Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

Fordtunate Son

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Re: Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

Mar 6, 2023, 6:30 PM

Good article.

I'll hold that God, if there is one, comes to people in a whatever they can understand. There's no constraints on how he might appear to someone, or what he might say their charge is.

If a literal interpretation of the Bible brings one closer to God, so be it. If an allegorical interpretation brings a different person closer to God. So be it. Same with Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Holiness, or any other denomination.

And I extend that to religions themselves. If God told the Jews to obey the Law, that's how they get closer to God. If he tells Christians to have faith, that's their charge. And Muslims to submit, that's their charge. If he tells Hindus to elevate themselves and Buddhists to enlighten themselves, then that's how he comes to them.

I mean, the bottom line is that no one really knows. Even science takes faith. Up until 1500 years science, such as it was, said the Earth was the center of the universe. That theory passed every available test. Then Ptolemy codified it. Then Copernicus, using new tools, modified that theory. Then Galileo blew it up. Then Newton tweaked it. Then Einstein turned it on its head. Who knows what insights or understandings tomorrow will bring?

One of my favorite quotes is from physicist John Wheeler. He said "Not only is the universe stranger than you do imagine, it's stranger than you CAN imagine." I see both religion and science as loose fitting suits. Sure they, do the job pretty well, but they are both descriptions of a reality that is probably impossible to comprehend.

It's like, if I tried to convey Monet's Water Lilies to you, I could say "Well, it's got some greens and some blues in it, and it's a picture of some plants in water. You might be able to visualize this:

But would one expect it to look like this if one zoomed out:

And look like this if one zoomed in?

And zoomed in some more. These strokes repeated a million different times in a million different combinations. How many of these does it take to make up the pictures above?

How on earth does one describe that? Or these?

A fraction of the known universe

A picture of a single Strontium atom, taken in 2022. How many of these does it take to make up the picture above?

Mind Bottling.

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>Religion holds up writings from thousands of years ago as authoritative in a modern society.

Religion has tended to be more dogmatic, that is true. But people hung on hard to the Ptolematic System till the overwhelming evidence simply made the position untenable. Hanging on like threatening death if one tried to upset the apple cart. So that's pretty dogmatic in science, too.

And some individuals might say that for them, religion doesn't evolve. But at the larger scale, beyond personal beliefs and personal lifetimes, religion does evolve, just like science. The Judaism of today is not the Judaism from 500 BCE. And the Christianity of 50 AD wasn't the Christianity of 350 AD. The churches of Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome all had different views of the nature of Christ, among other things. Even today, every time a church splits, that's Christianity evolving.

>Why on earth would someone do like this quote claims they should do? Compare modern scientific discoveries with an ancient creation myth?

I applaud their attempt at inclusiveness. I suppose one can struggle to find differences between people, or struggle to find commonality. I'll go with commonality. It always comes down to one's personal belief threshold anyhow. Is the idea of God speaking the universe into existence really that much wilder to our daily experiences as infinite parallel universes? Where multiples copies of each of us exist into infinity? That's pretty wild too. Definitely out there on the theoretical, scientific, fringe.

It's a great psychological topic I'd like to get into some time. Like say, flat-earthers. It's pretty hard to deny the earth is round, even for those who haven't gone to the moon. But some do, apparently. On the flip side, some would say how could someone deny something so obvious and prevalent as God's hand in our daily lives. Some see it, others so not. No one is fooling themselves. They see what they see.

It kind of reminds me of the black or gold dress meme a while back. People see what they see, and believe what they believe, and they really can't help it. It's not really a choice. That dress is DEFINITELY gold and white, by the way.

Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

As a United Methodis, I believe that ...

Re: Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

Re: Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

Re: Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

Re: Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

Re: Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

So you're saying:

Re: So you're saying:

Re: Has the bible been set up to never be proven wrong

Thanks. Very well said.***

We have a long way to go...

Proving the Bible right or wrong is...

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