Thoughts on Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris

[EphesiaNZ]

When you donate $26 billion to charity, let me know.

I have spent vast amounts of money on Microsoft products and certification training over many years. Yes I haven't given $26 billion but can assure you some of that is mine!

 

[mulimulix]

Galileo was executed now? What date? What method of execution?



Have you stopped to consider the time and effort Pat Robertson committed to found Operation Blessing, or how much good it has done? Did you put as much effort into that as you did to form your opinion about Galileo and "other scientists executed by the Church?"

Sorry, I meant Galileo was persecuted not executed. But if you want a scientist who was executed for heresy, here you go:

Giordano Bruno - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well actually, I'm not complaining about his donation (of course remembering that he will claim a percentage back on tax), it's the morals and ethics behind how he has earned that wealth. Even today they chase smaller fry through the court system to either extort money via IP claims or close them down if they pose a threat - again, good?

Hmm, Apple - ah yes I've heard of them vaguely. I've been in IT since 1980 and avoid them too like the plague.

Actually I build my own computers and operating systems too using Linux which out of three is probably the best moral solution for any Christian as Linux is free, you can share code without fear of being prosecuted and with the money you have saved can then choose who will benefit from it.

Are you serious? If you keep a track of what ALL electronic companies are doing, you would know that ALL of them are suing every other company, just about. If you're gonna find slightly immoral reasons why companies have become as big as they are, you will find them in all of them.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Are you serious? If you keep a track of what ALL electronic companies are doing, you would know that ALL of them are suing every other company, just about. If you're gonna find slightly immoral reasons why companies have become as big as they are, you will find them in all of them.

You are quite correct on this point and I dislike them all for doing it as the consumer pays for it in the long run. MS are one of the biggest offenders of patents and IP disputes though. Some companies however do become successful without resorting to these tactics.

 

[razeontherock]

if you want a scientist who was executed for heresy

YouTube - ‪The Spanish Inquisition Part 2‬‏

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Monty Python saves the day again

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

 

[razeontherock]

Certainly nobody named Bruno!

 

[mulimulix]

Lol, why would you send that? I am not sure whether I should be laughing or annoyed you avoided my point.

 

[razeontherock]

I didn't avoid your point. I countered that in order to make a point, you had to delve into the dark ages and into what by all counts is the harlot of Babylon. Truly grasping at straws ...

 

[AlexBP]

But if you want a scientist who was executed for heresy, here you go:

Giordano Bruno - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The best response to this claim that I've seen is in this article:

The Galileo Legend

One day, as I was outlining some of the positive contributions made by medieval theology to the development of modern science, a student interrupted to ask why it was, if what I was saying were true, that "the Catholic Church killed all those scientists." Stunned, and not wanting to sound defensive, I turned the tables on the student and asked him to please name some of these scientific martyrs. Of course he could not name any. To ease his embarrassment, I noted that he had probably been misled by popular misrepresentations of the fate of Giordano Bruno, an apostate Dominican who was condemned to death by the Roman Inquisition at the turn of the seventeenth century. Popularizers like to link Bruno with Galileo simply because he happened to embrace the Copernican position. But Bruno did not hold this position as a scientist, nor is there any evidence linking his Copernican beliefs to his condemnation for heresy. Although he occasionally taught geometry, he was famous across Europe as an itinerant preacher of hermeticism — the pop new age religion of his day. The heliocentric model was merely a prop for his pantheistic cosmology of infinite worlds. While we may fault the Church officials who sent Bruno to the stake for cruelty, we cannot fault them for being enemies of science.

It was wrong for the Catholic Church to condemn Bruno but it had nothing to do with science. Bruno had originally been a Catholic clergyman but then went apostate and became a Hermeticist, follower of a newfound religion based on forged texts supposedly dating to ancient Greece. Hermeticists believed in astrology, magic, divination, mysticism, and all kinds of other things that most scientists today despise. Bruno's beliefs had no more connection to science back then than Tom Cruise's do now.

The more important point, though, is that I was responding to this claim:

1. The majority of Christians pre-1800s believed in a literal creation. That is why many scientists who disputed the claim were killed, exiled etc.

