Discussion moved from rules thread

[HydrogenBond]

Fair enough. Religion has been part of human culture since the beginning of time and has always had an impact on social behavior both good and bad. Although one may not agree with religion it did create a means of social restraint and social organization that help culture to evolve. Many of the Middle Ages uncles of science, the alchemists, were monks. They were religious people seeking to find a way to combine sensory reality with their ideas of God. They were the persecuted scientistics of their day who could not stray too far. Even with the evolution of modern science, religion still remains a viable aspect of social consciousness that led to civil rights and equality. The problem is that religion becomes bogged down in superfisciality and elitism and forget that most religions preach the essence of the same thing. Human intervention for power, pride and prestige is what screws things up.

[cwes99_03]

They were religious people seeking to find a way to combine sensory reality with their ideas of God. They were the persecuted scientistics of their day who could not stray too far.

 

Interesting as you should point that out, and yet this very forum seems to persecute those willing to discuss the scientific ideas found in the Christian religion, by threatening to ban them from the forum. Why?

 

Are religion and science at odds, or is it the elitness of some scientists who refuse to acknowledge that there might be a possibility of something beyond the physical, identified as spiritual.

 

Take for example the idea of creation, which is a fairly universal (across many many religions) concept. Yet, currently scientists are up in arms because a school decided to have a letter read in class the first day of teaching evolution to let the students know that there are many scientists who believe that there was a creator(s).

 

I was a bit disgusted that a forum admin, closed another thread simply because two people were willing to discuss how a religious text seemed to present scientific material before modern day scientists were acredited with its discovery, using the above stated rules.

 

I guess their only excuse is that the rules were there first (i'm assuming). But my point is that the rules themselves present a challenge to open discussion.

[paultrr]

Interesting as you should point that out, and yet this very forum seems to persecute those willing to discuss the scientific ideas found in the Christian religion, by threatening to ban them from the forum. Why?

 

Are religion and science at odds, or is it the elitness of some scientists who refuse to acknowledge that there might be a possibility of something beyond the physical, identified as spiritual.

 

Take for example the idea of creation, which is a fairly universal (across many many religions) concept. Yet, currently scientists are up in arms because a school decided to have a letter read in class the first day of teaching evolution to let the students know that there are many scientists who believe that there was a creator(s).

 

I was a bit disgusted that a forum admin, closed another thread simply because two people were willing to discuss how a religious text seemed to present scientific material before modern day scientists were acredited with its discovery, using the above stated rules.

 

I guess their only excuse is that the rules were there first (i'm assuming). But my point is that the rules themselves present a challenge to open discussion.

 

One way to look at this is that Science by design studies only what information one can gain from nature itself. It sees us as part of nature. As such its the general consus from Science that in studying nature and how it works one can find answers to say why we are here. As such Science has no actual ability to study something that by definition is beyond nature or supernatural. That is the place of religion in general. I do not think anyone has suggested that anchient people did not at times tend to know certain things we have tended to think where more recent discovers. As long as people have been pondering the unknown I suspect that some have discovered insight by looking at how nature seems to work.

 

The problem we scientists have with say Biblical text is manyfold:

 

1.) A lot of us are not believers in God or the Bible. As such, we do not see the Bible the same way most say Christians see it. We do not see it as inerrant, nor as fully historically correct, etc.

 

2.) The Bible by design tends to discuss something at its heart that is supernatural and beyond our ability to actually study.

 

3.) As with all the major religious writtings and the religions based upon them there is a wide variety of different interpretations of what they say and mean. Even the Christian religion as a whole lacks a absolute concensus here which is way we have so many denominations and sects out there. It is true that as far as political clout and vocalness goes the modern Evangelical Christian movement is the portion of what calls itself Christian that tends to have the most effect politically today.

