Pox wrote:Well clearly the bible says to believe god and god says the bible is absolute truth, so everything's recursive and comforting. Therefore, the bible is the bible, and not the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, even though the latter makes more sense.
That wasn't quite what I meant. I believe in the Bible, but having had many discussions with people of other Christian denominations I have found that there is the reoccurring idea that if people would just read the Bible how it was written and not put one's own interpretations into it then everyone would join group X (even though group Y and Z say the same thing).
The point I was trying to make was to pose the question of "who has the authority to declare something to be Biblically correct", and not "is the Bible just screwed up to begin with". If someone is going to declare one Bible interpretation to be correct and another false then if that declaration is to have any validity then it must derive from an authority greater then man and be given/received in a manner beyond what normal study can deliver, otherwise everyone could have authority and the world would be chaos.
Xocrates wrote:Consider this:
There exists large chunks of evidence for stuff contradicting the bible (namely against the earth being created in seven days and evolution), God in his kindness and wisdom would have to intentionally induce us in error (maybe to test us, maybe for his personal amusent) in order for those things to be wrong.
So, if God has intentionally mislead us there (even if he did so with good intentions) who's to say he didn't do the same in the bible? What if the bible was trully "written" by god, but is intentionally flawed?
None of what you have sited are contradictory to what the Bible teaches. While the Bible does say seven days many scholars think it is more properly translated to mean seven periods, and that calling such days is just for the purpose of grouping the creation periods into easier to understand classes based upon the activities in such. While some may believe it was created in seven days as we know them, it could just as easily mean 100 million years.
As for evolution if the theory is true then it would fit in nicely with the above mentioned discussion of days. If the theory is false then we have a case of modern science getting it wrong, and one can't very well blame God for that (don't forget that Phrenology and Alchemy were once considered good science but later work found them to be in error).
It is unfair for us, with a less then perfect understanding of science to pass blame upon a text which has suffered from several thousand years of translations and transcriptions. I don't believe that God would purposely lead someone into error, and I feel that misunderstandings between science and religion are just that, misunderstandings. Just as people with varying levels of understanding of English would understand the Bible very differently where they to read it independently, so I think that as our understanding of science and scripture grows that we will see that the two have much more in common then our present understanding allows.
Religion and science are not mutually exclusive. I think a good example of that is
Henry Eyring, who was one of the most important chemists of the 20th century. I would argue that he likely knew more about science then anyone on this forum but was able to reconcile what he knew with what he believed. As he once said, "Is there any conflict between science and religion? There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men."
shinygerbil wrote:
I don't think anyone "turns atheist", as that would surely imply that people are religious from birth. Those who find that they have never believed in God will surely have no trouble disbelieving the idea of Hell, and as such, their problem is automatically solved.
Well, by saying that no one "turns" atheist that implies that everyone is atheist to begin with. While not all atheists may "turn" that way there are those who once were religious who then lose their faith. Such may be described as "turning atheist" just as an atheist who becomes religious may be described as "turning to God".