The truth is that for centuries almost all scientists in Europe were Catholic clergymen. (And there were precious few scientists outside of Europe.) Even as late as the 1800's, a large percentage of scientists were also clergymen in various denominations. Many scientists, clergy or otherwise, theorized about the design and organization of the universe without being killed or otherwise prosecuted. Three of the most notable were Jean Buriden, Nicole d'Orisme, and Nicholas de Cusa, all from the 1300's or 1400's.

 

[AlexBP]

The way I see it is if some 'Facts' in the Bible are completely outrageous (in historical terms), e.g. virgin birth and resurrection, then how can you trust the rest of the book?

Miracles may or may not have happened in the ancient world, but no one doubts that historians in the ancient world believed that they happened. Just read Herodotus, Thucidyes, Plato, Josephus, Tacitus, Plutarch, or nearly any other ancient-world historian and you'll see plenty of examples. If we were to throw out as worthless any ancient history record that mentions the supernatural we'd have almost nothing left.

 

[mulimulix]

Miracles may or may not have happened in the ancient world, but no one doubts that historians in the ancient world believed that they happened. Just read Herodotus, Thucidyes, Plato, Josephus, Tacitus, Plutarch, or nearly any other ancient-world historian and you'll see plenty of examples. If we were to throw out as worthless any ancient history record that mentions the supernatural we'd have almost nothing left.

I'm not sure what your point is. There are Christian historians today who believe miracles have happened. So what?

 

[SonOfTheWest]

I'm not sure what your point is. There are Christian historians today who believe miracles have happened. So what?

To me this goes back to the inane idea that somehow this means we must accept that since there can be some accuracy with the non supernatural writings, this somehow means we must blindly accept the supernatural ones as well. It's all well and good that historians have to muddle through talks of resurrecting men, spirit talk,etc but that doesn't really make much of a point I agree.

 

[ebia]

To me this goes back to the inane idea that somehow this means we must accept that since there can be some accuracy with the non supernatural writings, this somehow means we must blindly accept the supernatural ones as well.

Of course not. That is an absurd argument - though one sometimes sees it posed.

Some accounts of supernatural events (eg the resurrection accounts) are peculiar enough to cry out for adequate historical explanation, but even there the line of investigation cannot be "this plausible bit is right therefore this implausible bit is also right".

 

[Varicose Brains]

Ok, thanks for the honesty. Allow me to offer this perspective:

the study of these sciences, coupled with the hard economic times we're ALL facing lately, should be a process of growth. Painful, but beneficial in the long run.

1) You need to re-examine the claim that "either science or Christianity is right." The early Church never looked at it that way, and the overwhelming majority of Christians don't either. We've participated in enough threads with poster humble humility that I feel I can point out it is not very humble for you to take this stance, calling so many others wrong, about what many of them must know more about than any of us here.

2) There is nothing about the Bible that was written to be a science textbook. For any of the sciences. There are some statements here and there that directly prompt a desire to learn, and this is in line with "the spirit" of the whole Bible; but there are many other better prepared people to discuss such things with you. My convictions are settled, and I have gone through the process you are now enduring. There is a light at the end of the tunnel ... You could start with recognizing how the original audience would have understood the first few chapters of Genesis, which is as simple as God proclaiming Himself to be above the gods of the surrounding peoples. In order of their importance. Couple that with what the concept of "god" meant in that day and age, and the new insight will do you a world of good!

3) I am in favor of re-evaluating our own beliefs. This is very Scriptural, and G-d can stand up to scrutiny. Quite well!

4) I can't and won't say that your lifetime "issues" w/ the hard passages of the OT mean you were never really saved, or that it makes any statement at all about your present condition. I WILL say that this is one way G-d Himself draws us closer to Him, and I urge you to answer that call with integrity. I hesitate to offer specific understandings the Lord has shown me, because they are, you know, for me. We all see through a glass darkly, and the unique perspective G-d will show you that ultimately establishes your Faith deserves the chance to flourish, not be squashed out by me or anyone else.

5) ALL the apparent contradictions in the Bible can be harmonized so that they peacefully co-exist as Truth, and likewise those passages that are "hard" can be understood in ways that are consistent with who Jesus is. I'm not saying this is easy, but I AM saying that until we go through that process, we shouldn't feel we really know what ANY of it means. Please don't underestimate the gravity of what I just said. Along those lines, have you ever considered fasting?

From reading this I'm guessing that you probably don't take a lot of the Bible literally (perhaps even the creation "story" in particular). Am I right, or wrong? I know there are many Christians out there who follow science and even believe evolution is true.

I was raised by parents who took the Bible to be the literal word of God. They still do and believe God created the world literally in 6 days and took a day off; they also believe that a snake literally tempted Eve and subsequently Adam into eating from the Tree. I believed this too, although I had loads of problems with it, not least of which was why God put that Tree there in the first place. But, as I said, I would just put these doubts to the back of my mind and plod on with my "relationship" with God.

Your point 1 seems to me to be invalid. In the early days of Christianity, science knew very little about the world/universe and so not possibly refute the Bible. When science did start to ask the right questions in the middle ages, the Catholic Church did its utmost to stamp out enquiry. "Knowledge" was seen as the enemy of faith, and this has stuck in the collective Christian psyche even to our modern times. My current problem with Christianity therefore stems from the fact that I can't really trust in a Bible that has so many things, scientifically speaking, clearly wrong. What modern science knows and understand about our universe stands in direct contrast with what the Bible teaches. And, as I said earlier, I eventually had to choose science over faith because my faith in the Bible couldn't stand against the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

 

[ebia]

From reading this I'm guessing that you probably don't take a lot of the Bible literally (perhaps even the creation "story" in particular). Am I right, or wrong? I know there are many Christians out there who follow science and even believe evolution is true.

I was raised by parents who took the Bible to be the literal word of God. They still do and believe God created the world literally in 6 days and took a day off; they also believe that a snake literally tempted Eve and subsequently Adam into eating from the Tree. I believed this too, although I had loads of problems with it, not least of which was why God put that Tree there in the first place. But, as I said, I would just put these doubts to the back of my mind and plod on with my "relationship" with God.

Your point 1 seems to me to be invalid. In the early days of Christianity, science knew very little about the world/universe and so not possibly refute the Bible. When science did start to ask the right questions in the middle ages, the Catholic Church did its utmost to stamp out enquiry. "Knowledge" was seen as the enemy of faith, and this has stuck in the collective Christian psyche even to our modern times. My current problem with Christianity therefore stems from the fact that I can't really trust in a Bible that has so many things, scientifically speaking, clearly wrong. What modern science knows and understand about our universe stands in direct contrast with what the Bible teaches. And, as I said earlier, I eventually had to choose science over faith because my faith in the Bible couldn't stand against the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Surely you can see the flaw in:
My family/culture infers X from Y
X is false
therefore Y is false.

 

[Varicose Brains]

Surely you can see the flaw in:
My family/culture infers X from Y
X is false
therefore Y is false.

My culture/family has nothing to do with it really. Yes, I learned the whole creation story as a result of being indoctrinated by first my parents and then various pastors and church leaders. The truth is though, there are millions of other Christians who believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old and God created it in 6 days.

I don't believe the creation story to be false simply because my parents believe it, or other evangelicals. I believe it to be false because of the scientific evidence. And, as a result I have to, at the very least, remain sceptical regarding the rest of the Bible. I just don't understand how any person can approach the Bible and pick what they want to believe out of it; how can they know for sure they are right? For instance, those Christians who believe in theistic evolution. The Bible flat out does not teach this. It says that God created humans, not through evolution but as an adult man and woman, fully formed. Those Christians who believe in a theistic evolution are the ones with the real "gap" problem because they have to make up something in between the evolution of animals and the creation of humans. Essentially they're rewriting Genesis 1-3 which Jesus and Paul both believed to be true. If Genesis 1-3 is simply a story, a fable, then why should I believe the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Or Moses? Or Joshua? Or the prophets? At what point and by what authority do I count one story true and another a fable?

This is why Christianity is, in my few, slowly coming apart at the seams. It's been doing so since the Catholic Church lost authority during the Enlightenment. Even the Catholics have had to acknowledge that evolution is not contrary to scripture - a polite nod to the fact that its power to explain mankind's origin holds a huge amount of truth. Anglicans mostly believe in some kind of theistic evolution. The only people who don't are the evangelical fundie types; the Baptists and Pentecostals. And these are rapidly becoming the minority. Within 2 or 3 generations, I would wager, churches across the Bible belt will be closing for two reasons; more and more young people are embracing secularism and shunning the religion of their parents (this has already been happening in Europe for the last 2 generations); and secondly, scientific progress will continue to eat away at the pages of the Bible and many people will run out of excuses to explain God's relevance.

