Science, Religion, and Ignorance.

[damien26]

Interesting yet
Here is the best answer from my view point. Science and Religion are the first version of Yin and Yang.
Science answers things we do not understand. While religion or faith answers things we cant understand. is that the same thing not quite......Throughout history when man didn't understand things they believed it to be an act of God or Gods(religion/faith). It is not until later that things like lightning are determined to be electrical disturbances(not mystical lightning bolts). Scientific evidence that is reproducible is a fact. And before any nay-sayers true to discredit that fact i remind you of this. The very computer, phone, or other electrical device you are using to read this is a direct product of scientific evidence and scientific facts. Man's intelligence has evolve with his science to allow Man to understand more of his surroundings. Science is not perfect but it is more concrete and proved thru experiments and logic.
Comparatively, Religion also has its place in our species timeline. We have used religion to morally guide us thru our growth into the dominant species on this planet. When used PROPERLY Religion has giving us a moral compass on how to treat each other and without that we would still be barbarian, just hunting and gathering.
My point is simple. Jesus a real man, and science has proving he did exist. There are too many references and documentation witness to discredit his existence. Anyhow, Jesus said very simply,Treat your neighbor the same way you would want to be treated, that simple idea is all we need(not quoting Jesus everyone knows the golden rule). Believe in science, Believe in Religion, but treat others the way you want to be treated. If we all do that then we can all leave better lives.

 

[adamhill302]

:elmo:

LMAOOO

Have you ever seen them

 

[Made in Heaven]

LMAOOO

Have you ever seen them

No .

 

[Lightbringer]

I don't think you're giving the correct picture here. While it is true that Exodus doesn't have any support going for it other narratives do such as the most important of them all – the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. This latter one is what carries the Christian beliefs not the Exodus.

The Exodus is part of the bible and only one example among many. If the bible is the word of God, then why would he incorporate events that never happened?

It is still debated if Jesus Christ existed to this day as a historical figure. There is as much evidence to the existence of Jesus Christ as there is evidence to King Arthur and Camelot, which is next to none aside for a few historical references which make no mention of miracles, and the earliest was 25 years after the supposed death of Christ. Yet people accept that King Arthur is a myth, while at the same time accepting that Jesus Christ was the son of God. It's very ironic.

Also, while it is true that the earliest mentions of Exodus are quite late it is recognized that the tradition reaches a lot earlier than that with a precise date being uncertain so we cannot say there are no better sources as the manuscripts we have are merely retellings of an existing narrative applied in the form of foundation myth widely recognized to have been molded during the Babylonian exile under the need to perserve Israel's identity and it needs to be looked through such lenses.

Not sure what you're saying here? Are you suggesting that the Exodus story was adopted from a different culture and then integrated into their religion, much like how Christmas was adopted from the Pagan Winter Solstice?

Even if that were the case, it wouldn't support the argument for the legitimacy of religious text nor the historical context of Jewish tradition.

Also, even if you were right that there were inaccuracies in the Bible all that would disprove is the doctrine of biblibical inneracy but that isn't a fundamental christian doctrine as I myself believe in a progressive revelation as does the majority of the Catholic Church clergy. To say you've disproved the God of Christianity through such means is naive.

The bible is supposed to be the word of God in a literal sense. If the bible has inaccuracies and falsehoods, which it does, then the claim that it is the word of God is unsubstantiated, which means that the bible is no divine book.

By your logic, gods like Zeus, Odin, Tiamat, Izanami, etc. could still exist, even though we debunked those myths.

As for what goes to testing the religion, I think we can indeed test it to a certain degree. For example, abrahamic religions make claims in regards to the natural world we observe and as such these claims are open to inquiry. We can say with confidence that the world wasn't created in 6 days, that there was no Noah's flood etc. Now as I said, this doesn't disprove everything about the God the religion is preaching but it does help us understand it better.

Can you test a miracle? Can you test the supernatural?

This goes with my previous point about the bible being the word of God in the literal sense. If the bible is promoting false information, then it's teaching a lie. Why would you keep believing in a lie?

