benefit of any divine inspiration whatsoever.

 

Perhaps you can see why, given your disingenuous references to things like “evidence” and your constant unsubstantiated appeals to authority, I might think you’re either exaggerating above or are genuinely ignorant of some things. The other option is that you are a troll. The more of your posts I read, the more I lean to that explanation.

 

 

[Jesus] was indeed a failed prophet regardless of whether or not the resurrection occurred

I find this response fascinating, if and when I have time and I will repost this for discussion in another thread.

 

I hope you will. Be sure to go a step further and explain why the statement “In terms of the scriptures, these were validated by Jesus, who proved his authority to do so by raising himself from the dead” isn’t a complete non sequitur.

 

 

You see, if appeal to the supernatural is not to be ruled out as a possible explanation for things like the empty tomb and post-resurrection appearances, why should we discount the possibility of explaining those things with demonic deception, for example?

Certainly, the Jews attributed Jesus’ works to the demonic to his face. Again, it is rational to deny the resurrection based even on “There must be some other explanation.” If you want to propose alternatives like demons or even that Jesus was an alien robot, I’ve no doubt you will be able to brainstorm and infinite number of alternatives to justify your unbelief.

But Jesus is the truth and the truth remains. You and I will crumble to dust in a few more heartbeats, but his word will never pass away:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. (Jn10)

 

And now you’re speaking out of this side of your mouth again. You know you can’t rely on the weight of the evidence so you have to come back to this. Why even offer any? Why pretend? Also, you’ve completely missed the point. The Torah gives us a way to measure competing supernatural claims. I wasn’t offering just some other alternate explanation. I was giving a “biblical” one.

[HymenaeusAlexander]

 

Think of the Millerites after the Great Disappointment. Did they all just throw their hands up in the air and go back to their former lives? No. Many maintained their beliefs, modified them and increased their zeal.

This analogy exposes what makes the accounts so credible. If the apostles had suffered lives of persecution, torture, hardship, celibacy, and dying far away from home without wealth or power for a vision someone else had, then that would be understandable. People will die for something they believe in that they haven’t seen. I myself pray that I will have the endurance to endure brutal torture, hardship, and execution for Jesus’ name, despite the fact that my eyes have never seen the risen Christ.

But these men apostled by Jesus would need to endure such things knowing for certain that they were proclaiming lies, and not helpful lies either, but lies which served no other end than causing misery to those who believed them.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1Cor15)

 

And now we’re back to this side of your mouth. But let’s deal with it anyway since you’re once again attempting to offer evidence and arguments in an attempt to persuade me that your assertions are true aka, attempting to prove something. You assert that “these men apostled by Jesus would need to endure such things [lives of persecution, torture, hardship, celibacy, and dying far away from home without wealth or power] knowing for certain that they were proclaiming lies, and not helpful lies either, but lies which served no other end than causing misery to those who believed them.” You’ve not provided evidence that this assertion is true. In order to make the account credible you have to merely assume a great deal here. Do you want me to enumerate the many assumptions you’ve made in this little statement? I’ll give you a few:

 

1. The men that Jesus purportedly discipled really did proclaim a bodily resurrection from the dead.

2. These men endured lives of persecution, torture, hardship, celibacy and dying far away from home without wealth or power.

3. They knew they would endure those things and could have at any point recanted and lived lives free of persecution, torture, hardship, celibacy and would’ve otherwise died at home with wealth and power.

4. They knew for certain that they were proclaiming lies.

5. These lies served no other end than to cause misery to those who believed them.

6. The men knew that those lies served no other end than to cause misery to those who believed them.

 

In order for your argument to have any weight at all, all of those must be somehow supported. Even if you could, you’d still be relying on other assumptions about the human psychology of first century Galilean peasants.

 

 

Additionally, the notion of a dying and rising son of the gods was easily borrowed from the influential Hellenistic culture where such mythic motifs are numerous.

The idea of bodily resurrection of the dead was revolting to Hellenistic culture, where death meant liberation from the taint and corruption of flesh. The Greeks considered the idea of a corpse rising from the dead repellent on many levels. They hated the idea so much that early gnostic sects utterly rejected the humanity of Jesus.

