O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in school

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

So I'm not opposed to teaching comparative theology, I'm very opposed to going into science classes and saying god did it.

I decided to tell a story here that really didn't fit with my first response to this:

Our family one day was watching a NOVA special about some cosmic phenomenon -- I don't recall which one; it may have been quasars. At one point the narrator rhetorically asked why things were the way they were, and in response my mom stated, "God did it".
Without thinking, I tossed over my shoulder, "How?"

That's where I see the real stupidity of O'Reilly's comments, and of Creationists in general: they love to say "God did it!"-- but I love to ask "How?" To them, "God did it!" is an end point; to me and those I discussed Intelligent Design with (before it got stolen for a Creationist cover), saying "God did it!" was a beginning point to asking "How?"
What makes that really, really stupid is that Christianity drove the development of science; since God was faithful, trustworthy, and dependable, then, early investigators reasoned, His Creation ought to be orderly, something with dependable patterns that could be studied and understood. They knew "God did it!", and that drove them to investigate -- but these people today want to end all investigation with the declaration "God did it!"
If they really knew the God of the Bible, the declaration "God did it!" would arouse excitement -- the desire to investigate, the confidence that the material evidence wouldn't lead them astray, the certainty that whatever was found couldn't contradict divine revelation -- although it could, as in Galileo's case, point up where what people thought was divine revelation wasn't (in that case, what the Church was clinging to wasn't even from the Bible; it was from Aristotle!).
So instead of a God who challenges us to grow, and gave us minds to investigate His Creation and understand it, they have a 'God' who wants them to close their minds, a God who lies and deceives through the plain evidence, a God who silences our questions and thunders at our curiosity.

I recall a college biology course which focused on the study of mammals. The good professor, with two doctorates in biology, began with a reading from Genesis -- God making the animals, and then Man, and directing Man to name the animals -- and then from the Psalms, where God points Man's eyes to the wonders He has made, and invites appreciation. Dr. B pointed out that the second invites study, and comprehension, a notion confirmed in the Genesis account, because "naming" the animals carries the concept of grasping their natures and their relationships to everything around them. He then pointed out that from the way that the pastoral Creation account is put together, we are also animals, although more than animals as well.
Then he said something like, "Since God has invited us to study, let's get to it!"

Meditating on that, I can't help but feel pity for the poor fools who not only don't understand evolution, but don't want to.

 

[construct]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

My theory is that Creationism is a banner, not an actual philosophy, people say they believe in creationism not because they've given the matter extensive thought, but because they see it as a means of staking a religious position.

Like counting coup, the grater the danger, the greater the accomplishment, and the glory, only here it's the more opposition there is the greater the faith, and the accolades for those who refuse to bend.

So it doesn't matter how wrong they are or how much evidence there is to the contrary, because it was never actually about evolution in the first place.

Good point! And it explains mutatis mutandis why many of my posts on this thread have drifted away from the original post.

I think I have made my point and with a fair number of biblical citations to boot, and since I reached a logical stopping off point, I will leave responses to that post unanswered.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Good point! And it explains mutatis mutandis why many of my posts on this thread have drifted away from the original post.

Knowledge of self is the beginning of wisdom - and other pithy, inscrutable sayings.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Kulindahr, there are many of us who not only disbelieve the stories that are told by believers in god, but who also feel that if the stories were actually true, then god would be a very unpleasant person indeed.

When we point out why, your response is predictably to brush off the criticism by saying, predictably "well you obviously don't understand it" or "you've read it wrong" without actually countering the points, or explaining what we supposedly should understand, or just how we have misread it.

It's like pulling teeth to get answers out of you on those points. Sometimes your method of dealing with atheism seems to reveal that you only have one article of faith yourself, a negative; that atheism is just wrong.

I've explained a lot, and it just gets dismissed as "opinion". I know that in a culture where words can mean whatever someone (especially a lawyer) wants them to, that's an easy out, because there's little grasp of the fact that people once took words seriously, and those words can be studied and conclusions drawn.

In other threads, I've explained the progression in the Old Testament, from strict -- yet, compared to the culture, merciful -- detailed unbending rules, to principles of mercy and faithfulness, and the prophets expounding how those principles were there in the rules... and it gets dismissed as "justifying".

Part of the importance of recognizing that the Mosaic Law no longer applies is realizing that the Law was never meant to be a moral code. It was meant to be (1) instructions for living in the theocratic state God had launched as a medium for carrying out a long-range plan, and (2) a teaching instrument. So pointing to the Law as statements of "God's morality" is fallacious. The Law represents God's morality only as it is considered in relationship to what He's trying to accomplish with His people, and in relation to the culture around them. The Law is not a static declaration; it's an instrument of change, with a goal in mind.

