Sendraks wrote:My sense is you are not happy with that but, seem unwilling to take the first step in acknowledging that faith based positions are fundamentally dishonest to one's self.

Because it's scary. That's why I'm looking into what I believe and the veracity of biblical claims. I hope to come to a point where I commit to the extent my mind is comfortable with that decision.

sdelsolray wrote:

Passer wrote:

newolder wrote:

Passer wrote:...
I said I think it is a Sauropod, I was told it is not. Ok. I accept it doesn't say Sauropod at all, and it could mean anything.

Yet you still think it's about a Sauropod. Which fact or reason supports your thinking?

I don't think it is about a Sauropod. At least not with much conviction. Probably more conviction in thinking it is anything other than a Sauropod. The description is vague enough it could be anything.

Have you considered taking the position of, "I don't know"?

Agnostic. Yes I have. I've thought perhaps it would be more honest for me to admit I really do not know. But again, I am going to research as much scholarly 'stuff' I can. For example, I am currently watching a video "Who wrote the bible?" and so far it's a bit of any eye opener. Hopefully I can come to a decision that I am comfortable with

Alan B wrote:Very well, then.
As a Christian, Passer, can you give your point of view on The Lord's Prayer?

I know of it, but I have never really thought about it, and rarely said it as a prayer.

Can I ask why? I'm intrigued.

Most, if not all, Christians treat the prayer as something to say by rote since they have never been taught that there could be a deeper meaning. It is as though they are reading the instructions on a packet of holy soup without learning how to open the packet and make the soup. They then put the 'unopened packet' back on the shelf ready for the next time - with nothing gained. The hunger is not satiated.

To give you a clue, this fellow Jesus said "This is how you should pray." or "After this manner pray ye."

The words 'how' and 'manner' do NOT mean the verb 'to say' but indicate instructions to be followed, not a command to be done without thinking.

Passer wrote:
Because it's scary. That's why I'm looking into what I believe and the veracity of biblical claims. I hope to come to a point where I commit to the extent my mind is comfortable with that decision.

And if you were able to establish that any of the claims of the bible were accurate, all it would prove is that those claims were accurate. It wouldn't mean that the bible was accurate or reliable, given the huge amount of content that is demonstrably inaccurate.

As the discussion on sauropods and light has shown, apologetics has to be employed in order to try and make them seem remotely accurate. If you're going down that route, you're basically only trying to convince yourself as it'll be transparently obvious to everyone else what you are doing.

The bible isn't a scientific document and there isn't a defence of "they didn't know how to write science properly then" because the greeks did, hundreds of years before the bible was written.

You could argue that it was an attempt to write science by non-scientists, which basically just makes the bible a decidedly shit science book and there is nothing profound about its contents. Just the bungled ramblings of people who were lacking in the requisite knowledge to explain the world around them, so they simply made stuff up. Which is broadly what the bible is and saying it was a shit attempt to do science, doesn't make it any better.

It's a bit like citing examples of isolated miralces as evidence for god. Like he miraculously cured someone's cancer that one time.

Is that really a miracle? Millions of people around the world of dying of starvation, disease and war. All of that is a rather weighty catalogue of evidence against there being any sort of miracle working entity out there.

Passer wrote:

sdelsolray wrote:

Passer wrote:

newolder wrote:
Yet you still think it's about a Sauropod. Which fact or reason supports your thinking?

I don't think it is about a Sauropod. At least not with much conviction. Probably more conviction in thinking it is anything other than a Sauropod. The description is vague enough it could be anything.

Have you considered taking the position of, "I don't know"?

Agnostic. Yes I have. I've thought perhaps it would be more honest for me to admit I really do not know. But again, I am going to research as much scholarly 'stuff' I can. For example, I am currently watching a video "Who wrote the bible?" and so far it's a bit of any eye opener. Hopefully I can come to a decision that I am comfortable with

Isn't it better to come to a conclusion that's realistic, verifiable and based on facts, rather than emotions?

That's the real issue for me; leaving emotion out of it.

Thank you for the advice

Passer wrote:That's why I'm looking into what I believe and the veracity of biblical claims.

So, you base your faith on the notion that the bible makes verifiably truthful claims. For some people, faith is effortless. Other people don't seem to think it worthwhile unless they have to struggle with it. There are countless stories from both kinds of people of faith. We get lots of apologetics here from believers who make their faith into what they consider a rational choice, but which appears ludicrously arbitrary to anyone not emotionally attached to their belief system as a mark of achievement.

