On the Necessity of Proving Things

[Moontanman]

Of course there is an objective way for telling which parts of the Bible are literal and which contain figurative language. Check out the Catholic Church.

 

What makes the Catholic Church unique is that it is commissioned by Jesus Christ to interpret, teach and preserve the Divine Revelation contained in Holy Scripture.

 

The best source for the Catholic Deposit of Faith is:

 

Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, ISBN: 1-57455-109-4

 

Link: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

 

 

Needimprovement can you honestly assert that the best way to confirm parts of the bible as "Truth" is to ask an organization that is famous for corruption and lying to support it's own self interest? Asking the Church, any Church really, to confirm the reality of the Bible is a little like asking a child molester if having sex with children is ok. Religion has a horrible track record in any form of admitting being wrong about anything or even admitting to the possibility of being wrong about anything.

 

You are a prime example of why religion is dangerous to our society and dangerous to individuals looking for some sort of truth to build their lives around. You are obviously an intelligent human being but your need to both confirm your religious beliefs and to convince others of the basic truth of your religious beliefs is pathological in nature. You cannot conceive of the church doing anything wrong even though the evidence of the church doing terrible things and both covering them up is wide spread and easily available. Justifying this stuff by saying they are working gods will is really over the top and ignores reality in a way that is very dangerous if you are an example of what a true believer really is.

 

It's difficult to believe anyone would be gullible enough to swallow this hook line and sinker as well as dismissing all evidence to the contrary as Catholic haters or religious haters. This type of thinking shows a dangerous pathology and explains how over the centuries the church has been able to do such horrendous things with no consequences. If I prayed i would pray that you wake up and smell the coffee before you end up doing something horrible that no matter how much god forgives you for it your own innate sense of right and wrong will destroy you from the inside out.

 

I feel for you needimprovement but you have been totally blinded by the light.... only you can decide to look away...

Edited September 3, 2010 by Moontanman

[Mr Skeptic]

Of course there is an objective way for telling which parts of the Bible are literal and which contain figurative language. Check out the Catholic Church.

 

But that means that which are literal and which are figurative changes over time. The Catholic Church has made mistakes and changed its mind. See, for example, Galileo.

 

What makes the Catholic Church unique is that it is commissioned by Jesus Christ to interpret, teach and preserve the Divine Revelation contained in Holy Scripture.

 

Ah, but they must have made a bunch of mistakes, since later God sent an angel to deliver a more accurate understanding, to Joseph Smith Jr. So we should really ask the Mormons to interpret it.

 

Besides, it's pretty much only Catholics who think Jesus founded them as an authority of any kind.

[pioneer]

I tend to think much of the bible is figurative, since this is an easier way to reach people and imprint a memory that can be used for lossless transmission, so it can spread. Christ said the kingdom of god is like the mustard seed. It starts out as a tiny seed and grows to become one of the largest plants. Anyone could follow the analogy. It is easy to remember and one can transfer the thought without a lot of data loss. Others start there and begin to translate/extrapolate.

 

The original audience had limited education, but would still have common sense and practical experience of life. With an audience of limited education, you can lose your audience if you start to use too much jargon and/or get bogged down in details that escape them. Their memory will retain the mustard seed analogy, making it easier to spread to others. If they tried to repeat the technical discussion, they daydreamed through, most of that is forgotten and data transfer has high loss.

 

For example, try to explain the atom to 1st grade students. You might say, the atom is like the tether ball in the playground. Instead of a stick in the middle, we have a huge heavy round ball in the middle. Once you hit the ball on the string, it keeps going in circles. This is not true, but a fundamental lesson was learned. If we talked about wave functions, they are lost. Which lesson will they be able to go home and tell their parents and friends with lossless transmission?

 

Later the scholars use the mustard seed analogy to extrapolate meaning. But the tetherball is one of those funny memories that lingers always and will be told to young students even after they find out this is not predicted by the wave functions.

Edited September 5, 2010 by pioneer

[Edtharan]

Of course there is an objective way for telling which parts of the Bible are literal and which contain figurative language. Check out the Catholic Church.

 

What makes the Catholic Church unique is that it is commissioned by Jesus Christ to interpret, teach and preserve the Divine Revelation contained in Holy Scripture.

 

The best source for the Catholic Deposit of Faith is:

 

Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, ISBN: 1-57455-109-4

 

Link: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

So, if you are right here, then we should burn witches, stone adulterers, tourture and kill those that don't believe the same as you do and keep women as slaves.

 

Right...