In all this, God was "mindful" (as the Psalmist says) of man: He condescended to speak in man's terms, in their culture, only tugging at the limits to shape them for a purpose and draw (even drag) them toward a goal. From one perspective, God wasn't so much delivering "truth" as engaging in (to abuse a term) nation building.

At this point I get accused of playing games, because "an omnipotent God" "could have done it differently". But that in fact is irrelevant; the question is what the Bible says God did -- picking at it from 21st century daydreams aids nothing in figuring out its message, and before a decision can be made as to whether it is reasonable, one has to understand what "it" is.

Most of the charges made about God's morality are without basis, and I'm not even going to dignify them by responding. The one with substance is genocide. To understand that, the goal has to be kept in mind: a great rescue. Even in human terms, we not infrequently consider the sacrifice of some in order to save more. The orders to the Twelve Tribes to exterminate other peoples can be understood as an instance of that. There's more going on with it, but that addresses the "morality" of the situation.


I'm calling "enough" for now; hit me for more later.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Well Kuli, and I hesitated to post this because it’s pretty much a lost cause, upon which there can be no compromise; but you can’t help presenting your opinions, as incontrovertible fact, because that’s what you think they are. Others can’t help pointing out that you are not the sole voice of all Christians, and the grand guru of all biblical interpretation. If you were less uncompromising, we’d be less aggressive, but therein lies the problem. You won’t admit that there are a thousand different kinds of Christians who all think and interpret the bible in a thousand different kinds of ways. Those people aren’t valid to you, but to us, there is no reason to privilege you over them.

You won’t think about how the gay community has been alienated and spit on by the Christian community, the reason so many gay people validly dislike Christians.

Because you believe you are right and those other people can’t read and aren’t Christians, because they disagree with you, and that is an opinion, and that’s probably the most extreme, and dismissive opinion anyone involved in this conversation has ever posted.

 

[andysayshi]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

With regard to Benedict....

If someone these days asks if the Pope is Catholic, I tend to say, "Not very".

For me, here's where you lost the argument that your own view of The Bible is the only correct view, rather than just one interpretation.

There are 70 million Roman Catholics in the US, and an estimated 1 billion Catholics worldwide. Their spiritual leader is The Pope. But you place your own interpretation of The Bible above his, and above the millions who accept his guidance.

I'm in no way denigrating your beliefs, and you certainly know a LOT more about Christianity than I ever will, but your stance that there is one clarity or truth to The Bible is simply not true: every believer reads it in their own way, and draws different "truth" from it. This thread is a prime example - look at the pages of notes you and others have made debating what you believe to be true. "Everyone else is not reading it properly" is not a fair rebuttal.

 

[bankside]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

What makes that really, really stupid is that Christianity drove the development of science; since God was faithful, trustworthy, and dependable, then, early investigators reasoned, His Creation ought to be orderly, something with dependable patterns that could be studied and understood. They knew "God did it!", and that drove them to investigate -- but these people today want to end all investigation with the declaration "God did it!"

...that is to say, they speculated "god did it," but strangely for scientists, they didn't bother to verify their hypothesis..

and I would add, it was this very human speculation that drove the development of science, not christianity itself - the scientific method was not revealed in christian scripture.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Actually the scientific method goes back to Pagan Greeks, not Roman Christians, it was precisely when the western world rediscovered the classics and stopped looking to god for answers that the modern world was born.

But that's off the subject.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

You know it's just as dismissive and disrespectful to equate atheists with Hitler.

we come back to the first point. Before you can get me to have long arcane, voluminous arguments about what the bible says, you have to get me to believe it's true. Because if I don't buy it, there's no point in point by point refutation of the words of apostles - because none of it is true.

Your religion makes fantastic claims it can't prove, why should you therefore get some kind of automatic respect for it just 'cause?

1. Equating atheists with Hitler is just as fair as what people have been doing in this thread to religion.

2. You'll never believe it's true until you accept it on its own terms and study it -- much like physicists looking at, for example, the math behind quantum theory: until they understand the math, they have no possibility of judging the truth. And just as we would call one of them foolish for rejecting quantum theory without doing the work of understanding it, so also is anyone who rejects the Bible without doing the work of understanding it.