The process you're laying out for us here is only a weary retread of what dozens or hundreds of others have taken a shot at here; some people will honor your public attempt to think things through, but it's not an achievement unless you achieve something. To my eyes, you're spinning your wheels in the mud. Lots of splashing around, grinding of gears, burping of exhaust.

by Passer » Apr 05, 2017 6:45 pm

That's the real issue for me; leaving emotion out of it.

or the soother...

FFS read some science instead of picking through ancient nonsense you've been brainwashed into thinking is relevant ...it's not ...move on ....you've got one round on planet earth ...don't waste it picking through trash.

Passer wrote:

Sendraks wrote:My sense is you are not happy with that but, seem unwilling to take the first step in acknowledging that faith based positions are fundamentally dishonest to one's self.

Because it's scary. That's why I'm looking into what I believe and the veracity of biblical claims. I hope to come to a point where I commit to the extent my mind is comfortable with that decision.

It is only through the lens of faith that one can construe the bible as true. This seems an odd place to come to get to the point of being comfortable with accepting the veracity of the bible. Does this mean that you want to become comfortable with the lack of veracity of the bible?

Passer wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:Passer, there are two things you can do, that will prove useful here.

First, read this post on the nature of mythology, and why it's singularly unreliable as a source of substantive knowledge (except, of course, substantive knowledge about how people fabricate mythologies).

Second, learn this definition of atheism that I proposed here some time ago in the interests of rigour, viz:

Atheism is the refusal to treat uncritically as fact, unsupported supernaturalist assertions.

While it's tempting to say "that is it" with regard to the above definition, in order to kill at source the usual duplicitous apologetics about atheism all too frequently seen arising from supernaturalists, that definition immediately invites a range of important corollaries, and in addition arises from a fundamental rule of proper discourse. That rule being, quite simply, that any assertion presented possesses the status "truth value unknown" when first presented, and retains that status until subject to test. Recognition of that rule, and the proper application thereof to supernaturalist assertions, is what leads inexorably to the definition of atheism I provided above. The corollaries arising therefrom, include the implied need to exert diligent effort determining if an assertion is testable even in principle, and if so, what test(s) can be devised to apply thereto.

Which immediately points to a major problem with mythological assertions, namely, that many of them are either untestable in principle, via accident or design. As a corollary of this state of affairs, those assertions will forever possess the status "truth value unknown", until some genius devises an actual test and applies it. Consequently, those assertions may freely be discarded, on the basis that assertions with an unknown truth-value cannot of themselves contribute meaningfully to substantive knowledge. The only purpose they serve, whilst possessing that status, is to provide a motivation to remedy the knowledge deficit with respect to their actual truth value, and those seeking to do so should be mindful of the issues that have arisen along the way, with respect to many assertions that were successfully assigned a truth-value. In short, the business of testing assertions to determine their truth-value, is a hugely non-trivial enterprise when conducted properly.

Another problem with some mythological assertions, is that they have already been demonstrated to be false. The various bizarre cosmologies asserted to have taken place in our past mythologies, have all been demonstrated to be spectacularly wrong. Instead, the universe has been found, via diligent scientific investigation, to be far older, far grander in scale, and replete with far more exotic entities and phenomena, than any of our mythologies asserted. Indeed, this is one of the reasons I treat mythology as incompetent with respect to the matter of imparting proper knowledge - the authors thereof were apparently incapable of even fantasising about vast classes of entities and phenomena that have since been alighted upon by science, and placed within precise, usefully predictive quantitative frameworks of genuine knowledge by the scientific endeavour. In the case of the Bible, the authors did not even know of the existence of the continental land mass now inhabited by so many of that mythology's followers, a disturbing fraction of whom cling to that mythology's assertions in a manner that ranges from the infantile to the clinically psychotic.

In short, mythologies were our attempt, as a species, to provide an explanation for our surroundings, in an era when we didn't know any better. We do know better now, and it's time to relegate mythologies to their proper place.

Thank you for providing this information, I have read both and I think I understand you are saying the problem with mytholgoy is that for a number of reasons, it is not testable?

No, only some of the assertions contained therein are untestable. Other assertions, as I've already stated, are testable, have already been subject to test, and found to be false. The entire Genesis cosmology, for example, which not only involves getting the age of the universe wrong by about six orders of magnitude, but also includes such absurdities as plants appearing before there existed a source of light for them to utilise for photosynthesis. It also contains assertions about the order of appearance of major clades of organisms, assertions which are again known to be completely wrong.

