And those questions will never be definitively, objectively answered, so I don't bother putting how open I am on a scale of 1-10. It's a toggle switch. Open or not open.
Lol okay. Then I guess by that logic I'm "open".
And those questions will never be definitively, objectively answered, so I don't bother putting how open I am on a scale of 1-10. It's a toggle switch. Open or not open.
And those questions will never be definitively, objectively answered, so I don't bother putting how open I am on a scale of 1-10. It's a toggle switch. Open or not open.
Quantum Mechanics is based on statistics. And statistics tells us how likely something is on a scale of 1-10.
And Quantum Mechanics is unbelievably mind numbingly accurate. So statistics is accurate beyond our imaginations.
Yes, this lady was well within her rights to say what she said and to behave as she did. We all have the right to be wrong, and to act on it as well, provided we don't harm others in the process. Offending a few scientists who I am sure can take it does not constitute "harm".Ok, she said it quietly. She's allowed her free speech. It's not like she made a scene and threatened to kill someone.
Any time we try to replace ignorance with knowledge, we are likely to change someone's world view. This applies not only to scientific knowledge, but just as much in more subjective areas, as when we encourage understanding of those unlike us, or recognition of an addiction, or even when preachers urge the faithful to repent and live a more holy and spiritual life. All of this requires a change in world view; indeed, it depends on it. It is not a sign of strength, or intelligence, or character, or any good quality to be able to cling to the same unchanged world view for one's entire life.I don't think that one can cite their religious beliefs as an excuse for refuting any scientific fact they so well please. I certainly don't give a crap how allegedly irreverent it is for someone to state such a scientific fact. If informing someone that the moon reflects light from the sun is an attempt to change someone's world view, then so is educating a child about essentially any part of science..
Yes. Understanding the Bible largely as metaphor does not degrade it in any way, but rather unlocks its true value and purpose. We don't evaluate Aesop's Fables on the basis of whether there was an actual tortoise and hare having a footrace.The idea of taking the Bible seriously as a guide to understanding the objective world, is something I think was almost certainly unintended by the original thinkers. It isn't meant as a scientific or historical textbook, but as a set of ideas that attempt to give people's lives a meaning and purpose, and make them feel significant in the grand scheme of things.
We don't evaluate Aesop's Fables on the basis of whether there was an actual tortoise and hare having a footrace.
Yes. Understanding the Bible largely as metaphor does not degrade it in any way, but rather unlocks its true value and purpose. We don't evaluate Aesop's Fables on the basis of whether there was an actual tortoise and hare having a footrace.
The epistles are pretty much worthless without a real Christ.
That's only true for the moralistic tales and advice spread around the bible. Most of the new testament revolves around the actual death and resurrection of Christ. The epistles are pretty much worthless without a real Christ.
It's really sad to me that you believe that. "pretty much worthless" -- seriously??
It's really sad to me that you believe that. "pretty much worthless" -- seriously??
Christianity is not Christianity without Christ, I dont even mean the more obscurantist or theologically mired sense of discussions surrounding predestination, election, salvation, sacrifice and atonement (or at-one-ment) that go on, readings of the epistles and other post-Christ, emerging Christianity, passages in the bible are very similar to other philosophical and spiritual currents from the time, Platonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism.
Christ is what sets it all apart, even Hasidics and other parallels within the Hebrews didnt come close to the way in which he interpreted the tradition he was born into and revived in many ways before breaking with, at least in some important respects.
My comment is in regards to a particular member saying that the epistles are "pretty worthless" if we cannot assume they are entirely historically true [and, in his words, a "real Christ"].
My point is that I don't think they are "pretty worthless." The example of Christ has value regardless of any historicity.
I'm just kind of surprised at how dififcult it is for you and others to find value in things that you can't justify without having to make them a "historical fact" of sorts. That seems like a failure of imagination to me.
That's only true for the moralistic tales and advice spread around the bible. Most of the new testament revolves around the actual death and resurrection of Christ. The epistles are pretty much worthless without a real Christ.
You are both correct about there being no Christianity apart from Christ. People will differ, however, on what it means to say Christ is "real", largely because Jesus didn't leave a written record, and everything we know about him is at best second- and third-hand. Lark writes that he appears to have been "about tradition more than scripture". Relatively, perhaps, but my impression is that Jesus was in many ways an iconoclast, standing the customs of his day on their head by reaching out to marginalized groups, associating freely with women, gentiles, tax collectors, etc. But to say this is to claim no more than that the elephant has a trunk.Christianity is worthless without a real Christ.
Jesus Christ did not write anything himself and there is a lot of his ministry as recorded by others which suggests that he was a pretty orthodox Jew intent upon transforming scriptural truths into a lived reality again, all the business of leaving the dead to the dead, sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath and repeatedly outwitting the "athiests" and scriptural authorities of the day when they attempted to ambush him with it.
Even that is interpreted metaphorically by some.There's plenty of examples of people dying for what they believed in or being hunted down for it, although there's only one resurrection.