Craven de Kere wrote:maliagar wrote:Thank you.
No prob. Please take your hand off my butt.
No need to be shy... nobody's watching... :wink:
Craven de Kere wrote:maliagar wrote:Now we can continue our discussion afresh.
I am quite willing to put the bum grabbing behind us.
It
is behind.
Quote:That argument is compelling because it simply places a belief up on a shelf and calls it untouchable.
Absolutely:
Totally untouchable by empirical natural science. Now, as it's been for 25 hundred years, God, faith, creation are perfectly open for discussion from a philosophical and theological perspective. But then, you'd have to get the tools for that type of discussion. If you use the conceptual tools of the natural sciences, you'll be plowing the seas (which several of you have been doing for a while...).
Quote:It is, indeed impossible to empirically disprove something that gives itself omnipotence.
It goes far beyond that. It is impossible to empirically PROVE or DISPROVE what is not empirical.
Quote:"There was no world back then? Oh, hmmm, ok God doesn't need the world. He can live anywhere."
God is beyond time and space...
Quote:But the same can be said of many things. It's impossible to disprove that there are aliens who have sex with us rigorously and conceal this by their infalliable ability to erase all traces and evidence of their existence except to those who have faith.
Absolutely wrong. If they exist, aliens are natural, empirical beings, life forms, perfectly within the confines of several natural (and perhaps social) sciences.
The existence of aliens is proven empirically: Show me one, and I'm convinced.
Quote:So yes, science should indeed avoid the concept of God, as should intelligent people everywhere.
Here's where your myopic faith begins (once again). You believe the natural sciences are the only expression of mankind's intelligence. Once again: You've embraced a given metaphysical and epistemological creed. For me to think like you, I'd have to be converted from my faith to yours. And your faith is narrower, more limited. It has an impoverished understanding of man. So no thank you: Your persistence is not enough to convert me to your religion.
Quote:you have set a trap for yourself.
That remains to be seen. For the time being, it's once again evident the kind of religion you've built your life around.
Quote:You can't say their text is meant to be taken with a grain of salt because they were ignorant for things that can be empirically disproven...
I can certainly say that.
Quote:...but then cling to the equally ignorant prejudices they hold...
It depends. In some cases, I'll reject what I consider their ignorant prejudices, and in others I will fully share their values. I have a critical mind, you see?
I don't have to buy wholesale or reject wholesale the teachings of a given story. I can and must be selective (otherwise, I'd be blind). And remember: I have an aid which you reject: The teachings of the Church. For we as believers are in the business of discerning the Word of God.
Quote:Can it not be argued that the passages about murdering homosexuals is also a product of a less enlightened time?
Those passages contain two elements:
(1) A rejection of homosexuality as a sin against God (which is, as the Church teaches, a timeless truth).
(2) A prescription of punishments (which, as the Church teaches, is the human element of Scripture -
those punishments do not fit with Jesus' command not to judge individuals and to forgive, so they are discarded).
Quote:Or do you get to pick and choose?
I've said this before:
"Picking and choosing" is at the root of interpretation. And an authoritative interpretation "picks and chooses" correctly.
Craven wrote:maliagar wrote:
Craven wrote:...and subsequent geneology can be dated to solomon's temple aging the passages' time frame at betweeen 6 and 7 thousand years (I can look up the exact passages if you like).
I don't understand this passage.
You should, after all it's a Catholic product:
Oh, no... This passage is not a Catholic product. It is a very unclear sample of Craven's writing.
Quote:You claim that your religion (Catholic) is not "Creationist" as you define as taking a literal interpretation of the Bible. Yet Catholicism is the very source for "young earth" Creationism.
Wrong. I already explained that creationism is a 19th century U.S. phenomenon among fundamentalist Christians.
Quote:Archbishop Usher of the Catholic Church was the person who took the Bible in the most literal fashion of all men in history. He claimed to know even the time that the World was created back in 1650.
In two thousand years you've had all kinds of theoretical approaches to reading Scripture. Literalist approaches were used alongside symbolic approaches. Some scholars would use one approach, while others would use another. There was a permanent dialogue within the Church about these issues. And for the faithful, the key issue is not the age of the universe, but how to live according to God's will.
Compare the obscure and largely forgotten Archbishop Usher (which was his own opinion, never binding on the whole Church) to the classic and long influential approaches of St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century) and St. Augustine (4th century).
You see? You're talking about what you don't know. You're just picking and choosing those anecdotal pieces of information that fit with your little theories. You're flooding your lines with irrelevant quotations.
If you want to compare Usher with Thomas or Augustine, you'll be the laughing stock of those who know about these issues. Some awareness of your own limitations would be in order here...
Quote:If you desire I can provide all of them...
No need to. Just prove that their individual theories were binding on the Church.
Quote:But you agree with me that the earth is nowhere near 6,000 years old right?
If not we can discuss that. It will be fun. :wink:
Keep playing with yourself... it is fun to watch you talk about what you don't know (read a couple of web pages, right?).
I don't know the age of the earth. It has no impact on my spiritual life. I leave it to the scientists to figure that and other things out, to the extent they can. And I read their research on a lazy Sunday afternoon, if I have nothing else to do. I don't need to embrace their shifting views on matter and energy, or shape my life accordingly... :wink:
Quote:So the bottom line is, yes, I think that my personal opinion taht Genesis is wrong, incorret, etc is perfectly valid.
Yes, we know where you place your faith. But you haven't proven anything. You've just proven that you seriously believe you can solve these issues just by reading a couple of things, and
not putting into question your very obvious assumptions about (1) how to read those texts, (2) what reality is (metaphysics), and (3) how we get to know reality (epistemology). I know: Questioning one's own faith is always a difficult task.
Quote:You used a fallacious appeal to authority when you said only the "community" it was intended for can interpret it...
You haven't shown in what sense that is "fallacious" (boy you use the term freely).
Quote:...but in my above argument I used arguments from what you profess is the only valid such community, the Catholic church.
That was no argument. Unless, of course, you conveniently choose to believe the theories of X or Y represent the Catholic Church.
Quote:Bring on the train.
It's run over you so many times that you don't feel it anymore.
Quote:If the myth of seven day creation is accepted as false why not some of the more antiquated attitudes about tolerance?
I already explained this, but like a train, it went all over you. Myths cannot be false (unless you read them as if they were scientific explanations... which (hello????) they are not). Myths can be meaningful.
Quote:I loved trains as a kid.
You have one on top of your butt right now.
:wink:
