pmh1nic said:
"Yes, the personal experience is definitely evidence, but I wouldn't call it "legal/historical"."
I think there are probably more than a few in prison that would differ with that statement
. Testimony from witnesses that have shown themselves to be otherwise reliable is considered legal evidence.
OK. I wondered where you were getting the "legal" part. You are saying that eyewitness testimony is "legal" testimony.
While I see your point, I think you are putting yourself out on a limb here. You are making your evidence sound better than it is. While people are sometimes convicted
solely on eyewitness testimony, that is rare. And it is rare because such testimony is so often unreliable -- even from reliable people. When we hear "legal" evidence today, we think of testimony that can be corroborated by more than one witness or by forensic evidence. You don't have that here. While you have millions of testimonies of experience of God, what you don't have are multiple testimonies
of the same event. Thus, for Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, we have only Paul as a witness. No one else saw
that particular event. Do you see? When we have eyewitness testimony to convict someone, we have to have multiple witnesses. Also, we don't have any testimony outside the circle of believers. Thus no "objective" witnesses. Now, you can argue that anyone with that evidence is going to be a believer and therefore a demand for "objective" witnesses is unreasonable, but it is not going to help when discussing with agnostics and atheists.
You can argue that eyewitness testimony is not a priori wrong -- eyewitness testimony in court -- but I think you have to be careful not to say that because it is eyewitness testimony it is "legal".
"Yes, what we have in the gospels is not historically accurate in all its details. You can even see how stories common to the 3 synoptic gospels were changed from one to another."
I'm curious as to your comment regarding "changed from one to another." I realize that details in the gospels are not always given in the same chronological order or that not all the same details are given when telling the same story. I'm not aware of any major contradictions between the gospel stories.
I didn't say "major". Mark 2:1-4. In Mark (the earliest of the gospels) we have a story indicative of the architecture of Palestine -- adobe walls but thatch roofs. And the paralytic is on a pallet -- a stretcher. When you get the same story in Matthew and Luke, the house has changed to one with wooden beams (more appropriate to Rome or the cities of Greece) and the paralytic is now on a full sized bed. The oral tradition has changed things from the earlier account and made the account more elaborate.
In Mark 15:46-47, they simply wrap Jesus' body in shroud, put in it a tomb, and Joseph rolled a rock in front of the door. The women leave. Mark makes a point of saying that the rock was too big for the women to roll away. In Luke, we get the detail that no one else had ever used the tomb, but no comment on the size of the rock and no wondering if they can roll it away; they evidently feel they can. The women also leave. In Matthew, we get the detail that it was "a great stone" rolled in front of the tomb. The women stay to watch the tomb. Also, we get a story about the Pharisees being concerned the disciples will steal the body (why?) and Pilate puts a guard on the tomb!
Now, much of the stories are the same -- what you would consider "not major contradictions" -- the tomb, Joseph of Arimathea, stone in front, women come to the tomb in the morning, etc. However, there are also some differences and we can reason how and why they came into the story. Inthis case, Luke is the most primitive.
1. The comment on the size of the stone is in answer to critics who say the women stole the body. So Mark has the stone too big for the women to move.
2. Critics accuse the disciples of stealing the body. So now Matthew adds the whole schtick of the Roman legionairies guarding the tomb and the fact that the tomb is watched at all times.
Are these "major contradictions"? Depends on your definition of "major". But you can't deny that the differences are there.
The differences in recounting the same incident is a common occurance when more then one individual witnesses an event. I don't consider this cause for discounting the overall accuracy of the accounts.
I agree. I have made the same argument numerous times to atheists. Especially when an event is traumatic, accounts differ. I have stated that, if the Biblical accounts were the same
in every detail, then I would be suspicious that someone came along and cleaned everything up or made up the whole story from scratch. Real accounts are not the same in every aspect.
