Why doesn't god say what he means...?

[Battie]

Manning: I wanted to answer you in a separate post.

What I've studied of ancient mythology shows me that stories like the creation myth of Genesis would not be read for historical accuracy by the ancients. If literalism was not important to them, then why should it be for the modern person who reads the same story? I would not be right for me to take a story that was not literal and try to change it. Of course it all looks wrong that way.

But that does not mean that it doesn't express truth. Let's go back the example of art others have been using. Often in painting or drawing class our assignment is to do a self portrait or something that reveals part of our personality. I'm a shy person, and I absolutely hate depicting myself in my work. So I often represent myself or my feelings metaphorically. The image is not literal, and the class knows that. However, if the image is effective the class can also read the meaning behind it--the truth that it reveals about myself.

If we can do that with things like art, why can't we see that in Genesis?

 

[Jase]

I suppose I should be much clearer Jase. I should have said IF I was a Christian my thinking would go along this lines of:

Assumption #1 - God is truth.
Assumption #2 - The Scripture is from God.
therefore where the Bible talks about ANYTHING it is truthful.

However since I am not a Christian I dont not accept the first two assumptions.

Sorry my mistake. I thought by your posts your were a Christian.

 

[Manning]

This is the same principle of scientism only applied to deny the truthfulness of the Scriptures rather than to assert it.

I have no problem with using scientific evidence to judge the stories in the bible that are claimed to have come from God.

The atheistic denial of the authority of Scripture is surprisingly parallel to the YECist assertation of inerrancy.

False. YEC starts with the assumption of the bible being true, they then attempt to mold the evidence to their world view. My personal denial of scripture is not based on these types of assumptions. I start from the evidence I have including modern evolutionary theory, geology, dating methods, etc. I then assess whether this evidence contradicts what is said to have come from God in the bible. If they do conflict I see no reason to adjust the evidence like YECs like to do, or mold the bible to fit my evidence which I believe you are doing.

If however I found that this evidence did not contradict scripture I would then have no problem with investigating christianity and the rest of its beliefs.

What I've studied of ancient mythology shows me that stories like the creation myth of Genesis would not be read for historical accuracy by the ancients. If literalism was not important to them, then why should it be for the modern person who reads the same story? I would not be right for me to take a story that was not literal and try to change it. Of course it all looks wrong that way.

Perhaps some myths were not to be taken literally. However, I have seen no evidence that Genesis was meant to be anything other than the literal story of how the world was created.

 

[vitodabona]

... Perhaps some myths were not to be taken literally. However, I have seen no evidence that Genesis was meant to be anything other than the literal story of how the world was created.

All myths are not to be taken literally, or they would be called history. The truth of any myth is in the message it tries to convey.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

False. YEC starts with the assumption of the bible being true, they then attempt to mold the evidence to their world view. My personal denial of scripture is not based on these types of assumptions


Look at the parallels.
you assume that science can judge the truthfulness of what Scripture says because it makes scientific and historical statements that must have a truth value within the domain of science.

YECist say the same thing.
-----

you assume that you are competent to judge the truthfulness of Scripture using the yardstick of science since you have no other yardstick that you trust.

YECist say the same thing, that the Scripture is a series of facts to be weighed by science and they will be found truthful. Since science can prove Scripture is true then it must be true, since that is the right yardstick to use.

They look to science to demonstrate the truth of Scripture and you look to science to judge the truth of Scripture one way or the other.

Both of you are the modern descendents of 19thC common sense realism, that man has both the ability and the necessity of judging the facts. (just the facts madam as Sargent Friday put it) both of you take the facts to be something like physics used to believe in the billard ball metaphor for inelastic collisions. But both science and theology have moved beyond this simple analysis of bare basic irrefutable facts as objective elements to judge the world by.

 

[Manning]

Look at the parallels.
you assume that science can judge the truthfulness of what Scripture says because it makes scientific and historical statements that must have a truth value within the domain of science.

YECist say the same thing.

I will concede your point that there are parallels. We both look for evidence of the bible to be true. I don't really see a fault in this. The problem with YEC then comes when they distort the evidence to make it want they want it to say.

I could also draw parallels between YEC and what you are claiming is truth. Both of you are molding one half of the equation to fit into what you WANT to be true. YEC mold science. You mold the bible.

But both science and theology have moved beyond this simple analysis of bare basic irrefutable facts as objective elements to judge the world by.