As an analogy: Let's say that you meet a person who claims to be a wizard and he's able to do magic tricks. You are awed at first and believe that he may have some sort of power; but later you figure out how to do his tricks, which turn out to be something anyone can do with practice. He's still able to do some tricks that you haven't figured out yet, but would you continue to believe that he is in fact a real wizard?

Science and theology thus find themselves in a constructive dialogue, not conflict.

I don't see how you've come to this conclusion?

OP: I think you're just comparing two extremes there. There is a middle ground between blindly following a religion and blindly following anything a popular scientist says. It is important to research the conseus both in theology and science and then align yourself with a certian view. You are right that ignorance persists on both sides of the spectrum, but I do not think there is a specific problem in theological (religious) discussions that isn't also present in the scientific ones.

There is a fundamental difference between science and religion. The foundation of religion starts with God, and then works its way down to explain the world within that narrative. Religion does not test to see if its claims are true, they just believe in it through faith.

Science is the opposite. It starts from the ground-up. The foundation starts with the most basic details and continues to add more and more data through observation and testing. There is an entire process of creating hypothesis, to testing theories. Theories can both be proven wrong and also be proven true. Theories that are proven wrong only add to our knowledge about that subject and we learn from those mistakes in order to rework that theory.

Sure there is ignorance on both sides, but you cannot equate ignorance of religion to science and put them on the same scale as one another.

 

[Deadlift]

„The bible is supposed to be the word of God in a literal sense. If the bible has inaccuracies and falsehoods, which it does, then the claim that it is the word of God is unsubstantiated, which means that the bible is no divine book.
.

What reason do you have to think this? So far you simply taunted it without any justification. Be that as it may the Bible as you concieve it (a cover-to-cover history whispered by God to the ears of his faithful authors) is something that doesn't exist, never existed and was never thought to exist neither by the Church nor the very authors of the texts in question.

ll the writings of the Bible are a product of humans who wrote the message of God in a way that would be understandable to the people who lived at that time, written for a purpose tangible at that time and viewed through the lenses of that time.

More on the specific purposes later in my post as for now there is an even more pressing concern which you have to deal with. Your view relies on the assumption that God COULDN'T and WOULDN'T give his word in any way but that of a literal truth which He COULD NOT and WOULD NOT allow to be affected by the historical circumstances of the author writing it down.

Not only would a message unbound to any specific culture or any specific moment in history be also unrelated to any specific problem that ought to be addressed and as such would be completely without content and irrelevant to the people it was being given, it also begs the question of why have such a written revelation at all? Why not have the word imprinted directly into every human everywhere and shed the need for a collection of manuscripts whose canon would be formed strictly through human debates, without any prophets for centuries to come?
It is clear that this line of thought completely misses the point of the Bible as a revelation document. Whatever the reason for God's doing so may be, it is a fact that we're talking about a God who would opt for a progressive revelation, a God who chose to work under the limitations of human history.

The very character of the biblical God is shown to be such. There is progress of the people of Israel from worshipping El alone to considering him (under the name Yahweh) as the one sole God. There is progress from offering animal sacrifices as repentance to offering them as tributes of gratitude. There is progress from the Leviticus to a new law given by Jesus. The only story that the biblibical narratives depict is that of progress, of change in understanding, of God talking to His people in their given historical context and slowly shedding it away.

What ground then do you have to assert that a message given by such a God must be a literal word untouched by anything ungodly? It is extremely arrogant and even limiting to God to decide what He should and shouldn't do but it gets worse when the very God we're discussing is fundamentally a God of progressive convenant, a God of both the Old and the New Testaments.

Side note: I can already see you accusing me of circular reasoning – proving Bible by Bible. That's not what I'm doing. I'm just pointing out that the texts in question are talking about a God who is communicating to people progressively and is allowing his word to be understood in a skewed way for a certain time only for it to be revealed fully later down the line (which is philosophically speaking exactly what one would expect of a providential omniscient deity). I'm not claiming that on this basis there actually is a God who does all this. The point is that if the God were to exist we shouldn't expect his written word to be flawless.