These sorts of arguments can seem convincing at first, particularly when you look at a summary. However if you actually go to source material, you find nothing in the gods rebirthing with the planting cycle that remotely resembles the bodily resurrection of Christ.

 

Again, you’ve missed the point. Borrowing does not entail a one-to-one correspondence. It does not rule out the synthesis of prior tropes. Statements like “nothing…remotely resembling” are nothing more than empty rhetoric. Also, I’m pretty sure you’re painting Romanized Hellenistic thought with a rather broad brush. You’re also assuming a bit too much about what Jesus’ earliest followers and even some of the writers of canonized texts actually believed about the resurrection.

 

 

Outside of the later development of legends, we simply don’t have any evidence that any one of them died for holding to the belief that Jesus rose from the dead bodily.

Is this a tacit admission that the new testament is historical in contrast with the legends surrounding the apostles?

 

I can’t tell if you’re just trying to be silly here or if you’re really unaware of the technique of granting something for the sake of argument. Consider this a tacit admission that at this point I wouldn’t put either past you.

 

 

They would’ve known the disciples could’ve simply said, “Yeah, that’s not him. It’s just some imposter body you’ve dressed up to look like him.

Not only was corpse desecration an unthinkable act for the Jews (including the disciples), but that engagement would likely also have been recorded in the new testament. However there’s no reference to even a lying claim about a body that somewhere existed.

 

I didn’t say there was. You appear to be confused. I was trying to demonstrate why the Sanhedrin wouldn’t have produced the corpse. Did you miss that part? Your response suggests that you didn’t even understand the argument.

 

The truth is that Jesus’ Messianic claims should have been transferred to James, who should have become the new messianic hope. This is what happened with the dozen other Messiah’s popped up in the years surrounding Jesus’ life.

You’re making more unwarranted assumptions and not even bothering to support your claim...again. I’d really like to see the evidence that every other messianic claimant that arose in the first century had their claim transferred to their brother without exception. Also, I thought you weren’t a scholar. I thought you saw “little value” in doing this. Why do you persist? Maybe because you’re being insincere again and didn’t really mean that when you said it?

[florduh]

Nobody really cares what you believe, Ben. I gather that you believe some fables from the Bible and some other crazy shit, too. So what? You have demonstrated that you have no evidence to present that any of it is true. Is there a point to this endless thread?

[HymenaeusAlexander]

 

All of this assumes that the writer of Acts is giving us reliable historical information about when the disciples started gaining the attention of the authorities.

You seem unaware that the historicity of these texts have been under attack since Schleiermacher. Hundreds of years of vetting has substantiated the accuracy of many claims in the texts which were presumed duplicitous by anti-Christians. You propose every uncorroborated detail as if it is evidence against it, which is an absurd approach to any historical text.

 

 

No I don’t. Were you paying attention? Did you read what I wrote? You’re building a straw man with statements like “You propose every uncorroborated detail as if it is evidence against it.” That’s not at all what I’m proposing. You’re deliberately misrepresenting my position. But why should that surprise me? You’ve been nothing if not dishonest.

 

 

Supernatural claims in and of themselves are extraordinarily improbable.

I’d love to see your stochastic model of supernatural occurrences. Jesus’ resurrection was not an event of low probability. It was a miracle. It is a miraculous claim, not a claim of improbable happenstance.

 

 

OK. I take it back. You’re not only unaware of the last 180 years of historical-critical analysis. Your ignorance apparently goes all the way back to the Enlightenment.

 

 

Claims like someone rising from the dead require extraordinary evidence

Clearly. But Jesus clearly taught that instead of receiving extraordinary evidence, we would receive his word.

 

 

And yet there are still attempts at offering evidence given both by you in this and the other thread as well as various NT writers and countless apologists.

 

 

Now suppose I claimed a dragon named Smaug handed me that package before he flew away down the block.

I would just hypothetically torture you until you admitted it wasn’t true.

 

 

That might work if I believed it wasn’t true. Or it might not work at all. Or it might work even if I believed it was true. Or you might just be sadistic and like to torture people and I might get the impression that you’re going to torture me no matter what I say.

