The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Living, as I do, in the "Deep South" (USA), I sometimes encounter otherwise-pleasant(?) folks who sometimes take their religion – I think – a little bit too seriously. (Quite a few of them seem to take their politics a bit too seriously, too. For example, referring to themselves proudly as "Truth Seekers." But, I digress ...)

Anyhow, I was met with a person who earnestly believed that "Genesis Chapters 1 & 2" is literally true," as is the recitation of Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. By calculating how long each of these persons might have lived, this person "confidently" said that the Earth itself was only a few thousand years old. According to this person, "this proved it." I finally smiled and used my standard disconnect-phrase: "How very interesting. Thank you." (And then beat a hasty exit.)

I would despair to live in a world in which [unknowable ...] things could so-easily be "proved."

As for me, I find the idea of "geologic time" far more fascinating – and, compelling. What if(!) "the world is older than we can imagine?" What if(!) "there are infinitely more stars in the sky than we can see or count?" Not only am I freely willing to consider such things, I find them exciting. Because – if we continue with the premise that "God" is the source of all these many things – "God" has just now passed beyond our comprehension. "And, how cool is that?"

There are a few hints in our Bible. The final chapters of Job (thought to be perhaps the earliest of all the books), where Job is given a challenge he cannot keep. Or simply: "My ways are not your ways, and My thoughts are not your thoughts." What if this actually isn't "a pocket-sized God?"

Because I personally will never claim "to know," and find no reason to do so, I fully enjoy: "Wonder."

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Postscript: I hasten now to say that I realize that I am in the very-familiar company of some nameless participants who might believe quite differently. "Religion," in general, is always understood to be "an intensely personal subject." And, I simply want to say right now that I do not intend this post to affront your sincere beliefs. I am not inviting anyone to "defend their personal position" which is different from mine. (However, I might enjoy sparking a discussion of "other points of view" in this legendary thread, which has lately grown a bit too quiet ...) Let us speak, if you like, of the situation that I have named – but not the fact that I have now named it – nor the very-sincere person whom I encountered, who I did not and do not now judge. "#undef disclaimer"

I've never seen any rebuttal of irreducible complexity adequate to task. The laws of physics, DNA and sexual reproduction are just a few of the things I simply can't imagine being the result of anything but intelligent design.

Archaeology has been taking advantage of evolution in technologies. Reasons to believe the Bible abound and continue to grow. It takes a lot more faith to believe anyone "knows" much of anything about what did or didn't happen or exist before the time about which the Bible's first books were written. Discussions about points in time prior to Genesis 1:1 can involve little more than supposition. We don't have any indisputable records of observations or experiments prior.

I am actually a bit surprised , mrmazda, that you haven't outgrown that Discovery Institute "card trick". Not only is "irreducible complexity" thoroughly discredited on it's own lack of merit even in the reduced scrutiny of a court of Law, but of course throughout the more stringent tests in peer reviewed Science, but it has zero bearing on Creationism since it only existed as a possible argument against Natural Selection, which it failed. In fact, The Discovery Institute was found by their own documents to be lying, claiming that ID was not just repackaged Creationism in just one example.

As for knowledge of "time before Genesis" there are trees alive in 2024 that are roughly 5,800 years old. There are ice cores that are in effect records of environmental conditions 800,000 years ago with these dates as reliable as tree rings. Just a few years ago new methods of extracting DNA from soil, ice, etc have revealed complex ecosystems dating back 2,000,000 years. Again, this doesn't disprove Creation or the existence on any supernatural Creator or the parts of any scripture that address those spiritual issues but it does, as should be expected, disprove Bronze Age conclusions about things that can be tested and benefit from technological progress that were included in scripture.