"People must either reject that evidence that they can see or reject God......But can you see that people who have experienced Creation such that they know the earth is old or that evolution happened aren't going to be convinced that their experience is wrong either?"
Yes, fundamentalist Christians view the Bible as the inerrant Word of God and hence vigorous battle to counter every argument that seems to contradict what is considered on their part the literal translation of the Bible.
I think you missed the point. Creationists are asking people to do what you say you won't do: doubt your experience. Creationism says people must either give up their experience or give up God. You have made it plain to us -- and I have agreed -- that you will never give up the validity of your experience of God. You had it; it's real; and no one is going to convince you otherwise.
Likewise, a person that has seen a transitional sequence of fossils from one species to another or even across higher taxa, a person who has seen the skeleton of Lucy at the American Museum of Natural History and compared it to the ape and human skeletons, a person who has seen a new species form in the lab or the wild, is
not going to give up those experiences and say evolution is wrong. The problem is that those experiences are not open to a few, but
everyone. The fossil sequences are displayed in museums. Anyone can go look at Lucy or see pictures of the skeleton. Anyone can read the studies showing the formation of a new species. So creationism is saying that
everyone is wrong. And that simply isn't going to work. People are going to believe their experiences and not creationism. Since creationism says it is God or science, people will choose science because that is their experience.
On the other hand when hard science contradicts what is being put forth as the literal translation of the Bible it is viewed as confirmation that the Bible is basically a book of myth, superstition and a not so accurate historical account of Jewish and Christian religion.
Viewed by who? By the fundamentalists? That's just part of the wall they put up to prevent people believing. By atheists? That's a misuse of science by militant atheists. The answer there is not to reject the science, but to really
understand what science is and show how the atheists are misusing
science.
The all or nothing view is considered extremely important since there is a concern that if you're left to pick and choose what parts of the Bible are the accurate expression of God's will, purpose and plan for our lives people will twist, turn and otherwise attempt to stretch the meaning of Biblical passages to fit their personal preference. Maybe that assumes a level of intellectual dishonesty.
The problem here is that
no Christian takes
all the Bible as literally true. Every Christian uses extrabiblical evidence to say certain passages should not be interpreted literally. So the "all or nothing" view has been dead for at least 1600 years in Christianity, ever since St. Augustine warned against it. Christianity has gone thru this. Christians used to think that certain passages meant that the earth was flat. When the extrabiblical evidence was overwhelming, those passages were then said not to be literal. Certain passages were said to show the earth was immovable, and those passages were used to argue against a sun-centered solar system. When the extrabiblical evidence was overwhelming, those passages were re-interpreted. Slave owners took passages from the OT and said that slavery was sanctioned by the Bible. And it is. But abolitionists "pick and chose" other passages and now we think slavery is immoral and against the Bible!
Christianity is
not the Bible. It is the
Living Word. Jesus. And yes, we do keep reinterpreting the Bible in the light of that Living Word and the changing world around us. When we were children, we thought as children. But as we grow up as a society, we think like adults. Those that want the "all or nothing" approach want to keep us as children.
On the other hand those that concluding that the Bible contains nothing of value or substance regarding the reason we are here or issues of life because the "literal" interpretation contradicts their view of what is fact based on scientific research may be missing an insight into an aspect of our humanity that is revealed in the Bible in spite of those believed inaccuracies.
Very good. Those that do this are members of a different faith -- atheism. Actually they are militant atheist who stand in relationship to atheism as Biblical literalists stand in relation to Christianity.
Is there a middle ground?
There is a
huge middle ground. All the mainline churches are in the middle ground. Agnostics occupy the middle ground. Even most atheists are in the middle ground. They may differ as to faith, but they do realize the limitations of science and do not declare that science shows the Bible false.
There are certain foundational doctrines that cannot be compromised and still truthfully call yourself a Christian.
Right. So the question becomes: does science threaten any of these? I don't see any part of 1 Cor 15 that science contradicts. Do you?
Connecting things that are not connected.
