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On Nov 21, 2010, at 7:56 AM, Dr. Keith S. Taber wrote:
Hi Bob
At 08:17 -0500 21/11/10, Spinozalens@aol.com wrote:
According the Bible the earth the Sun goes around the earth pi equals 3,
and the everything was created in six days is a rather perverse order. I
think these assertions are in some
disagreement with modern science. I know of
course that liberal religionist skirt these issues with a very loose
reading of the Bible, but I don't think it's
intellectually honest to do this.
Why?
These things were written at a time when this is
what people thought. I'm sure there are things in
Homer that were scientifically dubious, but that
has not been used to deny it as good literature.
There are wonderful old paintings which show no
sense of perspective and distort proportions -
but they can be good art. If the Bible was
intended as a science text, it would be fair to
say it is now outdated. However that was never
how it was understood.
My point is that you have to see how these things
are understood within a tradition. In the
mainstream Christian tradition the Bible has not
been seen as book of literal knowledge claims
about the physical world. Only in the past
Century or so has this view suddenly come to
prominence in some communities - it is not the
traditional Christian view. (Look at the
contemporary reception of Darwin's ideas. Yes
there was fuss, and strong objections from some
churchmen - but despite what some people seem to
think, there was not a widespread rejection by
the Church en masse. Let's face it, Darwin became
increasingly atheistic in his outlook, but the
Church still let him be buried in Westminster
Abbey!)
1600 years later, Augustine's warning is still valid:
"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something
about the earth, the heavens, and the other
elements of this world, about the motion and
orbit of the stars and even their size and
relative positions, about the predictable
eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the
years and the seasons, about the kinds of
animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this
knowledge he holds to as being certain from
reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful
and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy
Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and
we should take all means to prevent such an
embarrassing situation, in which people show up
vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to
scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant
individual is derided, but that people outside
the household of faith think our sacred writers
held such opinions, and, to the great loss of
those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of
our Scripture are criticized and rejected as
unlearned men."
Some have not learnt this lesson!
As for
moral teachings the Bible is a mixed bag. While there are some proscriptions
that any decent person cannot quarrel with, there are also appalling
things which reflect their origin, a primitive tribal culture. So using the
Bible as a source to ground our moral teachings let alone inform us about the
nature of reality seems problematic to me.
I agree of course. But I was not defending the
Bible per se as a moral guide (my small army can
kill your big army simply because we've prayed to
the true God, etc, etc), but of course much of
the Bible is only the pre-Christian context for
Jesus' life and teachings. But Christians do not
draw upon that for moral guidance, but from the
teachings of Christ: love one another, turn the
other cheek, be a good neighbour, show
forgiveness etc, etc. Quite how the Revelation
fits in all that, I agree is something of a
mystery to me!
My point was that it is not Christian religion
that is the problem, in terms of beliefs and
teachings (I guess I'd see your 'liberals' as
following this path), but political groups who
may consider they are being fundamentalist
Christians. If they really were fundamentalists
in a literal sense they would follow Christ's two
commandments and see the rest as mere context.
Howdy,
The problem comes when there are folks who don't consider it in the context of its origin or as a piece of literature but take it as ``God Given Truth'' in today's world.
Good Luck,
Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)
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