 

 

This is your burden. This is what you have to overcome. Good luck

It’s actually not my burden. I’m certainly not able to overcome unbelief. That is God’s work. Going from unbelief to repentance and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins is a miracle on par Jesus’ resurrection. My burden is to proclaim his word.

 

You say that and yet you’ve at least attempted to go much farther than that. Furthermore statements like the following are nothing more than lies:

 

"I find the evidence for Jesus' resurrection very persuasive. At the same time, if you were to produce Jesus' bones, then I would walk away and be done with the whole thing. Even something like an early textual referrence to Jesus' burial shrine, or his magical knucklebone would make the case for the resurrection much less compelling."

 

Do you really mean this? Because by your own admission, your faith is not a result of looking at the evidence. It’s a result of hearing the word of God and believing. Any evidence is merely superfluous."

 

Let me put it this way. Do you believe the scriptures are true because “these were validated by Jesus, who proved his authority to do so by raising himself from the dead”, or do you believe that Jesus raised himself from the dead because that is what it says in the scriptures which you believe to be true?

[HymenaeusAlexander]

 

As such, any attempt at asking you questions would be a pointless exercise in your ability to regurgitate the interpretations of the Protestant Bible provided by Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, et al. I can do that. I can read.

But it would not be unreasonable to assume that you haven't. Not even many Lutheran pastors have sunk their teeth into Chemnitz' Two Natures in Christ.

 

Furthermore, there are many things I believe which are not covered in the Lutheran confessions.

 

Do you really think the members of this board are interested in hearing you regurgitate Lutheran views of the hypostatic union? We’re all so aloof and unaware of all these scholars that have firmly established the historicity of the New Testament writings. Why would we have any interest in Chemnitz’ theological gymnastics? Most of us would probably assume formulations of the hypostatic union would clearly violate the law of identity anyway.

 

 

So please, pretty please, with sugar on top, provide a defensible and reasoned argument substantiating your assertions and deal with the solid counter-arguments that have already been presented to you with something other than merely more scripture quotes.

Better, more qualified men than I have destroyed the arguments being re-offered here, sometimes centuries ago. I do not expect that re-offering those rebuttals in response is particularly useful. After all, you can read.

 

But, as you pointed out above regarding Lutheran confessional standards, it would not be unreasonable to assume that we haven't. Correct? So go ahead. Destroy the arguments being re-offered here. Be sure to use something other than assertions and nebulous appeals to authority. Until you do your assertions that you can are empty. I’ve yet to see a solid refutation of Strauss’ internal dismantling of the birth, crucifixion and resurrection narratives and it’s been around for almost 200 years.

 

I know that all of you are comfortable pretending that you have deep levels of expertise in textual criticism, but I doubt any of you reads a single ancient language, or has any formal training. I do not have this formal training, nor am I an expert. I am comfortable admitting this.

However, I've also seen many false statements and widely discredited statements, that should not persuade a studied amateur. Instead what is offered is an avalanche of uncritical arguments and sometimes flat out distortions. It doesn't lend credibility to your extimonies when not a single person has done enough amateur investigation to recognize these.

And this is where your ignorance shines.

 

The fact that they are uncritically swallowed by the cult of unbelief feels a lot like when I was growing up in church and pastors would just make up random things, and then they would get passed around from church to church with no investigation.

I agree that non-Christians swallow a good deal of things uncritically. However, it’s kind of ironic that you would be accusing “the cult of unbelief” of swallowing uncritically evaluated claims when unbelief is the default position for most unsupported claims. And I know what you mean about making up random things that get passed around from church to church with no investigation. It’s been going on since the beginning of Christianity. You end up with silly legends like Luther proclaiming “Here I stand, I can do no other” at Worms when there is very little evidence to substantiate such a claim.

 

You forget that I too have been an ex-Christian. I have felt my worldview crumble. My challenge to the bunch of you, if you are intellectually honest, is to go seriously evaluate these arguments, and start keeping each other honest on the ones which simply aren't true, or the ones that are simply mindless attacks. I am one person with a finite amount of time. So far I have only managed to respond to a few posts. Nobody has offered anything which causes me concern for the veracity of the text. However, people seem utterly convinced that they've made these perfectly damning arguments. Sharpen each others iron.

