Random Religion Thread

[OldBoring]

There's an interpretation of the Bible that in the original version the Hebrew word for ‘day’ besides meaning day can also mean an unspecified period of time, even thousand or millions of year; so the story about God creating the world in 7 days is not in contrast with evolutionism, as first the animals were created, and the humans ‘on the last day’ i.e. in the last hundred of thousands of years.

Until the 1990's you automatically became a member of Church of Sweden if one of your parents were and they didn't opt out on your behalf

No need to christen?

Oh God...

The Catholic church is not pleased with you taking the Lord's name in vain. Actually I'm not sure it gives a fuck but w/e

Yea, it depends on the interpretation. The most mainstream interpretation is that you cannot swear to God, or do evil things in the name of God, or do something for your own benefits in in name of God. Using it as an exclamation moderately is fine.

[vijayjohn]

There's an interpretation of the Bible that in the original version the Hebrew word for ‘day’ besides meaning day can also mean an unspecified period of time, even thousand or millions of year; so the story about God creating the world in 7 days is not in contrast with evolutionism, as first the animals were created, and the humans ‘on the last day’ i.e. in the last hundred of thousands of years.

About that, I just found this:

If we look carefully at the biblical creation account, it is very difficult to come to any other conclusion but that Moses, the author, intended to describe literal, twenty-four-hour days. The Hebrew word, yom, has the same meaning as our English word day. In both languages the word can refer to literal days or it can refer to longer periods of time. For example, we may use expressions such as “the day of our forefathers.” However, in Hebrew, if a numeral accompanies the word yom, it always means a literal day. There are no exceptions. In the Creation account, yom is associated with day one, day two, day three, etc. Moses also makes use of the following expressions: evening and morning (see Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, etc.), light and darkness (see Genesis 1:5), night and day (see Genesis 1:5). He could hardly have made it more clear that he was referring to literal days.

If each day in the Creation account is actually a long period of time, plants would have been created long before insects, since plants were created on the third day and insects were created on the fifth day. Yet many plants cannot survive without the pollination provided by insects.

The clear intent of the biblical account is that each day of Creation week was a twenty-four-hour day. If not, then the basis of the fourth commandment is wrong. The fourth commandment (see Exodus 20:8-11) says that the Sabbath is based on the Creation week when God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day and blessed it. Evolution does not allow for a Sabbath that celebrates a Creator God who created our world in one week. Theistic evolution, the belief that God created through the process of evolution, has no reason for a weekly memorial of Creation.

[OldBoring]

Thanks for finding a source for me!

[Johanna]

Until the 1990's you automatically became a member of Church of Sweden if one of your parents were and they didn't opt out on your behalf

No need to christen?

Nope.

[md0]

But if you don't see a contradiction in it, it's a valid model, isn't it? You might not agree with it personally, but you can hardly say you objectively know it's wrong when the premise leads to something self-consistent.

Because I don't see a contradiction it doesn't mean that it's valid. As I said, the conclusion was contained in the premise already. It was always going to come out true.

Or can something be physical for you even if it's not generally visible for us?

But that's a given. It doesn't have to be matter to be physical, forces are also physical.

According to your definition, I would be physical for these people then, even though the part of physics visible for them is not enough to observe me fully, or at all if I don't touch the desk, right? But wouldn't I still be higher in some way than them?

Yes, you would be. But you would be physical in your 3rd dimension as well. You wouldn't be unbound by physical limitations just because you aren't directly perceivable to a species. And as for those people in the 2D plane, they could study you and infer how you work, after the initial shock. It's not different than our attempts to infer the nature of our reality.

I think each of us sets the bar for a deity at a different level.

[księżycowy]

This is where the traditional definition of God diverges, to my understanding. He is viewed as exactly that, unbound. That does not mean that he does not work within the limits of nature, but he can go beyond them. In fact, even if he did not work within the limits of the natural order, would we even know it? Of course the better question is, would that then have an effect on us? (which has been your inquiry all along, md0, that hasn't been lost on me) I suppose we wouldn't have any way of knowing.

