Will Obama say "So help me God" ?

[Kulindahr]

That's the problem though. You can't "take the easy one" and ignore the rest. Reading that verse in context with the others, I think the simplest explanation is that he meant exactly what he said. If not, then you have to invent all sorts of other alternate meanings for the other verses.

Occam's razor seems anathema to Christians. The question I am asking is "what is the most likely correct interpretation of those verses (and there are others), when looked at together in context. To me the easy and simple answer is the one I stated. Jesus expected his return to be soon to the time when he lived.

I agree that the main point of that verse is what you said, but as I said above I think Jesus suggested this both directly and indirectly on several occasions. That verse was obviously one of the indirect ones.

Read the verse carefully: what Jesus says there clearly tells Peter that it would be an amazing thing if anyone lived to see His return.

Again, the trouble is that you're not actually studying -- as I asked, what's the meaning of "generation"? Unless you can show that you know that at the very least, you're making the same error the Phelps clan does -- and your conclusions are about as useful.

 

[Kulindahr]

You're really pretty good at this stuff. I may disagree on particular points, but I agree with the general thrust of the argument you are in process of presenting.

I would say, though, that the gospels themselves are particularly incoherent on the "return" doctrine. It is possible that at least some of these references are about the post-resurrection appearances. Some might refer to events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Others appear to refer to another event that didn't happen. So your general point that Jesus was just wrong about all this is, in my opinion, correct.

Thanks for taking the trouble to make a detailed account of this stuff. I long ago lost patience with it.

Yeah, it is a bit incoherent, because Jesus keeps resorting to apocalyptic forms, in which things can become symbols, and in which two events which in an "eternal" sense can be treated as one are referred to as one, but temporally they're two, three, or even more events -- so to us it's confusing.
That Jesus did so indicates that He definitely didn't want his disciples too hot about figuring out when he was coming back.

BTW, what "event that didn't happen"?

 

[hotatlboi]

No, I applied logic: if you didn't observe it, you don't know.

You did nothing of the sort. You applied the old "absence of evidence" argument to an otherwise ridiculous claim to show that it could be true. Such logic could equally be applied to the flying spaghetti monster or any number of other imaginary tall tales as FirmaFan pointed out.

I didn't say what position I hold, other than that the Hebrew word there can mean anything from "our little country" to "the entire world", and has not just purely geographical but also political and religious meanings. In the context of the Deluge account, it probably means "the world I'm familiar with", because that tends to be the meaning when there's nothing in the context to indicate otherwise.

I was just pointing out your inconsistency.

Well heck if you believe the flood was local then I have to give that to you, as that's one of the most illogical claims of biblical literacy among Christians.

The problem is that Jesus clearly viewed it as global and he referenced the flood killing all life on more than one occasion.

Luke 17:26-27, As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Like most things in the Bible, if you can save one passage from being pronounced false by interpreting it a certain way, that inevitable leads you to contradictions with other passages. There are so many examples of this that it just completely invalidates the consistency of the text.

Now you're mixing two things you said. Your claim was that the water would get so high that Noah would have been in space. In fact, the rise of the sea by but a few miles would have had only a small effect on sea-level atmospheric pressure, which is what I recommended you calculate.

So wait, are you really advocating a global flood again? Your statements are so jumbled it's hard to make sense of what you are saying.

Do you expect God to sit down and try to teach a semi-nomadic people all the modern sciences before attempting to speak to them (just to satisfy your standards)?

No, but that's not what I claimed. Listen to me: GOD WAS WRONG about some basic info that he stated. None of it was complicated, it was just wrong.

I "get" quite well that you're trying to impose your own worldview on literature so old that we don't even have categories similar to a great deal of what's there.

What you are doing is trying to impose your own convulted interpretation on literature to preserve its worldview as your own without invalidating it due to the numerous errors your own knowledge from modern society would otherwise let you ascribe to it.

You're also demanding that the Bible be something it never claims to be: a science textbook.

Your demanding that the Bible doesn't need to be accurate about what it says on science, which is a completely outrageous claim if it was indeed inspired/written by an all powerful and all knowing being. The fact that you can't see this is what plagues the logic of religious arguments.

 

[hotatlboi]

Hmm... did I say the Bible is the most important book ever written?
Care to tell me where and when?

