This is a hard one. I want to drop kick an idiot, but at the same time, the bible didn't say god created two independent light sources , just that he created two lights, and a reflection counts.
And, he really should have known better than to bring the bible into it in a crowd of strangers.
Right. I didn't see an actual transcript (unless one appears later in the thread), but context also matter here: Did he frame it as a reason to not believe in the Bible? I know he's not fond of the religious conservatives, bless his li'l soul....
This is veering into that territory when atheists claim that the verse, "God will remove your sins as far as the east is from the west" or uses the phrases "far corners of the earth" is some kind of belief in a flat earth. They're just allusions. And for all practical purposes, the Bible saying God placed two lights in the sky is just saying they believe that God created everything, including the two lights they commonly see in the sky, it's not supposed to be a scientific exposition on the nature of the lights that appear in the sky.
....I'll skim the rest of this thread and see where it went, sorry if I'm repeating something someone already said. it's just a PitA because I see now that half of the posts here are auto-blocked via the Ignore function... ROFL!
Literalist is a poor term to use since it doesn't accurately present what they believe. Notice their focus is on historical-grammatical usage and intent. Not just taking everything literally. Jesus says if you drink of the living water you'll be saved, but none of them believe there's actual physical water they have to drink.
Actually, if we root around, I bet we'd find some that do. There's all sects out there.
Why else do you think the Lutherans and Catholics (at least, the ones who adhere to the ACTUAL specified doctrine) believe in transubstantiation? That the wine used in communion actually becomes the blood of Christ when they drink it? I had so many arguments with such people in college and just avoided the topic after -- I took Jesus saying that as a metaphor ("this is my blood, given for you; drink" etc), but they were literalists and insisted to the point of anger that it was Jesus' actual blood (through some mystical power, I guess) and that I was basically slandering Jesus by disagreeing. This wasn't just a few wackos, the fact that there's even a term for it (transubstantiation) exposes that a substantial group of people take Bible verses very literally.
I'll only give in enough to say that people choose to be literalists on this or that Biblical topic. The way to argue against this is to say, "You don't believe that the Earth is flat and rests on four pillars, why do you believe God put two lights in the sky?"
Right. I agree with that. There's still an inconsistency in the extreme literalist position.
Because the genre of the book where that statement comes from is a prophecy.
Genre, grammar, and intent matter.
So you're a step up on the Bible knowledge topic. Some aren't. Like I said, there's quite a range of belief among Christian sects and among individual Christians.
Why are you referring to the septuagint?
Or were you just not aware that the OT was written in Hebrew?
Yeah, you pretty much no credibility on this topic.
I think he gotcha there, Mal.
Point. Fifteen-love.
Wow, there's a lot of "you're wrong!"s being thrown back and forth here which is pretty ballsy for a bunch of people who weren't there and don't know what he said.
First of all this isn't a year-old story, this is a SEVEN-year-old story. And it was taken wildly out of context. See
here and
here.
The last sentence from that first source: "[This is] not just an example of this kind of conditioning that allows people to close themselves off from any contrary evidence to their views, no matter how obvious and common sensical, but how, in the Internet age, stories take on a life of their own and are more likely to catch fire because they are cast in their most sensationalistic light."
Thank you, I was wondering if this was what had happened. I agree with the article's suggested origins of the mutation -- the fact the original article was not available, and the story took place in Waco, etc. The Internet's a bitch sometimes, and I'm not just talking niche groups; I've seen this shit on front-page Yahoo news, which pretends to be more credible (since it runs AP stories and other large news-org stories) mixed in with a bunch of opinion pieces, and if you're not careful, it's easily possible to give more credibility to a piece of news than it deserves.
IMO he is sticking to science by hoping to keep it separate from religion. I think he was encouraging people not to use isolated verses in the Bible to disprove well-supported science, because as you said, it is not a science book. What he said in that Brian Unger podcast is that religious figures such as Jerry Falwell are not sticking to religion but instead making asinine remarks about science, and that it concerns him. And I agree with him about that.
From what I've seen Bil say over the years, I wouldn't call dump him in the militant atheist group like Hitchens et al, but he does passionately believe in educating people and has been frustrated with the impact of some religious beliefs on educating children to make more rational sense of their world. I don't think it should be a polarized issue ("either science or religion has to go!"), but definitely in the United States it has impacted how we spend our money on scientific and medical pursuits and sometimes hindered progress, as well as who people vote for and put in charge of the national budget. Nowadays, people seem to be even more apt to just believe what they want without giving a darn about how well it fits the big picture; belief is more self-indulgent, it seems, than it might have been before.
Bill's definitely put himself out there at times, in the tradition of Sagan and others. When you strike sparks, occasionally you might start a fire.
Disclaimer: yes, I admit to being a Bill groupie from his show, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" years ago. Sorry. I can't help it.