The usual way God is viewed in the circles I frequent is as not physical, per se, but rather beyond the physical. I.e. metaphysical. I do not agree that the metaphysical has been proven to not exist [I should bracket this by saying I haven't really looks at any research into this as of yet, but it I would be interested in what methodology and evidence they use to arrive at their conclusions], which you started the conversation with. It is much like asking the other "big" questions like, does God himself exist. You can ask 10 different people and get 20 different answers, all with different reasoning. That's just the nature of exploring that which is [purported at the least to be] beyond that which we know. Of course, traditionally God is supposed to be knowable, but even that is bracketed by saying He is not fully knowable or understood.

I'm sure most of that was already known, but I said it anyway.

I guess my point is, how could you arrive at a sound answer for the existence or absence of the metaphysical? How would you observe that something is there? Or isn't there? What evidence would be useful? What would we even look for?

Personally, with all the other scientific breakthroughs and such and all the other things we have discovered, it would be premature to say that the physical is the end of the road. We've already tried saying that the earth was the center of the solar system, or that people got sick from curses, or that the atom was the smallest unit of the universe. We've broken through all those. Granted those are all of the physical realm, but I'd like to think my point remains.
Of course that says nothing to the question of God's existence, but I suppose everyone has to make up their own mind at some point.

[dEhiN]

There's an interpretation of the Bible that in the original version the Hebrew word for ‘day’ besides meaning day can also mean an unspecified period of time, even thousand or millions of year; so the story about God creating the world in 7 days is not in contrast with evolutionism, as first the animals were created, and the humans ‘on the last day’ i.e. in the last hundred of thousands of years.

About that, I just found this

That's the thing though about interpreting an ancient text: there can be multiple ways of understanding a passage and each understanding can generally be argued for in such a way to show they're right.

I don't know Biblical Hebrew, and perhaps księżycowy can shed light on that quote, but I believe that Genesis gives 2 different orders to the Creation story. So even if in Genesis chapter 1 the Hebrew indicates the meaning should be a literal 24-hour day, there is contradiction between chapters 1 and 2 in what was created first.

[księżycowy]

Yeah, I saw that. I just haven't had the time to do any proper research yet. I'll try to give something over the weekend.

[Varislintu]

Take my family as an example, both my parents, three of my siblings and I identify as atheist and only my youngest brother as Christian, yet I'm the only one who's left the Church.

Yeah, this membership in the church (which works nearly identically here in Finland) doesn't say much. In my family, me and my parents are all atheists, and my father is an anti-theist, and yet I'm the only one who has left the church officially. My father wants to stay on as a member because he wants to retain a theoretical vote in church elections and he thinks the church does good humanitarian work.

Some stay members just because they want a right to a church wedding or the possibility to become an official religious godparent to someone someday.

Me, I'm a a bit anal about this thing and would prefer if labels represented even remotely some kind of logical content of the label , so I personally think atheists should just resign from the church and leave it to people who actually believe. But of course I don't go around telling people what to do.

[mōdgethanc]

There's an interpretation of the Bible that in the original version the Hebrew word for ‘day’ besides meaning day can also mean an unspecified period of time, even thousand or millions of year; so the story about God creating the world in 7 days is not in contrast with evolutionism, as first the animals were created, and the humans ‘on the last day’ i.e. in the last hundred of thousands of years.

Yes it would still conflict with evolutionary theory, because the time scales and the orders are all wrong. The Bible has land plants created first, then marine life and birds together, then land animals (including mammals) and humans. Life evolved in the oceans first (both plants and animals), then on land, and birds are fairly recent, evolving hundreds of millions of years after the first marine animals and even after the first mammals. It's also bizarre that the Bible doesn't mention fungi here nor does it mention microorganisms at all, which are the oldest form of life by far. Surely God would've known that plants and fungi are not the same thing.