Moving away from the theological exegesis to purely historical matters I want to talk about this point in particular:

It is still debated if Jesus Christ existed to this day as a historical figure. There is as much evidence to the existence of Jesus Christ as there is evidence to King Arthur and Camelot, which is next to none aside for a few historical references which make no mention of miracles, and the earliest was 25 years after the supposed death of Christ. Yet people accept that King Arthur is a myth, while at the same time accepting that Jesus Christ was the son of God. It's very ironic.

I truly hope that you are not claiming here that the existence of Jesus is in the same boat as that of King Arthur. If you are then look at the spoiler.

Spoiler

From Wikipedia:

„Virtually all scholars who write on the subject agree that Jesus existed[5][6][7][8]“

„Most contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and most biblical scholars and classical historians see the theories of his nonexistence as effectively refuted.[5][7][8][32][33][34]“

„Virtually all New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is effectively certain[4][5][6][7][nb 1][nb 2][nb 3][nb 4]“

„Virtually all scholars believe that the Christ myth theory has been refuted, and that Jesus did exist as a historical figure.[213][214][215]“

„In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory not supported by any tenured specialists in biblical criticism or cognate disciplines.“

Direct links:

You must be registered for see links

of Jesus[/URL]

You must be registered for see links

Jesus[/URL]

You must be registered for see links

Myth theory [/URL]

To state that Jesus' existence is in the same boat as that of King Arthur is a claim that betrays complete lack of konwledge on the topic at hand and for this reason I will not waste my time discussing this issue with you any further.

If however, you are only challenging the miraculous reports of the New Testament while conceeding the historical basis of the texts then you have conceeded that the most important historical narrative for Christianity has very strong historical evidence and the only issue is whether there is any evidence for miracles.

To this I say, the most relevant miracle related to Jesus (his ressurection) has good evidence pointing to it but I will not argue for this now due to time concerns. This is of no relevance to your comment however since proving specific episodes in an otherwise universally accepted historical person is on a whole different scale than proving the very historicity of the character in general, so the two are far from being in the same boat.

As for science and theology, I'll be brief. Theology makes claims about the natural world which science can verify or falsify. By doing so, science helps theology to overcome factually wrong ideas while theology itself provides a fruitful framework for science to explore. The popular image of theologians naively asserting things only to begrudgingly retreat at face of scientific discoveries is a charicature of a more profound dialogue that is actually at play.

 

[Lightbringer]

What reason do you have to think this? So far you simply taunted it without any justification. Be that as it may the Bible as you concieve it (a cover-to-cover history whispered by God to the ears of his faithful authors) is something that doesn't exist, never existed and was never thought to exist neither by the Church nor the very authors of the texts in question.

ll the writings of the Bible are a product of humans who wrote the message of God in a way that would be understandable to the people who lived at that time, written for a purpose tangible at that time and viewed through the lenses of that time.

More on the specific purposes later in my post as for now there is an even more pressing concern which you have to deal with. Your view relies on the assumption that God COULDN'T and WOULDN'T give his word in any way but that of a literal truth which He COULD NOT and WOULD NOT allow to be affected by the historical circumstances of the author writing it down.

Not only would a message unbound to any specific culture or any specific moment in history be also unrelated to any specific problem that ought to be addressed and as such would be completely without content and irrelevant to the people it was being given, it also begs the question of why have such a written revelation at all? Why not have the word imprinted directly into every human everywhere and shed the need for a collection of manuscripts whose canon would be formed strictly through human debates, without any prophets for centuries to come?
It is clear that this line of thought completely misses the point of the Bible as a revelation document. Whatever the reason for God's doing so may be, it is a fact that we're talking about a God who would opt for a progressive revelation, a God who chose to work under the limitations of human history.

The very character of the biblical God is shown to be such. There is progress of the people of Israel from worshipping El alone to considering him (under the name Yahweh) as the one sole God. There is progress from offering animal sacrifices as repentance to offering them as tributes of gratitude. There is progress from the Leviticus to a new law given by Jesus. The only story that the biblibical narratives depict is that of progress, of change in understanding, of God talking to His people in their given historical context and slowly shedding it away.