3. Atheism makes an equally fantastic claim that it can't prove, so why should atheists get any respect?

My theory is that Creationism is a banner, not an actual philosophy, people say they believe in creationism not because they've given the matter extensive thought, but because they see it as a means of staking a religious position.

Like counting coup, the greater the danger, the greater the accomplishment, and the glory; only here it's the more opposition there is, the greater the faith, and the accolades for those who refuse to bend.

So it doesn't matter how wrong they are or how much evidence there is to the contrary, because it was never actually about evolution in the first place.

That's rather insightful. I remember Creationists in geology class in college who were quite proud of rejecting the evidence for the age of the Himalayas. That seemed rather obtuse to me then, but your theory (popular sense ) makes some sense of it.

That in turn brings to mind a symposium where the research and work was set out showing a literary type called a royal chronicle, discussing what the elements of that type were, going through examples from ancient near eastern literature, and then analyzing Genesis 1+ and demonstrating that it's a royal chronicle. A couple of fundy types were there, and they rejected the whole notion because "the Bible doesn't say it's a royal chronicle", and they practically congratulated each other on that insight.
The ironic thing about it is that the Bible doesn't say Genesis 1 is history, either -- but they treat it that way.

If it was "about evolution in the first place", they'd actually study evolution, wouldn't they? I mean, that would sort of be required. What it's really about is clinging to false assumptions about what the universe must be like if Man is God's special creature. That's what it was about with Copernicus, and with Galileo, and with others along the way -- never actually about theology, but about misconceptions.

Good thoughts -- thanks.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Well Kuli, and I hesitated to post this because it’s pretty much a lost cause, upon which there can be no compromise; but you can’t help presenting your opinions, as incontrovertible fact, because that’s what you think they are. Others can’t help pointing out that you are not the sole voice of all Christians, and the grand guru of all biblical interpretation. If you were less uncompromising, we’d be less aggressive, but therein lies the problem. You won’t admit that there are a thousand different kinds of Christians who all think and interpret the bible in a thousand different kinds of ways. Those people aren’t valid to you, but to us, there is no reason to privilege you over them.

There probably aren't "thousands of different kinds of Christians". For starters, any who don't hold to the Trinity aren't Christians. Second, any who don't hold to the deity of Christ aren't Christians. Third, those who don't properly distinguish the Two Natures in Christ aren't Christians. Of course, those things are expounded in the ancient Creeds, so any who don't hold to the Creeds aren't Christians.

Disgustingly, that leaves Phelps in.

You won’t think about how the gay community has been alienated and spit on by the Christian community, the reason so many gay people validly dislike Christians.

Now you're spinning moonbeams -- that's an interesting fantasy, but it has nothing to do with me.

But if the hate of a few extremists is sufficient to "validly dislike" an entire group of people, then Stalin is sufficient cuase to despise all atheists.

Because you believe you are right and those other people can’t read and aren’t Christians, because they disagree with you, and that is an opinion, and that’s probably the most extreme, and dismissive opinion anyone involved in this conversation has ever posted.

Any of them who don't stick with the grammar -- for example, all those who "follow the Spirit" to get their interpretation (which tends to mean follow their emotions) -- plainly don't know how to read. That's not an opinion, it's an objective observation. I already posted an example of the sort of "interpretation" they use, one which brings out meanings that have nothing to do with the words.

What Christianity is can't depart from what was taught and established by the ancient Fathers -- that's not "opinion", that's what Christianity is. People can "read" the Bible any way they want, but if they depart from the core contained in the ancient Creeds (including the doctrinal statements such as that of Chalcedon), they're not Christians, no matter what they may call themselves. Being a Christian isn't like being a Republican or Democrat, where you are one if you say you are; it's more like being a musician: you have to be able to read the music, and play it right.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

For me, here's where you lost the argument that your own view of The Bible is the only correct view, rather than just one interpretation.

There are 70 million Roman Catholics in the US, and an estimated 1 billion Catholics worldwide. Their spiritual leader is The Pope. But you place your own interpretation of The Bible above his, and above the millions who accept his guidance.

My judgment of the Pope isn't based on the Bible, but on what it means to be Catholic. Benedict is going against some of the last handful of Popes, and arguably undoing and contradicting portions of Vatican II -- which no pope has authority to do.

I'm in no way denigrating your beliefs, and you certainly know a LOT more about Christianity than I ever will, but your stance that there is one clarity or truth to The Bible is simply not true: every believer reads it in their own way, and draws different "truth" from it. This thread is a prime example - look at the pages of notes you and others have made debating what you believe to be true. "Everyone else is not reading it properly" is not a fair rebuttal.

