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TULIPed
Guest
Is the argument that it’s possible that one day science would show how somebody could actually be dead and rise again?
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niceatheist
Guest
All science can say is that, currently at least, you can’t bring people who have been dead back to life after three days. It cannot account for miracles, particularly ones that allegedly happened over 2000 years ago. Someone like myself will find the claim improbable, but as you say, trying to use science to disprove it is a misuse of science. My chief concern is always that Young Earth Creationists (and some Old Earth Creationists) have made a number of attempts to either displace science education in public classrooms, or have tried to claim Creationism is an equal and competing theory.
YECism, such as it existed back then, was largely falsified in the 18th century as the first group of modern geologists actually began analyzing the geological column and came pretty quickly to the startling twin conclusions that there was no global deluge, and further that the Earth wasn’t thousands of years old, but in fact millions. Over the next two hundred years our understanding of the Earth’s history has thoroughly debunked YECism. The Earth is over four billion years old, life has existed on Earth since at least the end of the Hadean epoch, humans or bipedal human-like creatures have existed for the last several million years.
For the Catholic Church, this has never really posed a problem. Augustine had seen even in his day how some Christians would make epistemological claims that flew in the face of what learned men knew, and cautioned against interpretations of Scripture that brought Scripture into disrepute. The Church has always asserted a right to interpret Scripture, and thus geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology have never challenged Christianity.
It is by and large certain Protestant groups, particularly in the US (though there are elements in Britain as well), who basing interpretation on Sola Scriptura (though even they are forced to make some rather non-literal interpretations to make Scripture fit facts that even they cannot avoid), who have asserted various types of Special Creation, and have basically set themselves in opposition to science. And they’ve used some rather underhanded means at times to sneak Creationism in to public education, which should make any co-religionist rather suspicious of their motives.
YECism, such as it existed back then, was largely falsified in the 18th century as the first group of modern geologists actually began analyzing the geological column and came pretty quickly to the startling twin conclusions that there was no global deluge, and further that the Earth wasn’t thousands of years old, but in fact millions. Over the next two hundred years our understanding of the Earth’s history has thoroughly debunked YECism. The Earth is over four billion years old, life has existed on Earth since at least the end of the Hadean epoch, humans or bipedal human-like creatures have existed for the last several million years.
For the Catholic Church, this has never really posed a problem. Augustine had seen even in his day how some Christians would make epistemological claims that flew in the face of what learned men knew, and cautioned against interpretations of Scripture that brought Scripture into disrepute. The Church has always asserted a right to interpret Scripture, and thus geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology have never challenged Christianity.
It is by and large certain Protestant groups, particularly in the US (though there are elements in Britain as well), who basing interpretation on Sola Scriptura (though even they are forced to make some rather non-literal interpretations to make Scripture fit facts that even they cannot avoid), who have asserted various types of Special Creation, and have basically set themselves in opposition to science. And they’ve used some rather underhanded means at times to sneak Creationism in to public education, which should make any co-religionist rather suspicious of their motives.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
On the other hand, I’ve read detailed medical analyses of the eyewitness account of blood and water coming from Jesus’ side. Sounds to me like he was indeed dead by scientific standards. Presumably, the Roman soldiers whose job was killing people by crucifixion and other means, all day every day, also knew when people were dead and what they had to do to kill people.
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niceatheist
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Ask the cryologists! They’ve been working for decades on how to freeze people immediately after death with the possibility of reanimating them. Unfortunately, living tissues are pretty sensitive things, and start to break down extremely rapidly after respiration stops. We see how easily someone can suffer irreparable brain damage after just a few minutes of anoxia (leading me to think that sometimes doctors save people when they probably shouldn’t). In cryogenics, the chief issue, at least so far as the brain is concerned, is the act of freezing, even rapid freezing, causes crystalization of tissues in the brain, which destroys synapses and other structures.
And that’s the root of the problem. While there’s still a considerable amount of debate as to when brain death happens (there’s some evidence that electrical activity can still occur several minutes after what we normally declare brain death). But at least within a few hours, depending on other conditions, tissues in the brain will break down and once those synaptic connections are destroyed, memory, personality and even more basic functions are destroyed. It’s hard to imagine how any medical technology could ever reverse that kind of damage. Maybe we’ll have cryogenics at some point, and we can preserve a person in a kind of frozen stasis, but I don’t think even that would really resemble the claims made about Christ’s resurrection.
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niceatheist
Guest
For a counterpoint, look at the hard work Rasputin’s assassins had to go through to finally kill him!
Tis_Bearself
Patron
Now you’ve got me thinking of that old hit dance song/ video about “Ra Ra Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen”…time to take a forum break and go drink some coffee.
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tafan2
Guest
My point was that science was has not told us anything about the rrsurrection. It’s even a stretch to attribute your statement to science. It is equivalent to me saying “Shakespeare wrote plays” and taking credit for that knowledge just because I was the last person to make the claim. People knew way back in antiquity that you can’t bring people back to life after three days. Science gets no credit for this knowledge.
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tafan2
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Ha, I would love to know how much of that is fact and how much is an exaggeration by the assasins.
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niceatheist
Guest
Science, however can say why. There’s a bit more to investigating death, from an empirical point of view, than that the dead don’t come back to life.
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tafan2
Guest
Certainly science has told us why. But that wasn’t your claim.
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niceatheist
Guest
There are a number of examples of the dead coming back to life in Classical mythology, suggesting the ancients didn’t necessarily have the empirical view of death we do.
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TULIPed
Guest
Agreed. I don’t think science has any problem with death. It’s the whole “coming back to life” thing that creates issues scientifically me thinks.
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PLeeD
Guest
Really… What number constitutes “every protestant I know”?
I know hundreds, me included, and don’t know a single one who believes that.
I know hundreds, me included, and don’t know a single one who believes that.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
As several other posts said, it’s a regional thing.
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rossum
Guest
Or perhaps that the ancient Greeks had some difficulty telling death from a deep coma without modern medical equipment?
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EndTimes
Guest
Yeah… I said that… You left out the fullness of my question…
You’re claiming that every Protestant believes the world is 6,000 years old
- based upon your experiences in what … asking every Protestant you know - what they believe?
In my life I’ve only run across one person - who believes that.
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BigRon
Guest
Catholics believe in creationism, it says in the bible and the catechism that God created the world and He created it good. Any Catholic that believes God didn’t create the world is going against church teaching. Nothing to do with protestants.
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BigRon
Guest
I’m a Catholic and believe the world is roughly 6,00 years old, I have known protestants that believe it is 100 trillion or whatever it is claimed by scientists.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
Neither the OP nor myself ever “claimed that every Protestant believes the world is 6,000 years old”.
You are ascribing a statement to the OP that he never said.
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EndTimes
Guest
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