What ground then do you have to assert that a message given by such a God must be a literal word untouched by anything ungodly? It is extremely arrogant and even limiting to God to decide what He should and shouldn't do but it gets worse when the very God we're discussing is fundamentally a God of progressive convenant, a God of both the Old and the New Testaments.

Side note: I can already see you accusing me of circular reasoning – proving Bible by Bible. That's not what I'm doing. I'm just pointing out that the texts in question are talking about a God who is communicating to people progressively and is allowing his word to be understood in a skewed way for a certain time only for it to be revealed fully later down the line (which is philosophically speaking exactly what one would expect of a providential omniscient deity). I'm not claiming that on this basis there actually is a God who does all this. The point is that if the God were to exist we shouldn't expect his written word to be flawless.

Moving away from the theological exegesis to purely historical matters I want to talk about this point in particular:


I truly hope that you are not claiming here that the existence of Jesus is in the same boat as that of King Arthur. If you are then look at the spoiler.

Spoiler

From Wikipedia:

„Virtually all scholars who write on the subject agree that Jesus existed[5][6][7][8]“

„Most contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and most biblical scholars and classical historians see the theories of his nonexistence as effectively refuted.[5][7][8][32][33][34]“

„Virtually all New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is effectively certain[4][5][6][7][nb 1][nb 2][nb 3][nb 4]“

„Virtually all scholars believe that the Christ myth theory has been refuted, and that Jesus did exist as a historical figure.[213][214][215]“

„In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory not supported by any tenured specialists in biblical criticism or cognate disciplines.“

Direct links:

You must be registered for see links

of Jesus[/URL]

You must be registered for see links

Jesus[/URL]

You must be registered for see links

Myth theory [/URL]

To state that Jesus' existence is in the same boat as that of King Arthur is a claim that betrays complete lack of konwledge on the topic at hand and for this reason I will not waste my time discussing this issue with you any further.

If however, you are only challenging the miraculous reports of the New Testament while conceeding the historical basis of the texts then you have conceeded that the most important historical narrative for Christianity has very strong historical evidence and the only issue is whether there is any evidence for miracles.

To this I say, the most relevant miracle related to Jesus (his ressurection) has good evidence pointing to it but I will not argue for this now due to time concerns. This is of no relevance to your comment however since proving specific episodes in an otherwise universally accepted historical person is on a whole different scale than proving the very historicity of the character in general, so the two are far from being in the same boat.

As for science and theology, I'll be brief. Theology makes claims about the natural world which science can verify or falsify. By doing so, science helps theology to overcome factually wrong ideas while theology itself provides a fruitful framework for science to explore. The popular image of theologians naively asserting things only to begrudgingly retreat at face of scientific discoveries is a charicature of a more profound dialogue that is actually at play.

I'm not reading all that.

Just answer me one question. Can you prove God?

 

[demon of the leaf]

I was specifically talking about the bible. Let's keep it on topic and not go into what other religious texts say to try to justify a different religion's wording.




But again, that's not what the bible says, that's just you interpreting it to fit your own narrative.

So is the word of God not literal and that we can simply assume what he meant in order to justify something rather than just taking God at his word?

You are interpreting it to fit your own narritive as well

I'm not reading all that.

Just answer me one question. Can you prove God?

Can you disprove god without a reasonable doubt

 

[Lightbringer]

Can you disprove god without a reasonable doubt

If you're referring to the Christian God, then yes.

You are interpreting it to fit your own narritive as well

Pretty certain I was interpreting as it was written. Did you ever read the bible?

 

[demon of the leaf]

If you're referring to the Christian God, then yes.



Pretty certain I was interpreting as it was written. Did you ever read the bible?

I have and i have read each scripture fully

And please do show us your enlightenment please show me the proof of big bang theory if you can prove the big bang i swear i will personally give you a nobel prize

 

[jimbobbity]

Oh my god, are we still going with this dead end debate?

 

[Lightbringer]

I have and i have read each scripture fully

And please do show us your enlightenment please show me the proof of big bang theory if you can prove the big bang i swear i will personally give you a nobel prize

You don't have to prove the big bang theory to disprove the Christian God.

The bible is full of contradictions, inaccuracies, and falsified historical data. If a book is filled with lies, then the God the book is based on is a lie.