People have made perfectly damning arguments. You’ve either ignored them or dismissed them with appeals to unspecified authorities. You won’t be convinced because you don’t want to be convinced. You’re delusional. You will either purposely or unintentionally overlook, dismiss, misunderstand or misrepresent solid arguments in favor of the weaker ones.

 

Your challenge that we engage in “keeping each other honest on the ones which simply aren't true, or the ones that are simply mindless attacks” is actually not a bad one. It’s the best thing you’ve offered. Members of this board have tried this. I’ve attempted it myself with respect to Christ-myth theory in particular and have occasionally called people out on specious and false statements. However, that can be quite time consuming and isn’t really the primary purpose of this forum.

 

Your challenge also makes me think you might be a troll and that you don’t really believe your own BS.

[florduh]

 

Your challenge also makes me think you might be a troll and that you don’t really believe your own BS. 

 

 

Hello???

[HymenaeusAlexander]

 

 

Your challenge also makes me think you might be a troll and that you don’t really believe your own BS. 

 

 

Hello???

 

[HymenaeusAlexander]

You make claims that are clearly non-scriptural. There is NO text in the bible that says there was death or even meat-eating animals in Genesis.. you are making shit up now to be comfortable with it. I remember one text saying 'and the lion will lay down with the lamb' - which suggests that there was no death before the fall. I have to go to work now and don't have time to shred your obvious sophistry. Your assertations are baseless, unless you can cite.

 

Eh, if he's of the biologos type bent, which it sounds like he is, he's going to probably go with these and then offer some kind of interpretation that attempts to wiggle out of Romans 8:18-25 all while assuming that animal suffering is somehow "good".

[duderonomy]

 

You make claims that are clearly non-scriptural. There is NO text in the bible that says there was death or even meat-eating animals in Genesis.. you are making shit up now to be comfortable with it. I remember one text saying 'and the lion will lay down with the lamb' - which suggests that there was no death before the fall. I have to go to work now and don't have time to shred your obvious sophistry. Your assertations are baseless, unless you can cite.

 

Eh, if he's of the biologos type bent, which it sounds like he is, he's going to probably go with these and then offer some kind of interpretation that attempts to wiggle out of Romans 8:18-25 all while assuming that animal suffering is somehow "good".

 

 

I don't see how 8:18-25 differs from the verses I found in your link.

 

Oh, and the cartoon you posted? Funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I'm still LOLing at it.

[HymenaeusAlexander]

 

 

You make claims that are clearly non-scriptural. There is NO text in the bible that says there was death or even meat-eating animals in Genesis.. you are making shit up now to be comfortable with it. I remember one text saying 'and the lion will lay down with the lamb' - which suggests that there was no death before the fall. I have to go to work now and don't have time to shred your obvious sophistry. Your assertations are baseless, unless you can cite.

 

Eh, if he's of the biologos type bent, which it sounds like he is, he's going to probably go with these and then offer some kind of interpretation that attempts to wiggle out of Romans 8:18-25 all while assuming that animal suffering is somehow "good".

 

 

I don't see how 8:18-25 differs from the verses I found in your link.

 

I don't either, quite frankly. The Christians that argue for animal death and suffering before the fall and the Christians who argue against it are both relying largely on an argument from silence. The verses I linked to can fit into either a post-lapsarian or pre-lapsarian paradigm. One tricky passage for Christians that want to argue in favor of animal death prior to the fall is Romans 8:18-25. It's not impossible to offer an interpretation that gets around the problem, but it does require some finesse. The Bible can be marshalled in the service of just about any theological position.

 

Since the Lutheran confessions are largely silent on the issue, barnacleben is free to cherry-pick whichever interpretation tickles his fancy. Nevertheless, Luther was a six day guy (the only other position at the time being Augustine's single-day view) who even openly rejected heliocentricism on biblical grounds. Conservative Lutheran groups like the LCMS typically promote YEC teaching and deny any kind of death before the fall, but I don't think they've ever taken an official position on the issue.