 

Sorry, these were all held as true by the caotholic church and they justified it by it being in the bible. If you are right then you yourself break this every day of your life.

 

Hvae a look at this: http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb.asp

[needimprovement]

At the end of time you will realize the difference of the two books.

 

The other one is a fiction and the other is the truth.

 

It's funny that Lord of the Rings should be mentioned.

[Moontanman]

At the end of time you will realize the difference of the two books.

 

The other one is a fiction and the other is the truth.

 

It's funny that Lord of the Rings should be mentioned.

 

 

No, when you die, you die, you will not realize anything much less the end of time, the Lord of the Rings is no more funny than any other book of fiction, it contains accounts of great deeds both evil and good and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Kinda like the bible in a many ways...

[Marat]

Imagine that God and several human computer engineers were asked to construct personal computers and submit them to a contest to determine which one was the best. The judges have to evaluate the entries not knowing who made which and then award the prize. Could there be any doubt about which personal computer had been made by the Infinite, Omniscient Mind of the Almighty Creater of the Universe? Of course not, since his glorious personal computer submission to the contest would be not just two or three times better than the other versions made by mere humans, but a trillion times better, and it would thus convince anyone on a cursory glance that it was the only God-made design.

 

And yet here we can seriously have a real debate whether the human-authored 'Lord of the Rings' might state the true cosmology of the world rather than the divinely-inspired message of the Holy Bible. The very fact that reasonable people can reasonably debate whether the Koran, the Bible, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Epic of Gilgamesh might be the ulitmate message of God shows that none of them qualifies for that honor, since if any one of them did, it would be stunningly obvious, not debatable. Similarly, it is simply inconceivable, if you think about it seriously, that Pontius Pilate, King Herod, or the members of the Senhedron could have been chatting at length with the human embodiment of the Great Jehovah Himself and somehow not have noticed that he was God rather than just some local religious fanatic like John the Baptist or Paul of Tarsus.

[insane_alien]

Imagine that God and several human computer engineers were asked to construct personal computers and submit them to a contest to determine which one was the best. The judges have to evaluate the entries not knowing who made which and then award the prize. Could there be any doubt about which personal computer had been made by the Infinite, Omniscient Mind of the Almighty Creater of the Universe? Of course not, since his glorious personal computer submission to the contest would be not just two or three times better than the other versions made by mere humans, but a trillion times better, and it would thus convince anyone on a cursory glance that it was the only God-made design.

 

why must god's be trillions of times better?

 

if god is capable of creating far superior technology then he is also capable of building slightly superior technology.

 

and as he is omniscient, he will know everything about his competitors designs. he could build a machine exactly the same, but with perhaps a 1% improvement on the numbers.

 

just cause god is supposed to be infinitely good at everything doesn't mean that everything he builds is perfect. you can design in flaws.

[Moontanman]

If you assume that a creator, no matter how you define her/he/it, created everything then you have to admit that she/he/it designed flaws into the system quite often, not only that but it is apparent that this creator likes to mislead people by writing books describing her/his/it's creation that are completely inaccurate and she/he/it seems to enjoy our confusion and the pain and suffering she/he/it imposes on the world.

[pioneer]

As history shows, the events of Jesus would alter the western world. Putting aside belief or lack thereof, there was a long term historical impact that was not a fad, but which took root, spread and evolved as time went on. It gained selective advantage, with Christians nation of Europe colonizing the world in the 1400-1800's. Evolution is not about only sweet cuddly koala bears. There was also T-rex and then finally the rise of warm blooded critters. This is all part of its continuing evolution.

 

I

[pioneer]

As history shows, the events of Jesus would alter the western world. Putting aside belief or lack thereof, there was a long term historical impact that was not a fad, but which took root, spread and evolved as time went on. It gained selective advantage, with Christians nation of Europe colonizing the world in the 1400-1800's. Evolution is not about only sweet cuddly koala bears. There was also T-rex and then finally the rise of warm blooded critters. This is all part of its continuing evolution.

 

I

[Marat]

God the Almighty, Omniscient, and Perfect might deliberately put some design flaws into his creation, but only where good reasons dictated this choice. When it came to communicating his message in a divinely inspired book, he must have realized that if the book's style, composition, logic, and power to convince were not reflective of its divine authorship, it would fail to communicate, since many would quite reasonably doubt the godly authority of the stories and theories it imparted. Instead, its character looks like just what it is: the composition of many different human authors from varying Hebrew and Greek traditions who were mutually inconsistent, not always very logical, and more than occasionally poor writers.