Also, "evolutionism" is not a thing; that just makes it sounds like an ideology, which it's not. Evolutionary biology is a thing. It is not an ideology, it's a branch of natural history.

[dEhiN]

It's also bizarre that the Bible doesn't mention fungi here nor does it mention microorganisms at all, which are the oldest form of life by far. Surely God would've known that plants and fungi are not the same thing.

Well there are quite a lot of Christians who don't take the Bible literally when it comes to history and anything that falls in the realm of science. One major view among Protestants is that the Bible is infallible but not inerrant, while another view is that it is both infallible and inerrant. (I'm not sure if you could believe in something being inerrant but fallible; I also don't know of any Christian sects that believe this way).

The view of "infallible but not inerrant" basically says that on matters of morality and spirituality, the Bible holds true, but on matters of science and history, the Bible doesn't necessarily hold true. The other view of both (infallible and inerrant) says that the Bible holds true on everything.

And from what I can tell, the crux of it (using the Christian framework and worldview) is about Godly inspiration. Most Christians believe that all the authors of the canonized books in the Bible were inspired by God to write what they did. Those who believe in inerrancy believe that this inspiration was so great that (almost) literally every word was "penned by God". Those who don't believe in inerrancy believe that since it was still a person authoring each book, things were more grey.

Another thing to keep in mind, if you're arguing within the Christian framework, is that the Bible as far as Christians are concerned has one ultimate purpose: to tell the story of sin and salvation. Therefore it's not meant to be a history book nor a scientific book. Any parts about history and the natural world would have been included with this ultimate purpose in mind. Which makes me wonder why Christians try to use the Bible to argue about scientific things?!

[vijayjohn]

I'm not sure if you could believe in something being inerrant but fallible

Sounds plausible to me. You could believe that everything in the Bible is true but useless.

[dEhiN]

I'm not sure if you could believe in something being inerrant but fallible

Sounds plausible to me. You could believe that everything in the Bible is true but useless.

Yeah but fallible means liable to be false or erroneous or a mistake. So it has nothing to do with usefulness. Thus, how could you believe a text is without error but false? Is a sense, even though those two words mean different things, doesn't inerrancy include infallibility?

[OldBoring]

I'm not sure if you could believe in something being inerrant but fallible

Sounds plausible to me. You could believe that everything in the Bible is true but useless.

Then the Bible is like Microsoft! Its messages are true but useless.

[Saim]

The view of "infallible but not inerrant" basically says that on matters of morality and spirituality, the Bible holds true, but on matters of science and history, the Bible doesn't necessarily hold true.

This view only arose once the Bible was categorically proven wrong on science and history. What do you say to the argument of skeptics who say that Christianity is just retreating into an ever-shrinking cricle of unknown things to explain?

Those who don't believe in inerrancy believe that since it was still a person authoring each book, things were more grey.

Which raises the question - couldn't Yahweh have found a more effective way to communicate with us? What would make anyone think the Bible is more divinely inspired than the Vedas?

[dEhiN]

The view of "infallible but not inerrant" basically says that on matters of morality and spirituality, the Bible holds true, but on matters of science and history, the Bible doesn't necessarily hold true.

This view only arose once the Bible was categorically proven wrong on science and history. What do you say to the argument of skeptics who say that Christianity is just retreating into an ever-shrinking cricle of unknown things to explain?

I don't say anything to them, because what they believe is none of my business. I was explaining things from within a Christian framework or worldview. Of course if someone holds a different worldview (namely one that there only exists that which science can objectively prove to be reality for everyone), then what is the point of that person and I discussing things? We are limited to discussing that which exists in both our worldviews. Things that are within their worldview that is outside of mine, or vice versa; these things serve no purporse for a discussion since all that will result will be futility and frustration on the part of both parties.

Those who don't believe in inerrancy believe that since it was still a person authoring each book, things were more grey.