I already gave the example of how there is absolutely no archaeological evidence of the Exodus, which is a very prominent event within the Bible and Talmud.

If the bible is meant to be God's word and will, why would there be events that never occurred historically?

 

[Dreckerplayer]

Oh my god, are we still going with this dead end debate?

lmao, i actually said the SAME thing in my head "oh my god", right before i came across your comment.

"who tf cares" whether god exists or not.Every last one of you has something to say.And, who goes to these great extents to try and prove a point and convince the other, if you're so confident that what you're saying is true?

These arguments are SO old-fashioned and regurgitated...

 

[jimbobbity]

lmao, i actually said the SAME thing in my head "oh my god", right before i came across your comment.

"who tf cares" whether god exists or not.Every last one of you has something to say.And, who goes to these great extents to try and prove a point and convince the other, if you're so confident that what you're saying is true?

These arguments are SO old-fashioned and regurgitated...

Honestly. Its not like anyones opinion here is actually gonna be swayed by some random guy on the internet (talking about things they dont agree with no less).

 

[Dreckerplayer]

Honestly. Its not like anyones opinion here is actually gonna be swayed by some random guy on the internet (talking about things they dont agree with no less).

Not sure what you mean by that.Kind of not the point.

 

[Deadlift]

I'm not reading all that.

Just answer me one question. Can you prove God?

I'm not sure whether to call you arrogant or stupid since you woefully ignore everything I said while expecting me to have common courtesy to answer to you.

If you're going to ignore criticisms of your views under the pretense of being too long all the while jumping to a completely unrelated topic then you're just being dishonest. (Also hypocritical since you yourself write posts just as long in other threads.)


If you think that the questions we're dealing with here can be settled in a few sentences and if you refuse to read a single post directed at you then it is clear you haven't done any good research on this topic and are completely unqualified to debate it.

As I supposed, you are exactly the same as the fundamentalists in this thread.

 

[Chikombo]

I don't get how this is even a conversation you don't get valid information just form believeing in it, science is tested, it's not the same type of information.

 

[Lightbringer]

I'm not sure whether to call you arrogant or stupid since you woefully ignore everything I said while expecting me to have common courtesy to answer to you.

If you're going to ignore criticisms of your views under the pretense of being too long all the while jumping to a completely unrelated topic then you're just being dishonest. (Also hypocritical since you yourself write posts just as long in other threads.)


If you think that the questions we're dealing with here can be settled in a few sentences and if you refuse to read a single post directed at you then it is clear you haven't done any good research on this topic and are completely unqualified to debate it.

As I supposed, you are exactly the same as the fundamentalists in this thread.

This has been stretched to 7 pages and I've already debated multiple people. Sorry if I don't feel like continuing a pointless debate. I'm not going to get anything out of it. I already know that people, no matter the fact, aren't going to stop believing in their religion.

I was already courteous enough to respond to your wall text after you called me out, and you're still insulting me? You claimed to have given a stronger defense than those that I already debated with, yet it turned out to be in line what they were saying. Adding a wall text isn't going to strengthen your argument. Sorry if I'm perceived as arrogant, but I read a lot, especially on topics I debate on; so my confidence in what I debate on is very high. I've read the bible, and I've the defenses for it, the arguments against it, the science, the history, etc.

Whatever argument you think you may have, I've probably already seen it.

I try to make my posts as comprehensive as possible by breaking the comment down and responding to each point separately, like I did in my first response. I don't usually make a wall text jumble without breaking each part up.

There's a point where you just need to do your own research on the bible, which is clearly obvious that people who are defending it on this thread have not done so nor even read the bible out of blissful ignorance. If your goal is to find the truth, then I would suggest you do so. If your goal is to just debate me and shut me up, well I'm already tired of debating this topic.

 

[jimbobbity]

Not sure what you mean by that.Kind of not the point.

As in a topic like this doesnt simply boil down to raw facts. Personal opinion will always be a part of it.

 

[demon of the leaf]

This has been stretched to 7 pages and I've already debated multiple people. Sorry if I don't feel like continuing a pointless debate. I'm not going to get anything out of it. I already know that people, no matter the fact, aren't going to stop believing in their religion.