Dude, your attempts at logical rebuttals are just killing me here.

If the Bible was written/inspired by the God of the universe, a perfect, all knowing, holy, righteous, all powerful, infinite being, then YES it is the most important book ever written, period.

The trouble is, a logical reading of it most clearly rules it out as being such.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's quite amazing, too, that we found evidence for gravity effecting light, and changed our whole understanding about the universe. But, whenever new evidence goes against something the bible has claimed about the origins of life or the universe, . . .

I don't recall ever hearing anything ever come out that "goes against something the bible has claimed about the origins of life or the universe". I know that quite often things come out which go against some ignorant people's culturally-biased misconceptions about what the Bible says, but I've never seen anything come out against what the Bible actually says.

The problem with the flood is not that it killed all life, the problem is that a global event of that proportion WOULD leave behind geological evidence of its occurrence. However, there is none. Geologists have been able to trace back geological events from all parts of the earth several million years, yet no evidence of a flood is found anywhere and since it was global, you would see the same event in every location ever studied, but you don't. That IS evidence it did not occur.

It's evidence that there wasn't a global flood, yes. That's not evidence against the Flood, because the Bible doesn't claim it was global.

If you are saying not to look for facts in the bible as you wouldn't in Shakespeare or Dickens, then I completely agree, it is not a factual text, and should not be taken as such. As it is really the only "evidence" of god, why then, do people still believe in god? Because they believe it as truth (at least in some part). Just as those same people pick-and-choose which verses should be followed strictly (classic example - Leviticus saying both homosexuality and wearing cotton with wool are abominations, but only one had a state proposition about it), they pick and choose which verses are facts, and which are metaphors. If you think any part of the bible is true, then I would argue that you are a person to look for facts in Shakespeare or Dickens.

Stating "It's not a factual text" is misleading and misrepresenting. It presents many things as facts which are facts, such as that the moon doesn't shine as brightly as the sun. Saying "It's not a science text" would be accurate, though.

Unfortunately, all claims about what the bible has been said to have said are actual interpretations people have made from the bible (unless you want to argue that the creation museum in Kansas doesn't exist). It is not false propaganda against religion, all claims you have argued against have been made by people of faith, and not some rambling person on the street - people of religion in high power positions, including President of the United States. And as far as instances of taking in information without applying reason or logic, that is the definition of religion. That is exactly what you are doing when you say you believe in god.

The sad "museum" in Kansas has little to do with the Bible, except insofar as it posts English translations of Bible verses here and there. Its interpretations have little to do with the Bible, because they're not based on scholarship of any sort -- such scholarship would have to start with finding out what the Bible is really meaning to say, and realizing that it isn't saying that there were six literal days, etc, etc. etc.

Um, if you're referring to the current POTUS, he's little different from "some rambling person on the street". His behavior, in fact, has shown that he's really not very familiar with the Bible at all.

Um, have you read Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis? He's a man who was convinced of the truth of Christianity by logic and reason, along with millions through the ages.

 

[hotatlboi]

Read the verse carefully: what Jesus says there clearly tells Peter that it would be an amazing thing if anyone lived to see His return.

If you isolate it from the context of the other verses that say the same thing, then yes that could be all it means. But that's not the simplest or most likely interpretation given the other verses I mentioned.

Again, the trouble is that you're not actually studying -- as I asked, what's the meaning of "generation"? Unless you can show that you know that at the very least, you're making the same error the Phelps clan does -- and your conclusions are about as useful.

The greek word used is "Genea", which according to the NT Greek Lexicon means generation or age as in our modern sense or "all those living at the present time", or "members of the same family".

http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=1074

Either interpretation makes what Jesus said false.

 

[Kulindahr]

I guess that kind of makes it hard to figure out what the bible really said when it was first written.

Yes, it can be hard. It hasn't been that long, scholarship-wise, that we've even known there was such a type of literature as, say, a royal chronicle, which is what Genesis 1 consists of.
But we have known for a long time that the Bible doesn't mean to teach science; even in Galileo's time a Cardinal observed to his fellows that "The Bible doesn't teach how the heavens go, but rather how to go to heaven" -- and he was only following in a good tradition.

