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Orogeny
Guest
Can scriptures be inspired and yet be myths? In other words, does one have to read all of the bible literally because it is inspired?
Peace
Tim
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Peace
Tim
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avflf
Guest
An inspired myth? That’s novel. Yes, I suppose that writers of science fiction are inspired to write their stories, some of which show amazing imagination, but they would be reluctant to state that their inspiration came directly from God and that the story is thus “holy”
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Orogeny
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Does one have to read scriptures literally because they are inspired?An inspired myth? That’s novel. Yes, I suppose that writers of science fiction are inspired to write their stories, some of which show amazing imagination, but they would be reluctant to state that their inspiration came directly from God and that the story is thus “holy”
Peace
Tim
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StAnastasia
Guest
“Your two breasts are like two fawns,
Twins of a gazelle
Which feed among the lilies."*
(Song of Solomon, 4:5)
This cannot literally be true. A women with mammary glands shaped like gazelles would want to see her plastic surgeon at her earliest convenience, at least to have the legs removed. However, I argue that it is inspired poetry even if I don’t think it is literally true.
StAnastasia
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StAnastasia
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OK, let’s disagree. But I don’t want you to be disappointed if Catholic biblical theologians decline to adopt your hermeneutical principle.
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Orogeny
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Well, maybe avflf will take that part out as he re-writes the scriptures. I find it interesting that he is arguing that the Bible is inspired (a point I agree with) and yet he apparently has rewritten Genesis and, discussing his literary work, writes “It is rather a critical look at Holy Writ as it is presented in the King James Version, highlighting the not-so-inspired utterances of its human authors and combined with a dash of humour and “tongue-in-cheek” commentary on its contents.” (emphasis added)
Also from his site: “If one follows this pattern of thought and belief one has to come to the conclusion that there are no divine books on earth.
Those that are presented as such are nothing more than the efforts of man seeking to understand the purpose of life and trying to give meaningfulness to his existence.”
http://www.geocities.com/avflf/InspiredWord_1.htm
Peace
Tim
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christian1
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StAnastasia: you said:
This cannot literally be true. A women with mammary glands shaped like gazelles would want to see her plastic surgeon at her earliest convenience, at least to have the legs removed. However, I argue that it is inspired poetry even if I don’t think it is literally true.
StAnastasia
You see, this is either stupidity or deception. I think it cannot be stupidity because Anastasia does seem to possess a brain and is able to form complete sentences.
Deception is what it has to be. To take an OBVIOUS passage of POETRY and use it as your arguement: “see, you can’t take the bible literally” is sooooooo annoying and a waste of brain space.
The words “like” in the passage **should automatically **alert the reader, that it was **not intended **to be taken literally. I believe you learned that in a much earlier grade and are so bent on proving your point that you’ve foolishly abandoned basic logic. So try again.
This cannot literally be true. A women with mammary glands shaped like gazelles would want to see her plastic surgeon at her earliest convenience, at least to have the legs removed. However, I argue that it is inspired poetry even if I don’t think it is literally true.
StAnastasia
You see, this is either stupidity or deception. I think it cannot be stupidity because Anastasia does seem to possess a brain and is able to form complete sentences.
Deception is what it has to be. To take an OBVIOUS passage of POETRY and use it as your arguement: “see, you can’t take the bible literally” is sooooooo annoying and a waste of brain space.
The words “like” in the passage **should automatically **alert the reader, that it was **not intended **to be taken literally. I believe you learned that in a much earlier grade and are so bent on proving your point that you’ve foolishly abandoned basic logic. So try again.
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adriancombe
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Then the question becomes:
Since we don’t know the precise decay rate prior to the end of the plasma state, how can we know the proportion of remaining isotopes when the solid state commenced?
I think you are forgetting the relativistic considerations. We do not know for certain the sum gravitational relativistic impact of an early universe. For one thing we do not even know for certain how dense the universe was when. Nor do we know how fast the absolute speed of our galaxy was back then. Even now we only know certain current values, such as our galaxy with the local cluster, the local cluster within the larger cluster, etc.
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rossum
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We can know the proportion of isotopes at the time the rock solidified by measuring it. The usual technique is the Isochron Method, see Isochron Dating for an explanation. For a general introduction to Radiometric and other dating methods I would suggest: Radiometric Dating - A Christian Perspective. Creationist sources are not reliable when discussing dating methods, they have an agenda and they select what they say according to that agenda. Woodmorappe failing to point out the temperature implications of “plasma” is a case in point. You would not go to an atheist website to learn about Catholicism; neither should you go to a creationist website to learn about science.