Passer wrote:I understand where you are coming from, but I am unsure as to how to continue on these forums. I would like to say "Hey, look at his verse here >any given verse>. I have been told that this means >X<. I would like to hear if you have an opinion on this verse".

This is simplicity itself, if you use the framework I've provided above. Namely, "I have seen an assertion that verse X is purportedly a commentary on subject Y, does there exist external corroboration of this assertion?"

The point about external corroboration is an important one here, because only under very special circumstances, can the source of an assertion be in addition the source of evidence supporting that assertion. Scientific papers provide the canonical example of how this is achieved, but other texts can achieve the same results, if they cite the requisite external data. But of course, those citations have to possess a certain minimum level of precision, and also have to present the material in question in as unambiguous and explicit a manner as possible, so that there is no doubt which entities and phenomena are being referred to. It also helps if there exists the ability to replicate the phenomenon in question, or observe the occurrence thereof in the present, as we have much more confidence of the provenance of the earlier text in this case.

Take volcanoes, for example. We have enough television footage of erupting volcanoes in the present, to know what a volcano is, and what processes take place when a volcano erupts. We also know that various pre-scientific civilisations had already alighted upon sulphur, even if they didn't know it was a chemical element, had already pressed it into service for fumigation, and as a consequence, were aware of the characteristic smell that arises when sulphur undergoes combustion, a smell that is also present around numerous erupting volcanoes. Consequently, any ancient text that mentions fire emanating from a mountain top, and the smell of sulphur associated therewith, is likely to be describing a volcanic eruption. If the text mentions a particular location, and subsequent geological examination of that location finds an active volcano, then bingo, we know that the text is in accord with observational reality. Given the pretty devastating effects volcanoes have had upon human settlements in the past, ranging from the famous immolation of Pompeii in 79 CE, through to Mount Pelée in 1902, and more recently, the televised eruptions of Mount St Helens in 1980, and Soufrière Hills in 1995, humans have strong motivation to study these objects. In addition, anyone in Hawai'i is well aware of Kilauea, which has been producing lava continuously since 1983. Consequently, it doesn't require convoluted apologetic contortions to work out when a text written in the past, contains a reference to a volcanic event.

On the other hand, the sort of apologetics that routinely emanate from the usual suspects, about their favourite mythology supposedly talking about Sauropod dinosaurs being alive alongside human beings of relatively recent (in geological terms) vintage, can be dismissed with ease, by reference to a wealth of data pointing to these organisms becoming extinct around 65 million years ago. Apart from the fact that no fossils of these organisms have been found younger than 65 Mya, the only way that Sauropods could have appeared alongside humans, if any had survived the KT extinction event, is for there to have been a population of these organisms, and one furthermore spread over a pretty wide geographical area. Which means that there would have been ample mention of these organisms in the texts of numerous relevant civilisations. Since Greek civilisation provided us with Aristotle, who engaged in considerable empirical work involving the dissection of animals, and much subsequent written discussion thereof, we can be pretty sure that if any Sauropods were around at the time, Aristotle would have sought to have one made available for dissection, and this would have found its way into his works on the subject of biology, most of which survive to the present. As a consequence, this piece of creationist fantasising can be safely tossed into the bin where it belongs.

Passer wrote:I'm not trying to do anything other than learn. I will have my own opinons on things, like for example, I was pretty sure at one point (or at least wasn't fully connvinced the other way) that the verse in Job described (or at least could describe) a Sauropod. I realise that it is vague enough to describe a hippp or crocodile to name but two. But now, I couldn't really say with any gusto that I belive it is describing a Sauropod. My opinion has been changed by the folk on here.

An important lesson to learn: knowing how to ask a question, is frequently as important as asking the question itself. In short, ensure that one's ideas are properly and rigorously constituted as much as possible, before proceeding.

Passer wrote:My point? I'm not here to preach, and if I do not fully accept a version offered here, I might argue my case, but it isn't from a position of "I am right because I am Christian you are wrong because you are Atheist and don't know the Bible." That's honeslty not my agenda here

Well, since one of the more hilarious observations I've alighted upon here, centres upon the fact that in numerous instances, atheists are better informed about the textual content of the Bible than many self-declared practising Christians, and frequently exhibit a better command of the apologetics erected thereabout in addition, you would have much difficulty pursuing such an agenda if it was a part of your modus operandi.

It's worth noting the difference between apologetics and the scientific method when it comes to establishing truth.