On the points we've been discussing, there is no other view that is Christian. The Law of Moses was set aside by the work of Christ; that was the position of the community of Christians for more than a dozen centuries before rebels came along and started abandoning or throwing out parts of what had always been believed.

And on the points we've been discussing, the language is plain. However slippery construct may try to make things, the words are plain -- including the words of Jesus invoked to the contrary. Words, and grammar; they make it plain, no matter the twists people try to put on them.

 

[bankside]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

2. You'll never believe it's true until you accept it on its own terms and study it

I try not to be pestering on this issue but I would be grateful if you'd spare a moment to answer two questions.

Have you studied atheism on its own terms and found it to be false?
and
If so, where/in what ways?

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Trying to get this pointed back at the topic: why was religion-bashing necessary in the original post -- when what was being objected to is not religion, but Creationism?

 

[FirmaFan]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Trying to get this pointed back at the topic: why was religion-bashing necessary in the original post -- when what was being objected to is not religion, but Creationism?

Creationism is a product of religion. You can't expect someone to object to the fallout, and not argue against the perpetrator. Your question is like asking "why was Muslim religion-bashing necessary -- when what was being objected to was flying planes into buildings?".

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

I try not to be pestering on this issue but I would be grateful if you'd spare a moment to answer two questions.

Have you studied atheism on its own terms and found it to be false?
and
If so, where/in what ways?

Studying atheism in itself takes at most ten minutes -- as was said earlier on this thread, there aren't any doctrines or dogmas.

Atheism is usually a denial of something without examining the evidence offered, or the material offered as evidence if you want to put it that way.

To examine atheism is to ask, "Could there be a God?" since it is the negation of the position that there might be.

 

[hotatlboi]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Part of the importance of recognizing that the Mosaic Law no longer applies is realizing that the Law was never meant to be a moral code.

If you really understand how the Law is referenced in the NT, this suggestion is laughable.

The law is edified by everyone, including Jesus, as a demonstration of God's justice and perfection. It is portrayed as the starting point to the divine revelation which ultimately led to Christ.

So if God stands or falls by the morality of the law, he most definitely loses on that point.

 

[FirmaFan]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Atheism is usually a denial of something without examining the evidence offered, or the material offered as evidence if you want to put it that way.

What is the evidence that have atheists not yet examined? And "material offered as evidence" (which, I assume, is the bible you refer to) does not make that material evidence.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Creationism is a product of religion. You can't expect someone to object to the fallout, and not argue against the perpetrator. Your question is like asking "why was Muslim religion-bashing necessary -- when what was being objected to was flying planes into buildings?".

"Muslim religion-bashing" wasn't necessary -- that's my point.

Doing "Muslim religion-bashing" was the same fallacy you're doing.

Hospitals are the product of religion, as are food banks, child care centers, and much more. So why aren't you starting threads saying how wonderful and beneficial religion is? That would be a generalization, too -- but it's not the one you like, is it?

 

[FirmaFan]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Hospitals are the product of religion, as are food banks, child care centers, and much more. So why aren't you starting threads saying how wonderful and beneficial religion is? That would be a generalization, too -- but it's not the one you like, is it?

Are you saying that religion was required in order to have hospitals, food banks, child care centers, and much more?

I can, however, say with absolute certainty that religion was required to conceive creationism.

 

[FirmaFan]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Atheism is usually a denial of something without examining the evidence offered, or the material offered as evidence if you want to put it that way.

I responded to this with a post asking for the evidence referred to in this statement, but I have found it difficult asking for evidence, or proof, of a god that someone claims. The biggest problem is getting around what the person making the claim actually defines as god (how can I understand the evidence when I can't even understand what you are trying to prove?). So far as I can see, there is not one clear definition of what "god" is. Everyone seems to have their own idea. Some say he is an all knowing, all loving, creator of this universe with a divine purpose. This goes back to my earlier post about complexity, and the argument made that complex systems requires a designer (the word "designer" to me implying a conscious being who designed the universe with motive and intent). But such a being would, itself, need to be complex, thus requiring a designer, and in circles we go. Or I've heard that god is actually simple, being the laws and constants (like Plank's constant of the speed of light through a vacuum) that govern the mechanism by which this universe operates, in which case, worshiping, praying to him, organizing religions, etc are absolutely useless, as god is nothing more than a construct of mathematical constants. And then I've heard all claims in between. If you are going to attempt to offer proof (which, to this day, I still have not seen), first, tell me, what is god to you?