There are some uncertainties about the early universe, but those uncertainties are confined within known limits by what we can observe here and now. Those known limits completely rule out a 10,000 year old universe, as favoured by AiG. These early uncertainties have nothing to do with the formation of the earth, which happened around nine billion years after the start of the universe.
Firstly, there is no such thing as “absolute speed” in a relativistic universe. All speeds are relative because there is no absolute frame of reference. Secondly, neither our galaxy nor the local cluster existed in the early universe. It took around 700,000 years for the universe to cool down enough for solid matter to form, and it took even longer for galaxies and local clusters to form once the matter had condensed. By that time significant relativistic effects would have been confined to the immediate vicinity of black holes. Elsewhere relativistic effects are not very significant locally, which is why Newton’s non-relativistic theory of gravity worked so well for so long. Even now it is accurate enough to be used for travel between planets, except Mercury which is close enough to the Sun to require some corrections for the curvature of space.
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adriancombe
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This is still presupposing a constant half life, which is prescinding from possible relativistic considerations.
Without going too in depth - on a tangent - this goes both ways. Evolutionist scientists could also be said to have an agenda. The only way to hope to attain to the truth is to take all arguments on their own merits.
I would turn it around. The fact that we only know our velocity relative to the celestial phenomenon we can observe means that we do not even know our relativistic distortion - for certain - in the here and now - much less 1000 or 1000000 years ago.
All we have are theories of relativity and quantum mechanics - which we admit we do not fully understand - and what we can perceive. We have no way of knowing our speed relative to phenomena we have yet to observe.
Again - you are throwing time figures around like they are absolute. Time is not absolute, only the speed of light is. That is my whole point.
As far as we know - and excluding the speed of light itself of course. In principle, there is no other absolute speed. However, if there is an unobserved, unmoving substance/object (perhaps dark matter even) then as a matter of practice, all other speeds would be relative to that which is immovable.
Not relevant to my point. The point is even in the here in now, all we know is relative speed, to observable phenomena. We have no way of know our relative speed to other, unobserved phenomena. In other words, we do not even know our relative speed - only our speed relative to the objects we can observe. Nor do we know all the gravitational forces exerted on our whole galaxy - as witnessed by the need some scientists feel to hypothesize dark matter to explain the fact that not all motion is accounted for by the gravitational forces of the observed celestial phenomena.
Again - you are assuming the whole solar system is not under the influence of other, more all-encompassing relativistic effects. The point is we cannot even explain all the measured gravity in the known universe by recourse to observed phenomena. And that is in the present. It seems to me we have very little present surety on which to based rock-solid afffirmations about the distant (or not so distant) past.
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rossum
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The Isochron Method requires a constant half life between the time of solidification of the rocks and the time the measurement is taken. We can check that this is so by measuring half lives in distant astronomical objects and comparing them with the half lives measured on earth. You point about relativistic time shifts is complete nonsense. At no time since the earth formed have different parts of the earth been moving at near light speed relative to one onother. You, or the source you got this nonsense from, is misapplying the science. In order to get a significant relativistic time shift you need either relative speeds close to the speed of light (Special Relativity) or else a very large gravitational field (General Relativity) - the kind you find near a black hole. Since its formation none of these conditions have applied between different parts of the earth, so all measurements made on the earth are consistent with each other.
The source you are getting this stuff from really does not understand a great deal about relativity. There are trillions of objects in the universe that are moving away from us at relativistic speeds, that means that there are trillions of different time frames that are all shifted relative to ours, just as ours is shifted relative to theirs. However, when measured relative to itself every body is at rest just as the earth is at rest relative to itself.
Which means precisely nothing. We are at rest relative to ourselves and we do all our measurements in that frame of reference. Measurements from other frames of reference are only relevant to that frame of reference.
I do not throw around absolute time, since there is no such thing. All I am talking about is time relative to the earth.
Nothing is the universe is “immovable” - again you are talking about an absolute frame of reference, which is nonsense. We make our measurements of the age of the earth relative to the earth’s frame of reference. Dark matter will have its own frames of reference, there is nothing special about it in terms of Special or General Relativity.
Correct.
We do not have a single “relative speed”, we have trillions of different relative speeds - one relative speed for every object in the universe. Our relative speed with a planet in the Greater Magellanic Cloud is different from our relative speed with a star in the Andromeda galaxy and so on. However the only relative speed that is of any importance for measuring the age of the earth is the speed of the earth relative to itself - zero. With a relative speed of zero then all relativistic effects are negligible.