I have attempted to be careful with my words. You will find few instances in which I used the word "fact" in describing science. I have instead used the word "evidence" which I do not believe science will move past anytime in the near future, nor should it.

 

[AV1611VET]

There is no creature left alive skillful enough to ride the beasts of the Trillion Ton sheet of water.

I know 8 who did.

 

[nvxplorer]

I will concede your point that there are parallels. We both look for evidence of the bible to be true. I don't really see a fault in this. The problem with YEC then comes when they distort the evidence to make it want they want it to say.

You appear to be doing the same by distorting the myth in assuming it is a historical account.

I suggest any of the works by Joseph Campbell. The Power of Myth is exceptional. It is a multiple-part interview with Bill Moyers of PBS, and I'm certain it's available on DVD.

I could also draw parallels between YEC and what you are claiming is truth. Both of you are molding one half of the equation to fit into what you WANT to be true. YEC mold science. You mold the bible.

I don't see him molding anything. He is accepting Genesis for what it is.

I have attempted to be careful with my words. You will find few instances in which I used the word "fact" in describing science. I have instead used the word "evidence" which I do not believe science will move past anytime in the near future, nor should it.

Evidence is factual.

 

[AV1611VET]

Scripture isn't silent on that firmament being a solid dome.

Perhaps then you can tell us what it is to your satisfaction?

Floating in space? And it fell to the Earth how?

As rain.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I will concede your point that there are parallels. We both look for evidence of the bible to be true. I don't really see a fault in this. The problem with YEC then comes when they distort the evidence to make it want they want it to say.


The "fault" if that is the right word, is to forget the context.
Essentially both groups pick the Bible out of its social-cultural-linguistic context and plop it down in the middle of modern 21st C scientific and historically aware culture.

Then address questions to it that are simply inappropriate.
but are of extreme importance to us and how we think.
For example:
what is pi directed at 1 Kings 7
how do you create spotted sheep at Gen 27.
what came first the earth or the sun to Gen 1.
literal or figurative virtually everywhere.


YECist like most fundamentalists ignore the problems of exegesis and hermeneutics thinking everything is solvable by simple common sense and rush straight into application when they read the Scriptures. Again ignoring the context.

modern skeptics and atheists in general discount the possibility that an ancient document can have anything to say to them in their modern context, so very different than that millenniums ago. Missing the fact that exegesis takes the principles out and application applies them to different cultures, times and peoples.

but both groups are unified in their cry that if the Scriptures are not factual and scientific in all it's parts then it can not be true at all, anywhere. One defends the totality as scientifically true and one snipes at the details and says: "here see an error, the whole thing must be wrong".

Each using much the same grid to analyze and understand the Bible, modern notions of history and science as supplying valid and justified knowledge.

 

[nvxplorer]

As rain.

It rains in outer space?

 

[AV1611VET]

Trying curing a leper based on Moses' method and tell me how that works out.

And just what was that cure, Jase? I thought I explained that verse-by-verse already? Perhaps you can even find this Mosiac cure in the Bible, and tell me where it is? (Chapter and verse, of course.)

 

[Manning]

You appear to be doing the same by distorting the myth in assuming it is a historical account.

I am not distorting anything. If God exists and he has given us an account of how the world was created I would expect it to be factual. All of you have told me a million times its just a metaphor yet have given no evidence of why this should be the case.

I don't see him molding anything. He is accepting Genesis for what it is.

Yes he is molding Genesis. In Genisis the author claims that God made animals according to their kind. We know this is false. All animals species have evolved from a single ancestor over the last billion years or so. Because you do not want the bible proven false you then claim that God didn't really mean what he was saying at the time.

If God wanted to he certainly could have claimed that each species developed from each other over millions of years and that man is just one of these species. He did not do this.

 

[AV1611VET]

Would you also claim that Baal's windows were real?

Nope --- or I'd find myself making the same mistake the 450 prophets of Baal made --- (thinking Baal was real).

 

[JohnR7]

I know 8 who did.

They are still alive or they just lived to tell about it

 

[nvxplorer]

Because you do not want the bible proven false you then claim that God didn't really mean what he was saying at the time.

I'm an atheist.

 

[AV1611VET]

It rains in outer space?

No, why?

 

[AV1611VET]

They are still alive or they just lived to tell about it

Lived to tell about it.

 

[Jase]

No, why?

You said the water is between Earth and the Sun, which means outside the Earth's atmosphere which means it rains in outerspace.

 

[Manning]

I'm an atheist.

I apologize for the mischaracterization by me.