This may seem like a digression and derailment of this thread, but it's not. The books by Dawkins and Hitchens have had a lot of influence over me in opening my eyes to the problems of Christianity.

 

[ebia]

My culture/family has nothing to do with it really. Yes, I learned the whole creation story as a result of being indoctrinated by first my parents and then various pastors and church leaders. The truth is though, there are millions of other Christians who believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old and God created it in 6 days.

The minority, outside of N.America.

So what you have demolised is not the text itself, but a minority reading of it. One that is based on using it to answer questions they want answered rather than the questions Genesis wants to answer. The bible doesn't say how old the earth is; people try to get it to answer that by piecing together the genealogies, but that's not what genealogies are for in ancient writings.

Genesis 1 was written to refute the babylonian creation myths like Enuma Elish. It says things like:
Our God is the sole creator of everything; your gods are nothing more than bits of creation.
Our God brings order from chaos; (contrast your gods are chaotic themselves and tend to do things by accident).
Our God created us to be the pinacle of creation; (contrast your gods created you as slaves to do the work they were too lazy to do)
Our God created us to be his reflection in the world; (contrat your gods reflect your own inadquacies)
and so on.

Those are the kinds of questions it's truth or otherwise rests on. Not on whether it satisfactoriely answers every question you can throw at it.
Those are the kinds of questions serious readers of Genesis 1 have always been looking for.

I don't believe the creation story to be false simply because my parents believe it, or other evangelicals. I believe it to be false because of the scientific evidence. And, as a result I have to, at the very least, remain sceptical regarding the rest of the Bible. I just don't understand how any person can approach the Bible and pick what they want to believe out of it; how can they know for sure they are right? For instance, those Christians who believe in theistic evolution. The Bible flat out does not teach this.

The bible is not trying to answer a question about evolution.

Theistic evolution is the philosophic position you arrive at when you face the modern questions with a biblical way of thinking. The idea that scripture contains various forms of literature is biblical, including parabolic history. The idea that Genesis answers the sorts of questions I outlined is biblical. The idea that God works through natural means is biblical. The idea that "God did it" and "I can explain the causes" are not mutually exclusive is biblical.

When you put that together with what science can tell us about the mechanisms by which the world came to be you get something like T.E. You've moved from biblical studies to theology, but there's nothing wrong with that. The problem comes when some people try to force the answer to every question straight out of biblical studies and in the process loose track of what the bible itself is and what its purposes are.

It says that God created humans, not through evolution but as an adult man and woman, fully formed.

It's not trying to answer the mechanistic question. It actually gives two different accounts that are incompatible at that level, precisely because that's not the level its interested in. It's interested in the relationship between humanity and God (Genesis 1) and between man and woman (Genesis 2). Not which chemicals are involved and how many days did it take - those kind of questions reflect our culture's obsessions, not theirs.

Those Christians who believe in a theistic evolution are the ones with the real "gap" problem because they have to make up something in between the evolution of animals and the creation of humans. Essentially they're rewriting Genesis 1-3 which Jesus and Paul both believed to be true. If Genesis 1-3 is simply a story, a fable, then why should I believe the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Or Moses? Or Joshua? Or the prophets? At what point and by what authority do I count one story true and another a fable?

When you walk into a library and pick up a book, do you assume every other book in the library is the same genre? Even in one book you may get a variety of genre's - an historical character might tell a non-historical story, a section might begin with a poem, a mathematical textbook might have a page on the history of an idea or person,... We jump around between genres all the time; to expect a collection like the bible not to is laughable.

The first place to look is the text itself. What clues are there? What is is structure? What questions does it look like it might be addressing? What were the interests of its original audience? What other texts is it similar to.

This is why Christianity is, in my few, slowly coming apart at the seams. It's been doing so since the Catholic Church lost authority during the Enlightenment. Even the Catholics have had to acknowledge that evolution is not contrary to scripture - a polite nod to the fact that its power to explain mankind's origin holds a huge amount of truth.

That's always how it's primarily been read. Trying to additionally answer some other questions from it was the hiccup.