 

However, there are a lot of Christians and even verses in the Bible that tend towards the opinion that mixing Church and politics together in the end run is not a tool of God at all in the Biblical sence. Evangelical Christianity sprang from out of the reformation itself. Part of the problem with the Roman Catholic church in the dark ages was its tie to the political power structure all the way back to Roman times. Yet, it is now the Evangelicals who tend to see getting in bed with politicians to be a good thing, so to speak.

 

We scientists tend like I said to discount the Bible as any solid source of anything except perhaps a glimpse into the developing psychology of man himself. If anything we tend to see trying to quote Bible verses as simply another attempt at converting people to one's own religion which a science forum is not the place for.

 

I myself find a strong problem with modern Christians who rely upon logic for every argument they have when the logic applied is so based upon the assumption that God exists in the first place. Anyone who has ever read the Bible even slightly could tell you that real faith believes inspite of logic, that while preaching the Gospel was something Christians where told to do, that the real evidence was supposed to come from the changed lives of the believers, and that this world system has one end, being the tribulation brought about by the often refered to anti-christ who's system involves a mixture of politics and religion in the first place. All of that together and this modern trend of wanting to force through political means people to follow one religions own way of seeing and believing to me is so counter to the Bible they claim to follow that I do see no place for preaching in a science forum. Science should remain about science and religion should remain about personal belief.

[cwes99_03]

Interesting post, and I can see and say I agree with a couple of things you said.

I myself find a strong problem with modern Christians who rely upon logic for every argument they have when the logic applied is so based upon the assumption that God exists in the first place.

As to this comment, I believe most Christians accept God's existence as a theory. They then test that theory by reading the Bible and testing whether the theory is supported by scripture.

Many say that they find inconsistencies. For this, there are scientific methods of lingustics, archaeology, etc. to determine if there are inconsistencies or not. To do this one has to actually discuss the scripture.

The approach to the existence of this particular God can be done very scientifically, but one has to be willing to hear someone else's opinion and discuss it, without the fear that someone is simply proseletizing. In fact, isn't this what proseletizing should be? The scientific approach to determining the veracity of the religious texts, as far as they may be determined, so as to make a strong case for the existence of God?

[Pyrotex]

...I believe most Christians accept God's existence as a theory...to determine if there are inconsistencies or not...?

 

I don't think I ever heard a preacher say from the pulpit that God's existence was "only a theory". If the statement "evolution is only a theory" implies that evolution is just a guess or a baseless opinion, I don't think you want to say the same thing about God. IMHO.

 

So, here we are in the theo.forum. What do you want to discuss?

 

May I suggest something? In the OT we find the story of Abraham being told to murder his son. In the NT we find the quote that God never tempts us to sin. We could discuss whether or not these contradict each other. I don't think any recourse to ancient Greek or archeology is necessary. So? What about it? Pax? :cup:

[Southtown]

Since to "sin" basically means to go against God, refusing to offer his son would have been the sin, in Abraham's case. Plus this particular story, the justification by faith of Abraham, came over four hundred years before God told Moses not to kill.

 

The question would then be, why would God say one thing at one time and then later say the exact opposite. And the answer to that is obvious, as well, since God stopped the sacrifice.

 

God's original intent was not for Abraham to murder Isaac, but to see if he had faith. (Another subject, another time.) So God is then consistent with his own commandments prior to them being chiseled in the desert.

[HydrogenBond]

If one looks at the OT, up to the time of Job, Satan was God's left hand man. In Job, Satan tries to manipulate God to put Job to the test and is quite successful. After Job passes all the tests, God realizes something about himself and his relationship toward his highest creatures (based on Satan or the morning star (morning of consciousness), such that he and Satan have a parting of the ways.

 

If one was to interpret this symbolically, it would imply that human consciousness, up to the time of Job, was giving a lot of creative liberty, via Satan, due to its low degree of willpower. The human mind was just beginning to experiment within culture. But after Job, the human mind had become sufficiently advanced to where law could be followed and good and evil behavior differentiated.