We do know the gravitational forces exerted on the galaxy because we can observe their effects. It is precisely because we know the magnitude of those forces and that we can calculate that the observable “bright” matter is insufficient to give rise to those measured and known forces that the existence of dark matter has been hypothesisied. Your source has misunderstood the science here.
The only relativistic effects that are significant are those due to the motion of the earth relative to itself.
Your source is using half-understood science to try to throw doubt on well established scientific results. Scientists are aware of relativity and will apply relativistic corrections to their results where required. Such corrections are not required for measurements of the age of the earth.
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sympathy07
Guest
Dinasours lived many years ago but its totally wrong that Bible is science book. Its not a science book.
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avflf
Guest
The Bible claims for itself a far greater inspiration than any run-of-the mill book, in fact, all Holy Books of whatever persuasion present themselves as the very words of God. How we look at these claims of Divine Inspiration is how we separate believers and non-believers. If one truly accepts the writings as supernatural will find within its pages plenty of evidence for such supernatural claim. Those that don’t regard it as a man-made book not much different from a novel, an historic account or even a work of fiction. One could say that every book, scribble or poem written was “inspired” but no one would claim that God himself exerted a direct influence on the authors. That’s what Holy Books claim, that it came from the Creator of All, so you must either accept that it is unerring or not. If not then it should not be presented to the people as God inspired and in the process make a killing through peddling falsehood. So if the Scriptures are from God i.e. God’s Word then all in it must be true and yes it should be taken literally.
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StAnastasia
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avflf, Does this include the Popal Vuh, the Qur’an, the Bhagavadgita, the Guru Granth Sahib, the Torah, and God’s revelations in Africa or North America? Or must a Christian believer trash all of these other claimed revelations as utter falsehoods?
StAnastasia
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Thing
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adriancombe
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I did not state that they were moving “at near light speed relative to one onother.” The point is the possibility of a difference between our current relativisitic state and those states which may have existed in the past. Velocity is one part of this - gravity is another.
A black hole is one possible source of a strong gravitational field. That does not mean it is the only one.
Not relevant. See above.
But the point is we do not know our own current velocity, much less what it was in the past, same thing with gravitational considerations.
It sounds like it must be nonsense to you. The fact that we have yet to discover it does not make it nonsense. Merely an unproven possibility.
The point is that we do not know everything. There are a lot of unknowns about our current state. The fact that we have to hypothesize ‘dark matter’ makes me question the claim that all relativistic considerations have been applied. What if there is no dark matter, and the relativistic timespace distortion is causing the celestial bodies to have more gravitational pull than we realize?
No, the difference between now and the ancient past is more likely to play a role.
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buffalo
Guest
It is not an empirical science book. However, it is a book of knowledge, therefore qualifies as a science book.
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avflf
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As I wrote All Holy Books claim divine intervention in their composition and it follows that every believer accepts their religion’s holy book to be supernatural in its composition, thus the Muslims believe the Qu’ran to have been given by God through the Archangel Gabriel to Muhammad, The Jews accept that the Torah is God’s words given to Moses, the Hindu attributes the same high source to the Bhagavadgita, the Mormons believe the same of their Book and so on and so on. That Christians view themselves as the sole bearers of the Truth is due, primarily, to the words of Jesus (that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no man comes to the Father except by him), but then Muslims believe that their book came about as an erratum to the Bible and the Mormons that the Book of Mormon is an appendix to the Christian Scriptures. Within Christianity the various sects war against each other over the question of who has the most truth, so the Catholics regard themselves as the true church by claiming that they not only have the Word of God but their Tradition to back it up. The Protestants believe that the Bible is all they need and look upon the Catholic tradition as spurious and as “doctrines of men”. It is all rather complicated … but rather amusing.
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avflf
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Orogeny, I never said I believed or disbelieved the Bible, but my point is that if one believes it to be the Word of God one should accept its writings as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I object to people proclaiming and preaching it as divinely inspired yet they themselves don’t believe it to be accurate in its pronouncements. Much better to introduce it as a nice collection of stories, some true, others quasi true and still other as pure fabrication. That’s just being honest to oneself and others.
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humble_in_doubt
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people do that because many parts of the bible can be empirically proven untrue (like the chronology of creation & obviously we also know every creature on earth wasn’t created in a single instant, but rather evolved from more simplistic life forms).
Most churches don’t become irretractably locked into an untenable position on scripture because they know it would be absurd (and most people don’t buy into silly notions like the devil slipped into all those carbon dating results that tell us the earth is 4 billion years old).
However, if it makes you feel any better, the CC once held to biblical literalism (but they eventually came to their senses).
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