 

That there is nothing in the Bible which stands out as inconsistent with all the cultural, religious, and philosophical forces surrounding its composition also raises suspicions about its divine origin. If the forces of intellectual history of the era were already inclining towards generating that message on their own, then why would God have had to step in and inspire people to write it? On the other hand, if God inspired its composition, shouldn't at least something in it look startlingly inconsistent with the ordinary ideas already floating around at that time and place? It would be a stunning coincidence if the Infinite Mind of the Cosmos (as it appears in the New Testament) just happened to think like someone influenced by Egyptian relgion, Greek philosophy, and Hebrew traditions current in the Eastern corner of the Mediterranean during the first few centuries A.D.! And yet that is exactly how it looks, since somehow his writing seems uneducated by any of the developments in human thought from the Enlightenment, Existentialism, Relativism, Historical Materialism, Epistemological Idealism, Hermeutics, Phenomenology, or any other advance since the time period when he communicated his message. This would make perfect sense if humans rather than God wrote down that message, but would seem quite peculiar if an Infinite, Eternal Mind, which would obviously already have anticipated all future human thought, wrote it.

 

Also, if the Christian message has indeed 'evolved' since its first transmission as part of the natural selection process of better over worse ideas throughout the ensuing history of Western culture, then what is the right message we should now believe in? The 17th century Puritans executed cats for killing mice on Sunday because they manifested their evil nature by 'working on the Sabbath'; other Christians took seriously the Biblical injunction that 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'; and still others think that the Christian teaching forbids saluting the flag, having blood transfusions, or respecting monogamy. The first Christian communities were even communist in their social organization.

 

With all these stages and branches of evolution from the initial message, who knows what to believe? Even more disturbing, the Omniscient Mind of Jehovah must have known in advance that a message communicated by whispering an 'inspiration' into the minds of people acting under certain narrow cultural influences in one time and place was bound to become corrupted and unclear over time by various historical forces, so why was he so profoundly silly as to entrust his message to that medium of transmission? Why did he make the spread of his message subject to the contingent forces of history by delivering it in the Roman Province of Judea ca. 30 A.D., which guaranteed that the people in places like Tibet and Madagascar would only first hear of it centuries later and thus suffer the undeserved prejudice that many more of them would be denied a chance of salvation?

 

All these problems arise from the same issue: It is simply inconsistent with the nature of an infinite god that he would manifest himself in some special way at a special time and in a special place, in one particular language with all its conceptual limitations, and through the medium of inspired authors mired in one rather backward way of thinking.

[pioneer]

Proof can also be relative to the times. For example, if we go back 100 years in science, many science theories had also been proven, yet many have been superseded. Before relativity we could vigorously prove Newton's laws of gravity. Yet Einstein came along to show, that what had been proven, was no longer 100% valid. Don't get me wrong, proof is important. But history shows that all the proof in the world, can at times, still result in a temporary life expectancy for theory.

 

If you look at the Newton-Einstein example given, what was more fundamental, was not the proof, but the conceptual framework for the proof. This has become watered down in modern times, since we rely too much on probability and random. This allows bad proof to be filtered out, so less than perfect conceptual models can linger. If Newton had figured out the statistical technique, Einstein could have been nipped in the bud. We could have said, Newtonian is valid within a margin of error and then treated the new Einstein theory as trying to reinvent the wheel.

 

Back in the day, the same level of bad proof would not be allowable like today, since the old timer didn't use the modern fudge math. That is why back then was called the golden age of science. Now it is more like the silver and bronze age; semi-rational since cause and effect are not necessary for conceptual models.

Edited September 7, 2010 by pioneer

[swansont]

Proof can also be relative to the times. For example, if we go back 100 years in science, many science theories had also been proven, yet many have been superseded. Before relativity we could vigorously prove Newton's laws of gravity. Yet Einstein came along to show, that what had been proven, was no longer 100% valid. Don't get me wrong, proof is important. But history shows that all the proof in the world, can at times, still result in a temporary life expectancy for theory.

 

Well, no, not really. The anomaly in the precession of the perihelion of Mercury was a known problem (dating to at least 1859) which could not be explained by Newtonian gravity, so it was recognized that there was a shortcoming decades before Einstein came along.

 

If you look at the Newton-Einstein example given, what was more fundamental, was not the proof, but the conceptual framework for the proof. This has become watered down in modern times, since we rely too much on probability and random. This allows bad proof to be filtered out, so less than perfect conceptual models can linger. If Newton had figured out the statistical technique, Einstein could have been nipped in the bud. We could have said, Newtonian is valid within a margin of error and then treated the new Einstein theory as trying to reinvent the wheel.