The scientific method is where you look at the evidence, and come to tentative conclusions based on that evidence. When new evidence comes to light, you reassess your conclusions. You're always willing to change your mind when evidence demands it.

Apologetics is where you start with fixed beliefs, and then look for selected evidence to support those beliefs. When the evidence doesn't support the beliefs, you find ways of interpreting it that doesn't conflict. You may reselect the evidence you use (and the evidence you ignore), but the beliefs remain.

I need hardly tell you, or perhaps I do, that you'll find that people here regard the latter approach as intellectually dishonest, and generally contemptible.

Alan B wrote:Most, if not all, Christians treat the prayer as something to say by rote since they have never been taught that there could be a deeper meaning. It is as though they are reading the instructions on a packet of holy soup without learning how to open the packet and make the soup. They then put the 'unopened packet' back on the shelf ready for the next time - with nothing gained. The hunger is not satiated.

To give you a clue, this fellow Jesus said "This is how you should pray." or "After this manner pray ye."

The words 'how' and 'manner' do NOT mean the verb 'to say' but indicate instructions to be followed, not a command to be done without thinking.

we can excuse the bible,since majority of xtians admit it is not literally the words of god,it was obviously written by men ,edited and re-edited as time goes on.the babble is full of human additions,omissions,errors etc..

Dark energy wrote:

Alan B wrote:Most, if not all, Christians treat the prayer as something to say by rote since they have never been taught that there could be a deeper meaning. It is as though they are reading the instructions on a packet of holy soup without learning how to open the packet and make the soup. They then put the 'unopened packet' back on the shelf ready for the next time - with nothing gained. The hunger is not satiated.

To give you a clue, this fellow Jesus said "This is how you should pray." or "After this manner pray ye."

The words 'how' and 'manner' do NOT mean the verb 'to say' but indicate instructions to be followed, not a command to be done without thinking.

we can excuse the bible,since majority of xtians admit it is not literally the words of god,it was obviously written by men ,edited and re-edited as time goes on.the babble is full of human additions,omissions,errors etc..

Just for you, DE, from CH:



Yeah, we know the translation is 'read!' but it's still kinda funny.

Dark energy wrote:we can excuse the bible,since majority of xtians admit it is not literally the words of god,it was obviously written by men ,edited and re-edited as time goes on.the babble is full of human additions,omissions,errors etc..

I couldn't care who wrote it. I am just pointing out that the meaning of two words that are common throughout all translations is not understood by most Christians.

Dark energy wrote:we can excuse the bible,since majority of xtians admit it is not literally the words of god,it was obviously written by men ,edited and re-edited as time goes on.the babble is full of human additions,omissions,errors etc..

As opposed to the inerrant Quran, of course, that still startles us with it's advanced scientific knowledge to this day.

QURAN is not a book of science.it is a book of signs.

the spring stuff is just metaphor and allegory.

Dark energy wrote:QURAN is not a book of science.it is a book of signs.

the spring stuff is just metaphor and allegory.

Did you watch the whole video? That apologetic is addressed in the video. It clearly wasn't understood as a metaphor.

Also see Quran 2:2. The Quran is supposed to be clear, unambiguous. If this were a metaphor, it should be

a) clear to all that this is a metaphor

and

b) clear what it is a metaphor about

So I ask you. What is the sun setting into a spring clearly a representing, in a way that's plain and obvious to any reader?

Matthew Shute wrote:

Dark energy wrote:QURAN is not a book of science.it is a book of signs.

the spring stuff is just metaphor and allegory.

Did you watch the whole video? That apologetic is addressed in the video. It clearly wasn't understood as a metaphor.

Also see Quran 2:2. The Quran is supposed to be clear, unambiguous. If this were a metaphor, it should be

a) clear to all that this is a metaphor

and

b) clear what it is a metaphor about

So I ask you. What is the sun setting into a spring clearly a representing, in a way that's plain and obvious to any reader?

check this link
http://www.answering-christianity.com/s ... sunset.htm

i am not a scholar well versed with it,even though i want to learn Quran,time doesnt allow me.

Pebble wrote:It is only through the lens of faith that one can construe the bible as true. This seems an odd place to come to get to the point of being comfortable with accepting the veracity of the bible. Does this mean that you want to become comfortable with the lack of veracity of the bible?

I've had my faith for as long as I can remember and I've also had doubts for as long as I can remember. Recently I decided to research what it is I think I know. What I learn might lead me away from Christianity.