 

It's an unenviable dilemma in any case for people like barnacleben. Either he has to side with the historic Christian understanding of pre-fall conditions and admit that his god is a deceiver who plants all this evidence in favor of an old earth and evolutionary biology, or he has to reject nearly 2,000 years of accepted interpretation in favor of the scientific evidence and admit that his god is a sadist who called every bit of natural animal suffering "good". He has apparently embraced the second horn of the dilemma. Frankly, science would be better served if more Christians in this country would do as barnacleben has.

[Ravenstar]

Great stuff guys.. my point exactly. Where the bible is silent they make stuff up.. and it always seems to be stuff that supports their particular flavor of christianity.

 

I have a friend who is muslim. Him and I argue over the Torah frequently (he tried to argue the Koran.. but I refuse because I have very little knowledge of it) He is convinced of it's claims.. especially the historical validity of it's characters, such as Abraham and Moses. He gets a little miffed when I laugh and ask him if he has met these people? Where is the evidence they actually existed? Or that it is almost proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Moses did not write the Law... even if he did exist. Then he shifts to 'miracles'.. it's very predictable... and starts with making shit up... some anecdote he heard, somewhere. Then Pascal's wager.. muslims are very, VERY similar to christians. The names may be a bit different - but the arguments are the same. 

 

hmm... what does that say about christianity?

 

Fortunately we have agreed to argue respectfully. It's fun sometimes.

[Guest end3]

Great stuff guys.. my point exactly. Where the bible is silent they make stuff up.. and it always seems to be stuff that supports their particular flavor of christianity.

 

I have a friend who is muslim. Him and I argue over the Torah frequently (he tried to argue the Koran.. but I refuse because I have very little knowledge of it) He is convinced of it's claims.. especially the historical validity of it's characters, such as Abraham and Moses. He gets a little miffed when I laugh and ask him if he has met these people? Where is the evidence they actually existed? Or that it is almost proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Moses did not write the Law... even if he did exist. Then he shifts to 'miracles'.. it's very predictable... and starts with making shit up... some anecdote he heard, somewhere. Then Pascal's wager.. muslims are very, VERY similar to christians. The names may be a bit different - but the arguments are the same. 

 

hmm... what does that say about christianity?

 

Fortunately we have agreed to argue respectfully. It's fun sometimes.

Science never makes stuff up....maybe we could call it a theological theory or proposal.  Then we would skate by like all the rest of reality.

[Ravenstar]

End3?  Really?  No.. science doesn't make shit up.. the closest to that would be an hypothesis (which is someone's neat idea - but no one takes seriously until the research and experimentation is done), but then it has to be proven right or wrong under scrupulous standards and extensive testing and corroboration with sibling sciences.. like evolution has to correspond with archaeology, geology and biochemistry. If scientists make shit up they have their peers to answer to, and it's pretty competitive.. because the ones that have demonstrable, viable hypotheses are the ones who get the grant money to develop them.

 

Then it becomes a Theory, once proven to be viable in the real world (best workable solution given the evidence and able to be used in a practical sense, peer-reviewed.. and always up to scrutiny and adjusted when new information comes in, self-correcting, BECAUSE science doesn't say that any theory is perfect and the last word on anything... that comes from laymen.)

 

The layperson's idea of a 'theory' is akin to a wild guess, emotional conclusion or 'common sense' deduction and has no relation to scientific theory.

 

I thought you knew this already...   

 

Unfortunately.. scientists being the geeks they are, and their lack of social aptitude and literary ability, at the layman's level, makes for a lot of misunderstandings. They speak a different language than you or I... sometimes one comes along that can dumb it down for us.. Like Dr. Greene, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson.. these are few and far between. (seriously, I think science should have some sort of public relations organization - the gap between science and the average persons understanding of it is vast)

 

I have a friend who is a Professor (Ph.D.) of mathematics. I'm not a stupid person but I have to ask him to explain in simple terms a lot of what he talks about.. it's a language I just do not know and would take years of study to get the basics down.

 

There is no parallel between theology and science.

[florduh]

theological theory

 

C'mon, end. Don't play dumb. You are not ignorant about science and the scientific method. 