The Earth is an Oblate Spheroid, not flat, Space is not an ocean held back by "firmament". The Sun is the center of our Solar System, not Earth, and by no means the center of everything and our planet is over 4 Billion years old. The Universe is at least 13 Billion years old. These are understood as fact based on millennia of observation and testing by countless experts not the say-so based on Bronze Age superstition and hearsay or one book from that era. Scriptures are important as historical records but at best they are metaphor and allegory. They are not Scientific.

Also: if you want to play that game ... even if there was "intelligent design," why was a single group of people living in the desert "privy to 'the answer?'"

Why, if "convinced of the reality of 'intelligent design,'" are we to now conclude that "The Bible," specifically in the form that we now know it, necessarily (and, magically ...) contains "the truth" that we are seeking? Such that "there can be no other?" Why couldn't it be any other document?

Documents held by entirely-unrelated cultures thousands of miles away. Maybe it is true that "First Man and First Woman" climbed into this World from a previously-existing and maybe-still-existing "Underworld." Every culture has a story that it teaches to its children, about "how the World began."

Or, within the Hebrew culture, how about the many documents that "ecumenical councils, long ago" had available to them, but for whatever reason chose not to include in their compilation?

"The Bible" is a compilation with a very fascinating history. But "a compilation," nonetheless. At various points, fairly-modern human committees decided(!) what to include, and what to leave out. ("The Apocrypha" is a side-collection of things that "weren't quite canonical" but were not entirely left out. And, by the way, there's some very entertaining reading in there. Don't miss it ...) We have the texts of many books which they left out, and some people suspect that some decisions were "purely political."

Of course, today, all of these public-domain texts have been posted on the Fabulous Internet. And someday, some other shepherd might throw a stone into a cave and "crack open" something else . . .

Just as there are interesting texts which candidly explore "the quest for the Historical Jesus," there are also texts which describe how "The Bible" came to be. Including those which describe "how politically bold" King James actually was. And, what we know about his retinue of scholars and translators, who accomplished an amazing and lovely feat. One that "the English language" had never seen before.

Originally Posted by enorbet ...not Scientific.

Speaking of not scientific, so is any discussion of what happened before any scientist was present to observe or test. Events and conditions prior to several thousand years ago cannot and have not been scientifically proven. We can't know with certainty that the realities of today correctly match up with the realities prior to observations. All they are are conjecture based upon a world view from which seen that outright rejects any possibility of anything supernatural, and the little we do know that can or has been indisputably proven. Such so-called science is just a religion that omits any god, a faith in mankind to know the unknowable.

I suppose it is somehow understandable, mrmazda, that you equate Science with Religion, assume we can know nothing we aren't physically present for, trust in superstition and supernatural, and imagine anything physical can even be unknowable since from what I gather about your POV, everything knowable or even worth knowing was written down roughly 2000 years ago, full stop. I also suppose you never consider that hundreds if not thousands of religious views that you reject have essentially the same type of "evidence" story, some ancient person(s) say-so with zero to corroborate the claims.

The safe harbor of abracadabra "Deus ex machina" is in it's insularity. Logic and critical thinking need not apply. All one has to do is Believe in One Book, never question it and Deny everything else. How convenient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion

Originally Posted by enorbet I suppose it is somehow understandable, mrmazda, that you equate Science with Religion

Not all science. Only so-called sciences that present as fact where factual basis cannot be determined. This is a question of who or what one puts one's faith in. It takes faith in the infallibility of modern mankind to believe "reports" of conditions existing before observational reports became available. We weren't here to observe 10,000<place your choice of more zeros here> years ago. Books and Nova episodes that begin with the words "millions" or "billions" of years ago" are supposition, fiction, not subject to proof, not legitimate science.

Originally Posted by mrmazda It takes faith in the infallibility of modern mankind to believe "reports" of conditions existing before observational reports became available. We weren't here to observe 10,000<place your choice of more zeros here> years ago.

It also takes faith to believe in the existence of anything except oneself, as Descartes pointed out. Cogito ergo sum is unanswerable, but believing in Mr Mazda is an act of faith on my part.

