Do you think the Bible takes precedence over evidence?

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Most of scripture is made up bronze age mythology for which there is no empirical grounding. The Bible is just about as true as Tolkien's -Silmarillion-.

ruveyn

I came to this conversation late, but my thoughts on reading through this were:

The Genesis account does allow for an old earth. I don't understand people who insist the earth in only 6000years old. I can say that in my grandmothers day such and such happened,sbut I don't mean a 24hour day.

Isaac Newton's heritic writings are amazing! He wrote them in code so that he wouldn't get found out in his lifetime. I found a pdf of his writings online and can't find it again. I wanted to quote from it. He wrote some marvelous stuff about why the Trinity is not biblical teaching.

The census numbers recorded in 2 Samuel and Chronicles do differ. But we don't know how the numbers are made up. Each writer must have seen certain groups as important and kept them into the final count and missed those out that they thought were less important. The two writers wrote from different perspectives. Unfortunately we don't know why or who was missed out.

Who incited David to take the census? Some translations don't say that God did in the first quoted verse, they say "one" or "he". So it could have been anyone. However, some translations do say God did the inciting and that Satan did the inciting in another verse. Which could mean that God allowed the mysterious "one" or "he" to incite David without stopping it and the person behind that one doing the inciting wasn't approved by God (he was approved by Satan which is why Satan is said to incite) and therefore even though God allowed it.

Alot depends on the perspective of the writer. Before Jesus died he had a conversation with John and his mother, so John was close enough to hear what Jesus said before he died. Those further away didn't hear the words, they heard him cry out before he expired and that only 1 mentioned how the crowd reacted shows that only 1 of the writers thought that the crowd's reaction was significant. It depends on the perspective. - Of course, this is just what came into my head when I read over the 4 accounts last night and I haven't actually done any research into it. My pc in the house is kaput and I can't go online, so I'm quickly typing this in my lunch hour.

I don't want particularly to convince anyone of my point of view. I don't think any of us here can really change each other's minds about things. But these were my thoughts when I read through this and no one else seemed to be interested in thinking of answers to some of these questions here.

A friend of mine works with a born again Christian and said to me that "they were just brain washed and couldn't be reasoned with. Even when I showed them what the bible said." But I thought to myself, I bet that born again Christian said to their friend the next day: "That lassie I work with just can't be reasoned with. She's just brainwashed." Don't just condemn people as brainwashed if they can't see your point of view. Everyone has a different way to see the world. You don't see this strange world quite the same as me.

Shame on Gromit* (sorry AG, force of habit), you forgot to put a "other" or "neither christian nor YEC, but i disagree" <.< .

The issue is that within Genesis, it is suggested that "day" is literal.

Gen 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Gen 1:8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Gen 1:13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

Gen 1:19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Gen 1:23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

Gen 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

The talk about evening and morning seems to conflict with a non-literal interpretation, even though the word "day" is ambiguous in that language like it is in our own.

Additionally, the Jewish idea of the Sabbath is based upon the notion of a 7 day creation. Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

While it is possible that the relationship of seven ages and seven days was somewhat ad hoc, it seems more likely that the view of Genesis was that of the first week, rather than just 7 ages.


I am trying to improve my psychic powers so that way I can change people's minds. That being said, even if the attempt cannot succeed, the effort is worthwhile so long as it is through a structured argument. Even if I don't change my overall position, my formulation of it at least has to improve and the arguments I use would have to be the same.



Possibly that happened, but that does not prove who is flexible and who isn't. It seems to me that some people change their ideas more so than others and for reasons we can describe as "better" too.

As I said on a blog recently,

"...using the Bible as an ideological framework is just as valid as using atheism in terms of having an axiomatic foundation to work from in the development of subsequent models which posit predictions."

But atheism is not used as a foundation for structuring the universe. Atheism is merely the absence of a god. That's not the foundation for anything. Foundations are built on observations of what is and what can be done with it.

More correctly, atheism is the lack of belief in God, god or the gods. Whether such exist or not is beyond our empirical grasp at present. One thing for sure, there is no empirical evidence showing that God, god or the gods exist.

Since God, god or the gods cannot be proved from any necessary apriori principle nor can the exists of God, god or the gods be ascertained empirically, belief in such a being (or beings) is ungrounded logic, reason or evidence.

ruveyn

Thank you for clarifying the definition of atheism when that was not in question. It's exact definition does not affect the essence of my statement,

"...using the Bible as an ideological framework is just as valid as using atheism in terms of having an axiomatic foundation to work from in the development of subsequent models which posit predictions."

Well, you do realize that empirical evidence is very theory-laden. To some, scriptures are empirical evidence suggesting that God exists, and it isn't incorrect to regard it as empirical evidence either, but they do not necessarily constitute evidence, to illustrate let's say that we found a very very early writing that is credible that suggests that the Bible is just a fiction work , and an evidence does not have to be correct either or very good, such as that from a distressed and/or intoxicated witness.

It depends upon what you hold as valid. Atheism is not concerned with making models of anything. It is mere negation. The Bible is used as a foundation for constructing what seems to me to be a strangely cockeyed universe. That seems satisfactory to some people. It doesn't satisfy me.

And bible evidence is bible laden. So what? There will never be a clear bright line between the language of supposition/hypothesis and the language of evidence. They are intertwined. Live with that fact.

ruveyn

Not quite. Atheism is used as an ideological framework in this way: the determination of the conclusion. If the conclusion is that there is no God or that God is not allowed to interfere with the universe, then everything must have happened on its own. So, how do you get there from here? With the axiom above, you make postulates and theorems that fit the conclusion. Such as, without God creating life, life must have happened on its own, so abiogenesis, in one form or another must be true.

Using the Bible as an ideological framework is just as valid. Such as at one time there was one ocean and only one continent, implied by Genesis 1:9, "And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." If the waters are in one place, then the land is also in one place. This is an implication which relates to the physical planet which can be, more or less, determined whether it is true or false.

The validity could be disputed if it were shown that one set of axioms or the other lacks internal consistency. In mathematics, our choice of axioms is not arbitrary- there is a reason ZFC is the most common formulation, as an example.

Interesting. So you are claiming there is Scriptural support for the Wegener hypothesis? I'm not sure I would agree with the flood geology alternative to continental drift, though.

"In one form or another", even Mr. God must have happened on its own. The only obvious alternative to abiogenesis is not creation so much as eternal operation.

The eternal operation of this material universe is demonstrably false via the argument concerning heat death. However, if the alternative to abiogenesis as an explanation for life is eternal operation, then an alternative for God having a beginning is eternal operation.