Do you think the Bible takes precedence over evidence?

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Well, for me personally the most disturbing facts are certain mathematical results. Here the issues of interpretation are not a problem. But my hypothetical question to my friend concerned a situation where there was a completely unambiguous contradiction between the Bible and fact as far as it can be determined.

Turn it around though, what if, hypothetically, the age of the Earth were that derivable from the Bible by the addition of the chronogenealogies and what if the evidence, hypothetically, were better explained under Biblically based ideology? But let's also assume that even though this is hypothetically true, that you'd lose the respect of you friends who accept the atheistic scenario blindly? What would you do?

i was showing how iused it in conext of the thread..if i put down every use of it i have it would be quite an extensive list

As I said, I cannot go against what the evidence tells me. If the evidence supported a young Earth and special creation, then I would be puzzled and dismayed by people who rejected that evidence in favour of fantasy. Several times in my past, I have come across evidence that contradicted my beliefs. I revised my beliefs accordingly, and I have no doubt that I will have to do so again in the future. There is always a sense of dismay at discovering that something I once held to be true simply wasn't, but you get over it after a while and grow adjusted to new, less wrong beliefs.

Losing the respect of friends (to the extent that I would over something like this) is not a real deterrent to me. I have a number of friends and acquaintances who already think less of me for my acceptance of evolutionary theory; turning that around and instead having a different subset of my friends think I'm a dolt wouldn't be too different from the status quo.

Facts first. Theories second or third.

ruveyn

Suppose God exists, and there is a battle of good and evil with the Devil. Suppose both are aiming to "recruit" souls. I cannot think of a better way to lead people away from God than to pose as him.

So, I write a book. This book contains laws that go against God's will, is designed to be confusing and vague to suit any argument and, best of all, to state that it is inerrantly true and that questioning it is wrong. Why would God design us with minds that can think and reason, and then order us not to use them?

Or you could just be yet another pawn in a small battle of the larger war, you, and also the scribes of the 66 individual books which are compiled together in the Bible.

But which pawns belong to whom?

Do you really view yourself as a pawn in a supernatural war?

After reading the comments back and forth I have begun to wonder if the real issue here is: Do you believe that a creature unlike us, with superior intellect, who designed us, put us on this planet and left us guidance in the form of what we today refer to as "the bible"?

If you don't believe in this one you will obviously say, "no, it's just a bundle of stories written by men."

But if you do believe that this one we refer to as God has left us guidance and an indication of what he plans to do in the long run with us, you will quite possibly say, "yes, I believe that he used men to write down this guidance for us to refer to until such a time as he choses to replace it." Some people think that these writings have been collected together to form the bible as it would make sense for all the writings to be in one place and easily accesible without having to hunt for apocryphal books.

I say, "replace it" because in Revelation I am sure it talks about new scrolls being opened and a new world unravelling in which we will live very differently from the way we do now. And there is a river of life that heals and such. Although, I have noticed that the definition of what that change will be differs depending on the persuasion of the believer. Someone I know once told me that there are alot of people who believe we are entering a new era of spiritual understanding and that is our next evolutional step. Not my view, but I'm just illustrating the variety of the ideas out there.

Inasmuch as Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar were, yes. This would get into a debate about Calvinism versus Armenianism though.

Given how we tend to think at right angles to everyone else, I'd say we're more like knights...

That would depend upon whether you visualize the knight as moving in an "L" shape or a "Y" shape.

Definitely L shapes. Though I like to move in Y-not shapes...

Do you agree with the general principle that beliefs should be adopted on the basis of which are most probably true, independent of whether they are comforting?

Isn't it always "L"?

The "L" shape of a knight's movement is due to thinking orthogonally, but it works equivalently to consider it as 1 forward + 1 diagonal in a "Y". I think the "L" shape is easier to visualize though, when calculating the possible movements.