Originally Posted by hazel It also takes faith to believe in the existence of anything except oneself

I understand that the Bhuddists have some exercises to cure of that mistake too (believing in a self, that is).

Originally Posted by mrmazda Not all science. Only so-called sciences that present as fact where factual basis cannot be determined. This is a question of who or what one puts one's faith in. It takes faith in the infallibility of modern mankind to believe "reports" of conditions existing before observational reports became available. We weren't here to observe 10,000<place your choice of more zeros here> years ago. Books and Nova episodes that begin with the words "millions" or "billions" of years ago" are supposition, fiction, not subject to proof, not legitimate science.

It's most likely an exercise in futility but it isn't faith that has determined the rings of a tree occur with yearly seasonal changes, for example. You don't have to be 6000 years old to count the rings of a 6000 year old tree, or the similar sections of an ice core. You don't have to be 4 Billion years old to ascertain that there was a period approximately in that epoch that was responsible for most of the craters on the Moon, nor that the Earth was similarly bombarded but an active environment, high percentage of surface area being ocean, and plate tectonics has taken many craters from sight. Similarly, it is not a leap of faith to calculate that if a thing is expanding or exploding, that at some point in the past it was smaller than in is today.

You don't have to be there to witness aftermath in a progression. It's how criminals are caught by crime scene investigation. You just have to try as hard as possible to falsify any possible conclusion and rule out those that don't pan out, and be prudent at assigning probability on those most likely. That's what critical thinking, one foundation of the scientific method, is. It is quite distinctly different from drinking-the-koolaid blind faith, especially based on one ancient book, and especially one originally written in a language nobody has spoken in context in a over a thousand years.

Originally Posted by enorbet It's most likely an exercise in futility but it isn't faith that has determined the rings of a tree occur with yearly seasonal changes, for example. You don't have to be 6000 years old to count the rings of a 6000 year old tree, or the similar sections of an ice core. You don't have to be 4 Billion years old to ascertain that there was a period approximately in that epoch that was responsible for most of the craters on the Moon, nor that the Earth was similarly bombarded but an active environment, high percentage of surface area being ocean, and plate tectonics has taken many craters from sight. Similarly, it is not a leap of faith to calculate that if a thing is expanding or exploding, that at some point in the past it was smaller than in is today.

Have I mentioned Philip Gosse's omphalos theory before? Gosse was a 19th century fundamentalist Christian who was also a well-known geologist. He invented this fascinating theory to reconcile the two halves of his life.

He started from the fact that Adam must have had an omphalos(umbilicus) because he would not have been a complete human being without one. However in his case, the omphalos would have been the scar left by an umbilical cord that never existed! Similarly his bones would have been mute testimony to twenty or so years of normal human growth and development that had never actually occurred. The trees in Eden would have had multiple annual rings just like modern trees, not because God wanted to deceive anyone about the age of the earth, but simply because annual rings are what all wood is made of. Gosse explained sedimentary rocks in the same way; it is their nature to consist of layers, so God could not create them without this layering.

I think there are two arguments against this clever theory:

1) Fossils occur only occasionally in sedimentary rocks and it is quite possible to conceive of rocks that don't contain them. Therefore the occurrence of fossils would not be necessary. It would have to be a deliberate attempt by God to deceive us, which is hardly proper behaviour on His part!

2) The omphalos argument could be used in favour of the thesis that God created the world only a few days ago, complete with all our memories and all the evidence of centuries of history. If He had, we would never be able to tell the difference. In which case, Jesus would never have lived either. Oops!

Originally Posted by enorbet I suppose it is somehow understandable, mrmazda, that you equate Science with Religion, assume we can know nothing we aren't physically present for, trust in superstition and supernatural, and imagine anything physical can even be unknowable since from what I gather about your POV, everything knowable or even worth knowing was written down roughly 2000 years ago, full stop. I also suppose you never consider that hundreds if not thousands of religious views that you reject have essentially the same type of "evidence" story, some ancient person(s) say-so with zero to corroborate the claims. The safe harbor of abracadabra "Deus ex machina" is in it's insularity. Logic and critical thinking need not apply. All one has to do is Believe in One Book, never question it and Deny everything else. How convenient.

