Creationist science fair

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duh.

You fail at strawmen, Mr. Dent. Any pre-teen Confirmation student would be able to refute your simplistic views. In reality, a variety of approaches to Biblical interpretation exist, and most of them do not mandate literalistic views.

Hey I was a pre-teen confirmation student. Maybe thats why I did not get confirmed.

Honestly though Orwell my comment was aimed at those that quote scripture as evidence of gods existence and I wonder if god wrote the words you have to believe all the words as 'gospel' whether or not science has proved the concepts false. I would argue that "most of them do not mandate literalistic views" is not correct because most of what I hear from people is that the bible is 'the word of god', a statement which in my mind at least does not leave a great deal of room for interpretation.

BTW thanks for the IKE quote, still quite shocked that a general could come up with something so profoundly true.

In your geographic area, it may be that you have a stronger fundie presence which can lead to that kind of polarizing attitude. But most Christians do not believe God wrote the Bible word-for-word. There are several different views on divine inspiration.


Every major war hero/general I can think of in US history has quite a few anti-war quotes. Perhaps there is a reason for this. "He jests at scars that never felt a wound" and those who have never been at war can easily take it more lightly than those who have seen such horrors first-hand.

*Disclaimer: No, I'm not in the military, nor do I ever intend to be. I am willing to take the word of those who have fought in combat that it is a rather unpleasant experience.

@ Orwell - I was under the impression that the bible was made up of gods words channelled through prophets, sections that are parables are clearly labelled, as are 'historical occurrences' . If the words are not to be taken literally how can scripture be used to prove gods existence like so many do on this forum.

If I am being simplistic I apologise and thankyou for your patience

That's more like the Muslim view of the Qur'an than the Christian view of the Bible. There are, as I said, varying ideas on how the Bible should be interpreted. Some believe that God inspired the prophets with the ideas and principles, and that they then recorded and transmitted these in the context of their own perception and culture. There are numerous other views, too many to go into here. Suffice it to say; not all Christians believe the Bible to be the literal message of God word-for-word. Liberal interpretations allow for Biblical texts to be interpreted in the context of the historical and cultural framework of the time. Heck, I even know some extremely conservative Christians who say you must interpret the Bible in its proper historical context and not just literally. But God's existence is not undermined by a liberal interpretation.

For myself, I pay more attention to the NT anyways, especially the four Gospels.

If you are christian then you must be a 'creationist'.... because the bible of christianity teaches that God created the earth... if you are mentally handicapped and can't read the Genesis yourself then take my word for it, and pay no heed to Chever.

Though there may be other religions that are different, and other beliefs.. but if you're a christian, then you're a creationist..

False, at least if you are using "creationist" in the common meaning of the term. The majority of Christians are not YECs.

The cartoon in the OP is inaccurate.

A real Creationist Science Fair would have no operational entries.

sadly with the american audience, it's still a contemporary topic.

lots of dumb famers/peasants here who haven't left the dark ages yet.

No, I would not agree with all of that. The creation story in Genesis was never meant to be a science text - even if it was not explicitly labeled a parable or myth, it clearly is.

Further more, this idea that the Bible is 100% the Word of God itself is suspect, even to many believers - it could include some revealed words of God, along with history, genealogy, and teachings from humans. And its' composition was subject to selection (some books chosen as authoritative, others not), while translation and transcription errors have occurred.

The Bible (and any other "The Book") can contain both true and untrue statements. It is not necessary to accept either 100% or 0% of it.

For once I tend to agree with you (which makes me wonder if I have got this all wrong ) . I have problems with people saying 'of course genesis is not meant to be taken literally' after we have disproved it. For centuries people were killed for daring to question any part of the bible, it was most definitely viewed as the word of god, to my mind it is all too convenient to now say ahh but we are far more enlightened about science, of course the bible was never meant ot be taken literally. Oh yes it was

Everybody laughs at Palin for being a YEC, Yet only 150 years ago you would have been shocked if she wasn't

^ Very few intellectually serious Christians take "the God of the gaps" to be a good position. Get the hell over it already. Do you know we actually have a word for saying that anyone believes X must believe some other thing Y which just so happens to be ridiculously flimsy?

It's called a strawman

^ No its not a f*****g strawman. I am just pointing out that until recent scientific advances the bible was regarded as truth, it is only in the last 100 years or so that the voracity of the bible has been seriously challenged.

That is not a logical fallacy, in fact it is not fallacious at all.

What I am waiting for is humanity to take the next step and realise that not only is the bible not to be taken literally it is in fact not to be taken seriously at all

Last edited by DentArthurDent on 07 Oct 2008, 10:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Based on what evidence, just because you are intelligent and your friends likewise does not mean that most christians share the same analytical abilities.

It absolutely is a strawman. You're holding up a prior belief which isn't held, "knocking it over", and using that to argue against Christianity, all the while completely ignoring actual modern positions on the issue, which is of course not surprising given your consistently abysmal grasp of modern theological positions.

Demonstrating a historical difference of interpretation doesn't really say all that much.

Now, if you wanted to address whether or not Genesis was literal, it being some 3K years old, you'd need to go back a lot farther than interpretations that have been bouncing around the Western tradition over a thousand years after its initial writing, interpretations which are largely dissociated from the original cultural tradition in which the text appeared. You aren't even approaching a genuine critical analysis of the text, much less answering theological questions like what it would mean if that were the case.

I mean really, you'd think every Christian in the world was completely f*****g ret*d or something.