 

[Kulindahr]

Huh? Please explain, that makes no sense. Of course it's his own return to which he speaks. But he didn't return within those people's lifetimes. So how does that negate his claim that he would?

Unless by "negates" you mean "proved false" then yes I would agree.

If you're going to join in a discussion like this, please pay attention to context: Lex and I were referring to a totally different verse, one which indeed does negate all the claims that He ever said He would return in their lifetimes.

 

[hotatlboi]

Yes, it can be hard. It hasn't been that long, scholarship-wise, that we've even known there was such a type of literature as, say, a royal chronicle, which is what Genesis 1 consists of.
But we have known for a long time that the Bible doesn't mean to teach science; even in Galileo's time a Cardinal observed to his fellows that "The Bible doesn't teach how the heavens go, but rather how to go to heaven" -- and he was only following in a good tradition.

You have a total disconnect on what logically would be expected from a text given from a perfect, divine, all knowing creator as the author.

Yes, the Bible may not be intended as a scientific textbook, but would be expect to find scientific errors spoken from the mouth of such a deity? Absolutely not.

 

[hotatlboi]

If you're going to join in a discussion like this, please pay attention to context: Lex and I were referring to a totally different verse, one which indeed does negate all the claims that He ever said He would return in their lifetimes.

You are the one not paying attention to context lol.

No it doesn't negate that, and that's an incredibly flawed and limited reading of it. The verse of "no one knows the day or the hour" was an exhortation to his followers to remain watchful for his return since they didn't know when it was coming.

Such an exhortation is totally consistent with those other verses where he said he was coming back in their lifetimes.

If he had said "no one knows the century", then yes maybe that would have cast doubt on my interpretation of those other verses. But by saying "no one knows the day or the hour" the simplest interpretation remains that he was telling his followers to be ready, since they expected his return within their lifetimes and he had told them it would be, but they didn't know when it would happen.

 

[Kulindahr]

about the God thing, i like to go to the genesis(cute) of the universe. logic doesnt apply, whichever view one takes that view takes faith.

Cute, yes.

Your statement brings to mind a symposium I attended where a high Roman Catholic theologian presented a paper he'd also presented at the Vatican, about the Genesis version of Creation and the Big Bang. It went into depths I followed as he spoke, but a minute later couldn't have explained, but one kernel he made a point of was that when you get to the very beginning, logic (Aristotelian or otherwise) doesn't apply. The presentation made some who harped on the Big Bang "proving" Genesis rather unhappy, which provided me with a certain amount of entertainment.

 

[hotatlboi]

If we're just talking about the creation of the universe, then yes logic probably doesn't apply.

But if we're talking about the analysis of Genesis (or any other physical or real artifact) in the context of determining whether or not it is the likely record of the creation of the universe, then yes logical analysis does indeed apply and should.

 

[Kulindahr]

You did nothing of the sort. You applied the old "absence of evidence" argument to an otherwise ridiculous claim to show that it could be true. Such logic could equally be applied to the flying spaghetti monster or any number of other imaginary tall tales as FirmaFan pointed out.

Until a certain day outside Paris a couple of centuries back, stones falling from the sky was "ridiculous".
Until Hawking showed the math, anything radiating from a black hole was ridiculous.
I withhold judgment on any apparent claim for which there's nothing observable.
And I invoked the "absence of evidence" point because you were caliming that absence was, in fact, evidence.

Well heck if you believe the flood was local then I have to give that to you, as that's one of the most illogical claims of biblical literacy among Christians.

Just reading the book, is all. Not many actually do.

The problem is that Jesus clearly viewed it as global and he referenced the flood killing all life on more than one occasion.

Luke 17:26-27, As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

I can see where that might possibly be construed as saying it was a global flood, but it isn't obvious unless you start with that preconception.

Like most things in the Bible, if you can save one passage from being pronounced false by interpreting it a certain way, that inevitable leads you to contradictions with other passages. There are so many examples of this that it just completely invalidates the consistency of the text.

I'm not "interpreting it a certain way", I'm pointing out what it says.

So wait, are you really advocating a global flood again? Your statements are so jumbled it's hard to make sense of what you are saying.

Huh?
Keep things straight: it was your argument that it was a global flood, and my response that if it was, your statements about such a situation were wrong.
Context....

No, but that's not what I claimed. Listen to me: GOD WAS WRONG about some basic info that he stated. None of it was complicated, it was just wrong.

The best comment on that is this:

What you are doing is trying to impose your own convulted interpretation on literature to preserve its worldview as your own without invalidating it due to the numerous errors your own knowledge from modern society would otherwise let you ascribe to it.

Your demanding that the Bible doesn't need to be accurate about what it says on science, which is a completely outrageous claim if it was indeed inspired/written by an all powerful and all knowing being. The fact that you can't see this is what plagues the logic of religious arguments.

And there you go again, imposing your modern, much poorer worldview on an older one in order to sustain a position you've taken.

See the line I put in blue?
That's a statement of faith, or of ignorance, or of limited imagination, or of some combination of those. It fails to ask what the purpose is, what the context is. It's a failure modern Western man falls into repeatedly, one a beginning of correction for can be found in Aristotle's explanation of "four causes" for things.

You argue quite like a fundamentalist.

 

[Kulindahr]

Dude, your attempts at logical rebuttals are just killing me here.

If the Bible was written/inspired by the God of the universe, a perfect, all knowing, holy, righteous, all powerful, infinite being, then YES it is the most important book ever written, period.

So what you're saying is that I'm supposed to read your mind, then agree that false statements you made about me are acceptable?

You talk a lot about logic and science, but the evidence in how you argue is against your grasp of either.

 

[Kulindahr]

If you isolate it from the context of the other verses that say the same thing, then yes that could be all it means. But that's not the simplest or most likely interpretation given the other verses I mentioned.

There are no other verses that say the same thing -- only John reports that conversation. And the meaning of it is plain: believing that anyone could live until Jesus' return is an astounding thought.

The greek word used is "Genea", which according to the NT Greek Lexicon means generation or age as in our modern sense or "all those living at the present time", or "members of the same family".

http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=1074

Either interpretation makes what Jesus said false.

I see that, like the fundies, you're good at picking out the definitions that help your view.
Try reading the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament on this, to see the scholarly conclusions about what Jesus was meaning by "generation". There's clues in the rest of the New Testament, where the phrase is commonly used to mean one of those items that you didn't cite: "a group of men very like each other in endowments, pursuits, character ". Logically, the way to determine the meaning of a term isn't to pick the one that makes your point, but to look at the usage in the document or collection in question. In that case, you find that your "members of the same family" is correct though in a metaphorical sense.

There's another principle of interpretation that applies to all literature, and that's that you interpret uncertain statements in light of more certain ones. What Jesus meant when he spoke to Peter is certain; there's no doubt that He meant His return would be long after anyone among the disciples was dead -- that's necessary for his statement to mean anything to Peter.
So that's got to be the starting point, and it means that those other statements can't possibly mean what you're trying to make them do.

 

[hotatlboi]

Until a certain day outside Paris a couple of centuries back, stones falling from the sky was "ridiculous".
Until Hawking showed the math, anything radiating from a black hole was ridiculous.
I withhold judgment on any apparent claim for which there's nothing observable.
And I invoked the "absence of evidence" point because you were caliming that absence was, in fact, evidence.

What I was claiming is that like many other wild claims in the Bible, the fact that we don't find any evidence does not lead me to believe those events were literal truth. That doesn't mean absence of evidence proves they were not, but it does mean that there is no compelling reason to believe them either.

I'm not "interpreting it a certain way", I'm pointing out what it says.

But that's a huge problem for you. If you didn't have to "interpret it a certain way" if understanding everything in the Bible was as simple as "pointing out what it says" we would be having this argument. I could simply point out that Genesis "says" the earth was created in 6 days. That's what it says. You have to interpret it differently to avoid rejecting it because you know that to be false. That's the case with most of the scientific errors in the Bible.

The best comment on that is this:

What you are doing is trying to impose your own convulted interpretation on literature to preserve its worldview as your own without invalidating it due to the numerous errors your own knowledge from modern society would otherwise let you ascribe to it.

Was that an attempt to be funny? Nice try but total baloney. How am I trying to "preserve the Bible's worldview as my own". I think it's quite clear from my arguments that I totally reject the Bible's worldview. LMAO If you're just going to try to unsuccessfully portray me as a hypocrite then I don't see where this discussion is going.