Anglicans mostly believe in some kind of theistic evolution. The only people who don't are the evangelical fundie types; the Baptists and Pentecostals. And these are rapidly becoming the minority. Within 2 or 3 generations, I would wager, churches across the Bible belt will be closing for two reasons; more and more young people are embracing secularism and shunning the religion of their parents (this has already been happening in Europe for the last 2 generations); and secondly, scientific progress will continue to eat away at the pages of the Bible and many people will run out of excuses to explain God's relevance.

If you sell people poor theology, it's not surprising that things fall apart when they examine that. But historically and globally that position is the abberation, not the norm.

The church is suffering in the West (not globally). It is doing so because (a) it's been hopeless at doing mission at home for over a century, especially in Europe and (b) when people are rich, comfortable and feel secure they are less interested in the big picture than when they aren't. When they are the ones benefiting from the inequity in the world justice looks a whole lot less attractive than it does for those on the other end.

This may seem like a digression and derailment of this thread, but it's not. The books by Dawkins and Hitchens have had a lot of influence over me in opening my eyes to the problems of Christianity.

Clearly they've influenced you. They attack the weakest position and act as though they have dealt with the strongest position. They do disciplines other than science poorly and think they do them well. Reading Dawkins on philosophy, history or theology is like reading a YECreationist on evolutionary science.

 

[razeontherock]

From reading this I'm guessing that you probably don't take a lot of the Bible literally (perhaps even the creation "story" in particular).

I was raised by parents who took the Bible to be the literal word of God. They still do and believe God created the world literally in 6 days and took a day off; they also believe that a snake literally tempted Eve and subsequently Adam into eating from the Tree.

Ok. First let's examine that Christianity is about "the Faith of Abraham," and receiving his Blessing. What are those 2 things? He had to leave the land of his Fathers, implying their faith as well. We need to do that too!

I could write quite a bit addressing my own stance re: people such as your own parents. In the interest of being brief, I'll say normally I am quite uncomfortable with not knowing anything, and on the issue of literalism I am currently content to not know. Seems like an important stage of growth for me to go through. There are definitely non-literal applications for Scripture, and those seem to represent the greater Truths. As a general rule, I guard against thinking that they dismiss all literal meaning. Allow me to point out that re: creation in particular, it won't affect anything we ever do, either way. Neither is it salvific.

I believed this too, although I had loads of problems with it, not least of which was why God put that Tree there in the first place.

This was something I had to know. G-d sat me down and explained it to me, which seemed like blasting me with both barrels. We might discuss it sometime but again, what you might glean from me second-hand is no substitute for getting the info hot off the press.

I know there are many Christians out there who follow science and even believe evolution is true. What modern science knows and understand about our universe stands in direct contrast with what the Bible teaches.

In the interest of being brief, I have pulled out a couple key statements you made, that were not originally next to each other. Do you see the contrast I made? I do this to prompt you to seek what it is that these people must be aware of. I'm not referring to those that have never thought things through; they surely exist and don't profit us here. But there are many brilliant believers, like one PhD I know in microbiology, who was an unbeliever until doing the research for his Doctoral thesis. Now I can't possibly re-create all the discussions he and I shared, to give you the benefit of them. But I can boldly proclaim this dichotomy you currently perceive as "either science or the Bible is true," is simply false. If your understanding of science is accurate, (which is likely) then where does that suggest the error lies? Time to re-evaluate "the faith of your fathers," eh? Have you encountered a poster named Lucaspa? You might search his posts, and read up. He's a strong believer, and a working scientist. No I don't agree with him on every point of Scriptural interpretation, but I don't think he's off on anything salvific.

 

[AlexBP]

Your point 1 seems to me to be invalid. In the early days of Christianity, science knew very little about the world/universe and so not possibly refute the Bible. When science did start to ask the right questions in the middle ages, the Catholic Church did its utmost to stamp out enquiry.

In a previous post, I have already listed several prominent scientists from the Middle Ages who were Catholic clergy. That list would only be a starting point if you wanted to research the many contributions that the Catholic Church has made to science over the centuries. How can you say that "the Catholic Church did its utmost to stamp out enquiry" in the middle ages when the Catholic Church was actually responsible for most of the enquiry at that time? Have you actually read accurate histories of science in medieval times, or only books written by enemies of Catholicism written centuries later?