Which raises the question - couldn't Yahweh have found a more effective way to communicate with us? What would make anyone think the Bible is more divinely inspired than the Vedas?

Again, see above. There are better minds than mine that work on things like apologetics, interfaith things, and other such big issues. I don't get into those things because, frankly, I find myself being too emotionally driven to rationally discuss such things.

[księżycowy]

The only thing I would add (as I am of a like mind to dEhiN on discussing such things, as I'm not a theologian) is it all depends on how one views the purpose of the Bible. Where as for centuries (due to the worldview at the time) it was viewed as a way of explaining things that at the time where unknown, it seems to me that a major shift in some Protestant churches and the Catholic Church has been that the Bible now best gives insight into a relationship rather than a the "scientific" unveiling of "unknowns". Of course, from that point it can be engaged from any number of angles. I'm not knowledgeable in either theology or the skeptics to go any deeper myself. This is just my impression from what I have picked up on, both from the pew and from what study on the subject I have done.

There is also much to be said on the time period and sciences at the time of the writing of the various texts of the Bible and their purposes in how they were written. But that is another whole can of worms.

[md0]

This [...] point.

Sorry, I didn't get a notification for that reply.

Personally, with all the other scientific breakthroughs and such and all the other things we have discovered, it would be premature to say that the physical is the end of the road. We've already tried saying that the earth was the center of the solar system, or that people got sick from curses, or that the atom was the smallest unit of the universe. We've broken through all those. Granted those are all of the physical realm, but I'd like to think my point remains.

What science does exactly is to take everything we can think off and reduce it to physical processes, forces, and matter. Some of those reductions are as solid as it can get, like miasma being reduced to germs, others are very shaky because we are behind on the tech tree (eg Biolinguistics).

This is why I think that the metaphysical, and science are irreconcilable - they cannot be both true at the same time, because the definition of one excludes the existence of the other.
Something metaphysical able to be studied by science is no longer metaphysical.
Science that presumes that there are certain things that are unobservable (eg "the mind") is actually philosophy, not science. And in philosophy you can have infinite possible worlds without having to reconcile all schools of thought into one, while in science there's only one (hence the perceived necessity to unify say, General Physics and Quantum Physics; or closer to home, to make sure that Linguists, Psychologists, and Neuroscientists are all on the same page when it comes to the object all three study: the brain).

[księżycowy]

I get that scientific deductions "reduce" (I would prefer "define" but it largely doesn't matter which term we use) things to their most basic (or as far down to that as we can go ATM) and are mostly (if not completely, idk, as I'm not a scientist) to physical processes, forces, and matter. My two questions at this point are, does that mean that is all there is to it? And I fail to see at the moment how either can automatically exclude the existence of the other. On what basis do we come to the conclusion?

Also, if anyone knows of a paper (preferably in English) where the existence of the metaphysical is refuted, I'd love to read it. Recommendations of books are also welcome, but I'd prefer a (hopefully short) paper, as I haven't the time ATM to read something lengthy. I'm interested to see the other side of this discussion.

[dEhiN]

Yesterday at my church the Executive Director of Global Recordings Network or GRN shared about GRN and what it does. At first I didn't realize I knew the organization, until he showed a powerpoint with the GRN logo. I know Vijay has referenced them before, including linking some YT videos of some of their recordings. I learned about the history of GRN, which was pretty cool. GRN uses a handheld MP3 player called the Saber MP3 Player, which as far as I can tell, is something only used by them. So I'm not sure if they developed it or not. But it did look pretty cool. I got a chance to talk to the ED afterward about how the work GRN does interests me, and how also the skillsets they are looking for are right up my alley: language research, audio recording/editing, and general computer/IT. The ED, in his speech, also talked about a mobile app that GRN has that allows you to download some of their recordings to your phone. if you're interested in either stories from the Bible recorded in different languages, or you just want to hear free recordings in a language you're learning, you can find info about the app here.