 

Back in the day, the same level of bad proof would not be allowable like today, since the old timer didn't use the modern fudge math. That is why back then was called the golden age of science. Now it is more like the silver and bronze age; semi-rational since cause and effect are not necessary for conceptual models.

 

I would not classify quantum mechanics as "watered-down," and your so-called "bad proof" suffers from a a failure to account for experimental precision. It was improvement in experimental precision that ushered in quantum theory, and even though probability is inherent to the theory, the agreement between predictions and results are far better than for the classical theories they supplanted. Your example of Einstein vs Newton is bogus; you can't just graft probability onto a theory and make it work (Both Newtonian gravity and General Relativity are classical theories in the sense of QM vs classical), and in any event it is not a blanket excuse for data not agreeing with theory.

[Edtharan]

Proof can also be relative to the times. For example, if we go back 100 years in science, many science theories had also been proven, yet many have been superseded. Before relativity we could vigorously prove Newton's laws of gravity. Yet Einstein came along to show, that what had been proven, was no longer 100% valid. Don't get me wrong, proof is important. But history shows that all the proof in the world, can at times, still result in a temporary life expectancy for theory.

 

If you look at the Newton-Einstein example given, what was more fundamental, was not the proof, but the conceptual framework for the proof. This has become watered down in modern times, since we rely too much on probability and random. This allows bad proof to be filtered out, so less than perfect conceptual models can linger. If Newton had figured out the statistical technique, Einstein could have been nipped in the bud. We could have said, Newtonian is valid within a margin of error and then treated the new Einstein theory as trying to reinvent the wheel.

 

Back in the day, the same level of bad proof would not be allowable like today, since the old timer didn't use the modern fudge math. That is why back then was called the golden age of science. Now it is more like the silver and bronze age; semi-rational since cause and effect are not necessary for conceptual models.

The reason that the old theories have been superceeded is not that we have "bad proof" or they had "bad Proof" it is because we have better and more accurate tools to measure things with. The old theories didn't have the accuracy of today's measuring devices and so could not see the small irregularities that would have caused them to come to a differnet conclusion.

 

For instance, Newton did not have the means to measure accurately the precession or mercury, and neither did he have atomic clocks and lasers to measure the difference in time dialation that can be observed from Earth (Ie: the difference in time dialation at the bottom of a hill compared to the top of a hill - this has been done).

 

As these effects were unknown to Newton, he coudl not (obviously) have included them in his theory of gravity.

 

As our measureing devices get more powerful and more accurate we learn of phenomina that goes unexplained by previous theories. This doesn't mean that the previous theoies are wrong, just that they are a special case of the new theoies that do account for the newly discovered phenomina.

[Marat]

The point that the concept of scientific proof is relative to the historical era is apt, and especially so in the case of the opposition between Einstein and Newton, since the advance of relativity theory over classical mechanics really derives from the evolution of the concept of proof from the Baconian-Cartesian paradigm, which was still operative in Newton's day, to the positivistic theory which predominated in Einstein's time. Newton's error was to assume that he could encase all of physics within an absolute space-time metric, which amounted to treating Descartes' coordinate system as though it were a real thing. But the inconsistency in Newton's thinking was that he treated his space-time framework as something which had measurable effects on things inside it, but which could not be affected, in turn, by whatever was operating within it. He was thus positing a real, physical framework which could not itself be subjected to measurable physical effects, and that violates the fundamental rule of positivism, which is that nothing can be posited in scientific explanation as real unless a physical operation can be specified for measuring it.

 

It was Einstein's development of this positivist insight, developed by philosophers working before him, such as Ernst Mach, which allowed him to realize that physical reality was conditioned by how it could be measured, specifically, by how fast light signals could register effects, and this was an idea that would never have occurred to Newton in the intellectual historical world of his time, when an absolute physical framework could simply be posited without worrying about what positive operations could independently measure it.

[needimprovement]

What if I were to write, "It was raining cats and dogs" and someone were to read that phrase 2000 years from now, what would they think?

 

One could look just at the words on the page and take them at their literal word for word meaning. Or one could try to understand what type of writing and would ask if it is poetry, biography, journalism, from a diary or part of a technical manual on how to fix a transmission. One could try to understand somthing of the social, political and economic circumstances under which the author wrote and wold ask whether the person was rich or poor, a slave or free, old or young, educated or not. One could also try to understand the customs and mannerisms of the day and the common figures of speech and would ask if this were a common phrase, where else in printed literature this phrase was used and under what context and how the individual words were used in other phrases.