I was already courteous enough to respond to your wall text after you called me out, and you're still insulting me? You claimed to have given a stronger defense than those that I already debated with, yet it turned out to be in line what they were saying. Adding a wall text isn't going to strengthen your argument. Sorry if I'm perceived as arrogant, but I read a lot, especially on topics I debate on; so my confidence in what I debate on is very high. I've read the bible, and I've the defenses for it, the arguments against it, the science, the history, etc.

Whatever argument you think you may have, I've probably already seen it.

I try to make my posts as comprehensive as possible by breaking the comment down and responding to each point separately, like I did in my first response. I don't usually make a wall text jumble without breaking each part up.

There's a point where you just need to do your own research on the bible, which is clearly obvious that people who are defending it on this thread have not done so nor even read the bible out of blissful ignorance. If your goal is to find the truth, then I would suggest you do so. If your goal is to just debate me and shut me up, well I'm already tired of debating this topic.

You yourself chose to put yourself in that position when you decided to debate we have posted our views and evidence or long topics so it is not us in the place of ignorance we listen and read what you post if you don't like being called out then you have only one option don't post

 

[Deadlift]

This has been stretched to 7 pages and I've already debated multiple people. Sorry if I don't feel like continuing a pointless debate. I'm not going to get anything out of it. I already know that people, no matter the fact, aren't going to stop believing in their religion.

I was already courteous enough to respond to your wall text after you called me out, and you're still insulting me? You claimed to have given a stronger defense than those that I already debated with, yet it turned out to be in line what they were saying. Adding a wall text isn't going to strengthen your argument. Sorry if I'm perceived as arrogant, but I read a lot, especially on topics I debate on; so my confidence in what I debate on is very high. I've read the bible, and I've the defenses for it, the arguments against it, the science, the history, etc.

Whatever argument you think you may have, I've probably already seen it.

I try to make my posts as comprehensive as possible by breaking the comment down and responding to each point separately, like I did in my first response. I don't usually make a wall text jumble without breaking each part up.

There's a point where you just need to do your own research on the bible, which is clearly obvious that people who are defending it on this thread have not done so nor even read the bible out of blissful ignorance. If your goal is to find the truth, then I would suggest you do so. If your goal is to just debate me and shut me up, well I'm already tired of debating this topic.

If I had a penny every time someone conveniently „got tired“ of a debate I'd be rich. You must be aware that this comes across as a poor excuse. Since you're talking about my purpose here, I'll let you in on that. My purpose is two-fold:

1) to provide a defence of the faith of those who believe but aren't able to defend themselves from charges such as yours so if you really believed this debate to be pointless you wouldn't spend 7 pages attacking people who clearly can't defend themselves while refusing to tackle people such as myself

2) to reason and correct people of the opposing views and bring them closer to truth so in a way, „shutting you up“ and making sure to get the truth straight are one and the same in my eyes. My goal is to help both people on my side and yours to get better and the little hostility I show is for the purposes of scolding rather than humiliation so it's quite justified

Now, since you have complaints about the format of my post (rather than the actual contents since you haven't read it yet even tho it would only take a minute or two) I'm going to respond to this so as to get the facts straight. First off, it's not that much longer than what you write and even if it were the difference isn't big enough to make it any less of a wall of text than your posts.

As for trying to get the point accross as comprehensively as possible, that's exactly what I did. After you showed some misunderstandings in regards to my original post I wanted to sketch my views more clearly which required a bit more length. I spent about an hour writing that post so as to reduce it to the current length. I omitted what I considered redudant and outlined certain things more clearly. (I was also quite charitable in regards to your claims about Jesus and had I not been the post would have been shorter)

Granted the post doesn't contain your quoted points, I did make sure to tackle your arguments in a point-by-point manner starting with the fundamental assumption underlying them all. Don't make assumptions about my workflow or writing style as I too made sure not to „jumble everything without breaking it up“. I spent about an hour trying to make it what it, as organized and clear as it is now and it was already past the time when I was supposed to sleep so I will not take these assumptions kindly