There is an entire segment of "science" that is devoted to exploring things which cannot be experimentally "known." This discipline is called "The Philosophy of Science." One of its strategies is to take what can be observed, to offer a theory "explaining" it, and then to look systematically for "apparent contradictions." Charles Darwin was engaging in this when he wrote his "Origin of Species," and he implicitly assumed that his audience understood. These techniques can be used in a variety of situations – including nuclear physics – where it is not [yet ...] possible to "observe."

"Philosophy" sometimes gets a bad rap, as being something too abstract to waste time on. But, I prefer to refer to it as: "Thinking About Thinking." How, exactly, do we go about trying to "know" things? And, as we pursue various strategies in an effort to "know things," we definitely should examine them formally.

I also think that "religion" has its own merits, which should not be "pooh poohed." After all, people have been engaging in religion probably longer than they've been engaging in science – and many of the earliest scientists were, in fact, religious officials. When millions of people choose to engage in a particular system of thought, for whatever reason, we should not discount it. And, when it boldly engages in "a leap of faith," might it thereby encounter a legitimate truth that might not have been recognized any other way? "Not so fast. Don't automatically say, 'no.'"

"Philosophy • Religion • Science" ... these three things are fundamental. And, I submit, they work together.

Good points hazel. I can't possibly reconcile the Christian concept of a God that is also The Trickster. That is worse than oil and water, night and day. It seems quite literally a contradiction in terms, and worse, one that takes away any meaning to existence. It becomes a rigged game.

Of course then I come up against the Big Kahuna problem of how can any puny human brain possibly grasp what properly constitutes a creature capable of existing for billions of years or worse, for ALL TIME, who can create even a galaxy let alone an entire Universe of trillions of galaxies from nothing more than some dense energy? I must humbly recognize that is a question I (nor anyone else) can likely never answer even if we lived to be a million years old.

FWIW, sundialsvcs, I agree with most of your above statement with just a few caveats and distinctions. I think the Big 3 cannot be expected to be equivalent.

Science is so rigorous it refuses to see anything as a solid theory (in the scientific sense, not in that vernacular "what if?" sense) until it has undergone years of testing by hundreds if not thousands of experts in the relevant field all trying to "poke holes in it". Anyone who wants to know just how rigorous should just look up "5 Sigma" (hint -substantially more than a million to one odds if we simplify the concept)

Philosophy is aligned a bit more with Hypothesis, dealing with conclusions that seem reasonable but have yet to weathered serious falsification. It is further complicated by not having a stringent set of rules instead allowing for premises not yet in evidence. A philosopher can produce interesting platforms that don't even have 1 Sigma odds.

Religion is an oddball because it has changed so over the millennia. Thousands of years ago very little was understood about the mechanisms behind how the world works. Supernatural beings were thought to be responsible for anything not seen with the naked eye, and even some that could be seen. Initially most religions attempted to refine their conclusions about Nature and supported Science. However once Science was seen to contradict many basic precepts in Religion, and had evidence to back it up (ie: Galileo) religions began to engage in Denial as opposed to admitting they simply got more than they'd bargained for, much like a person "sticking by his guns" even after evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

In my view Religion would have been wiser to extend the "Render unto Caesar" trope into the realms of Science, once the scientific method began to mature (incidentally in far less time than the 300 years it took to apologize to Galileo). To continue with the Sigma "odds thing" there are things Science can very likely never know and if Religion stuck to those areas, they might possibly continue to flourish instead of longing for a victory whose price is too high and also ultimately destined to fail, assuming Mankind manages to survive at least a few more hundred years.