[mymistake]

 

Great stuff guys.. my point exactly. Where the bible is silent they make stuff up.. and it always seems to be stuff that supports their particular flavor of christianity.

 

I have a friend who is muslim. Him and I argue over the Torah frequently (he tried to argue the Koran.. but I refuse because I have very little knowledge of it) He is convinced of it's claims.. especially the historical validity of it's characters, such as Abraham and Moses. He gets a little miffed when I laugh and ask him if he has met these people? Where is the evidence they actually existed? Or that it is almost proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Moses did not write the Law... even if he did exist. Then he shifts to 'miracles'.. it's very predictable... and starts with making shit up... some anecdote he heard, somewhere. Then Pascal's wager.. muslims are very, VERY similar to christians. The names may be a bit different - but the arguments are the same. 

 

hmm... what does that say about christianity?

 

Fortunately we have agreed to argue respectfully. It's fun sometimes.

Science never makes stuff up....maybe we could call it a theological theory or proposal.  Then we would skate by like all the rest of reality.

 

 

You will make a fine ex-Christian someday.  

[Guest end3]

Just thinking that "scientists" have theory to fill in the gaps before the gaps are explained.  Why is it then not OK for Christians to speculate about the gaps?

[florduh]

Scientific theories aren't unfounded guesses. They are based on the best available evidence and logical extrapolations adhering to the known laws of physics, biology, etc. These theories are always open to revision if new information comes to light.

 

Religious theories, if they can even be called that, are not evidence based and usually become dogma carved in stone.

[Guest end3]

 

End3?  Really?  No.. science doesn't make shit up.. the closest to that would be an hypothesis (which is someone's neat idea - but no one takes seriously until the research and experimentation is done), but then it has to be proven right or wrong under scrupulous standards and extensive testing and corroboration with sibling sciences.. like evolution has to correspond with archaeology, geology and biochemistry. If scientists make shit up they have their peers to answer to, and it's pretty competitive.. because the ones that have demonstrable, viable hypotheses are the ones who get the grant money to develop them.

 

Then it becomes a Theory, once proven to be viable in the real world (best workable solution given the evidence and able to be used in a practical sense, peer-reviewed.. and always up to scrutiny and adjusted when new information comes in, self-correcting, BECAUSE science doesn't say that any theory is perfect and the last word on anything... that comes from laymen.)

 

The layperson's idea of a 'theory' is akin to a wild guess, emotional conclusion or 'common sense' deduction and has no relation to scientific theory.

 

I thought you knew this already...   

 

Unfortunately.. scientists being the geeks they are, and their lack of social aptitude and literary ability, at the layman's level, makes for a lot of misunderstandings. They speak a different language than you or I... sometimes one comes along that can dumb it down for us.. Like Dr. Greene, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson.. these are few and far between. (seriously, I think science should have some sort of public relations organization - the gap between science and the average persons understanding of it is vast)

 

I have a friend who is a Professor (Ph.D.) of mathematics. I'm not a stupid person but I have to ask him to explain in simple terms a lot of what he talks about.. it's a language I just do not know and would take years of study to get the basics down.

 

There is no parallel between theology and science.

 

One def of theory provides speculation without testing.  Hypothesis could be used as well I guess. 

 

To the bolded.  I realize there are not many people that will subscribe to a science/theology relationship, but there are also not many visionaries either.

[Guest end3]

Scientific theories aren't unfounded guesses. They are based on the best available evidence and logical extrapolations adhering to the known laws of physics, biology, etc. These theories are always open to revision if new information comes to light.

 

Religious theories, if they can even be called that, are not evidence based and usually become dogma carved in stone.

You left out that the latter is somehow a crime...

[Fernweh]

Just thinking that "scientists" have theory to fill in the gaps before the gaps are explained.  Why is it then not OK for Christians to speculate about the gaps?

 

Science is willing to admit a gap is unknown and look for new evidence. Christians build theme parks about the gaps.

[florduh]

Christians build theme parks about the gaps.

 

Classic.

[florduh]

You left out that the latter is somehow a crime...

 

 

I merely demonstrate the difference in the way science and religion approach an unanswered question.