And there you go again, imposing your modern, much poorer worldview on an older one in order to sustain a position you've taken.

LMAO, your absurdities just keep getting better and better. it's not my position. It's fact. Insects do not have 4 legs. That isn't my position, we know this to be fact. God in the Bible says otherwise. That's all I'm saying.

You argue quite like a fundamentalist.

For someone who has supposedly translated the entire Bible from the original language, you don't seem to have that much more knowledge about it than a fundamentalist. You make the same logical errors and ridiculous arguments to avoid rejecting many demonstrably false parts of it.

 

[Kulindahr]

You have a total disconnect on what logically would be expected from a text given from a perfect, divine, all knowing creator as the author.

Yes, the Bible may not be intended as a scientific textbook, but would be expect to find scientific errors spoken from the mouth of such a deity? Absolutely not.

That's a totally a priori assumption, based on limited, linear, accountant-type ways of thinking. Those ways of thinking are for the most part alien to the Bible.

You're starting off by assuming that the ways you think are the only correct ways, and are infallible and omniapplicable. They aren't either of those. Before you can apply logic to any data set, you have to understand the parameters, definitions, and limitations of the data set -- else you end up with a situation like one that hit NASA when centimeters were confused with inches, so an entire project was screwed. It's called "fail", and you're doing it well.

I may have a disconnect from what you would expect from a text such as you describe. You, however, have a far worse disconnect: from just what the heck the thing is that you're trying to analyze.

 

[Kulindahr]

You are the one not paying attention to context lol.

No it doesn't negate that, and that's an incredibly flawed and limited reading of it. The verse of "no one knows the day or the hour" was an exhortation to his followers to remain watchful for his return since they didn't know when it was coming.

Such an exhortation is totally consistent with those other verses where he said he was coming back in their lifetimes.

If he had said "no one knows the century", then yes maybe that would have cast doubt on my interpretation of those other verses. But by saying "no one knows the day or the hour" the simplest interpretation remains that he was telling his followers to be ready, since they expected his return within their lifetimes and he had told them it would be, but they didn't know when it would happen.

He didn't have to say "no one knows the century". He'd already indicated that men would be able to know the "season", and if you check out that concept, it includes waiting for, well, like ever. The phrase itself contains the meaning of uncertain time, not just in terms of the measures mentioned, but of long measures (considering that in apocalyptic terminology, "season" can indicate many, many years).

So this verse does totally negate the claim that the others say He thought He'd be back in their lifetimes. Taken with His statement to Peter, it's conclusive.

 

[hotatlboi]

Logically, the way to determine the meaning of a term isn't to pick the one that makes your point, but to look at the usage in the document or collection in question.

I completely agree. And if you look at the other usages of the world, they clearly are referring to a group of people of Jesus's time.

"This wicked generation", Matthew 12:45. "This generation seeks a sign", Mark 8:12. "This untoward generation," Acts 2:40. "But first must He suffer many things and be rejected of this generation", Luke 17:25.

There's another principle of interpretation that applies to all literature, and that's that you interpret uncertain statements in light of more certain ones. What Jesus meant when he spoke to Peter is certain; there's no doubt that He meant His return would be long after anyone among the disciples was dead -- that's necessary for his statement to mean anything to Peter.
So that's got to be the starting point, and it means that those other statements can't possibly mean what you're trying to make them do.

Sure they can. We've got another classic example of you making the mistake of again completely ignoring any interpretation that doesn't fit your own viewpoint.

Jesus said "some of you will not taste death" until I come. This could have been referring to John.

He said "this generation" will not pass away. If he meant to return when John was still alive, that means his generation could not have all passed away (unless John was going to live for 900 years or something ridiculous like in the OT).

 

[Kulindahr]

If we're just talking about the creation of the universe, then yes logic probably doesn't apply.

But if we're talking about the analysis of Genesis (or any other physical or real artifact) in the context of determining whether or not it is the likely record of the creation of the universe, then yes logical analysis does indeed apply and should.

True.
And the first thing we learn in analyzing the Genesis account of Creation is that it makes no scientific claims; the only "scientific" items there would be those casually mentioned, such as that the sun shines more brightly than the moon.