 

A literalist interpretation of "It was raining cats and dogs" is that animals were falling from the sky. Other's, upon looking at the contexts under which the passage was written, might rightly conclude that it was coming down in buckets (sorry, couldn't resist).

 

Now, some parts of the bible are meant to be taken literally, like Acts and Kings while other parts are not.

 

My point is that the Bible was written over a period of thousands of years by many differen authors, each of whome had different backgrounds and wrote with different styles. It is one of the most ancient books known to man, written in ancient languages which have been translated to modern English as best as we know how. It's not as easy as just taking the bible literally word-for-word. If that were the case, then we should all be plucking our eyes out and chopping off our hands like Jesus told us to do.

 

The question illustrates why we need an infallible intepreter and what a great gift it is to have been given a Church which is exactly that.

[Edtharan]

What if I were to write, "It was raining cats and dogs" and someone were to read that phrase 2000 years from now, what would they think?

Well if all they used was that one book, then yes, they would come to incorrect conclusions. However, if they use other resources that allowed them to understand what was ment by "Raining Cats and Dogs" then they could indeed understand it.

 

It is done all the time in anthropology, and even extends back further than the time the Old Testement describes. Based on these we can know what the intent of the works are, the translations we have of them (including the translations of the bible) are the result.

 

If you really want to argue along these, lines, the orginal Old Testiment had multiple Gods as the creator of the world, and there was a woman before Eve (Lillith) that God created.

 

There are many such problems that crop up when you look at the Bible using Anthropology. It is only becuase these have either been glossed over, or outright changed to suit the agendas of a particular time or person (do a bit of research on the Apocrapha for this) that we have the work of the biuble we have today.

 

So if you want to uderstand the message in the Bible and not get tricked by local idoms (eg: Raining Cats and Dogs), then go learn history (non biblical as that has the mistakes built into it), Archeology and Anthrolopogy (and aincient languages). When you do this, you will see that if there are any messages in the bible, they are on equal footing to any work of fiction, even if that is just fiction in that it is a religion you don't believe in, such as the story of Horus from aincient Egypt - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus (interesting how Horus was born of a "divine fire" that resembles the story of Jesus' birth, and the Horus story was around long before the old testiment was around as events in the Old Testiment take place after the egyptians had established their civilisation and beliefs).

 

What is interesting is that you are not willing to accept these other beliefs as true, but you are willing to accept beliefs that are areguably a copy of them. The beliefs you hold are based on these other beliefs which you are not willing to admit are true (or are you a worshiper of Horus?).

[Marat]

Needimprovement: I do agree that the Bible is useless as a text to guide us unless we have some infallible interpreter, such as the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Just as any lawyer will tell you that no law is self-interpreting, but always requires a judge to construe and apply it before its meaning can become clear, so too any theologian should realize that a book of messages alone only communicates ambiguously until we have an interpretive community that can focus its significance.

 

However, we are then confronted by the question of why the Divine Intelligence would bother giving us a book separate from the institution to interpret it, given that neither can codify the meaning to be transmitted in itself? The authority of the book is frequently emphasized in the book itself, but the connection between Christ investing Peter with authority to create an institution to interpret the book is much looser and less certain, so that undermines the significance of all the assertions in the Bible as being the true message of God.

 

We then have the further problem that both the book formulating the message of God and the expositors interpreting that message, the Church, are historical institutions plagues with all the contingencies and imperfections that go with any historically instantiated message. The canonical texts constituting the Bible were only assembled arbitrarily under political pressures during the first few centuries of Christianity's history up through the Council of Nicea. And then, the exposition of the meaning of those texts by the Church was also highly arbitrary and operated under the influence of a variety of purely mundane and crass political pressures.

 

So the message we are left with still gives us nothing sufficiently secure to rest our entire belief, behavior, and ethics on, often at great cost to our own practical interests and rational insight.

[Zolar V]

Yes but how do we know when it's God's Holy Spirit guiding the believer and how do we tell when it's just a nut case who wants to control others through his interpretation of scripture?

 

as i previously mentioned, what is the difference?

 

one written work compared to another written work with no evidence to support any of the words/concepts held within each work. How do you just decide one is somehow different from the other.

 

A much more profound example of the above statement is simple to question both sides from their most relevant sources.

 

 

What makes the "bible" ""god-breathed"" and the evolution of species by Charles Darwin not god-breathed.

 

there is no evidence supporting or disproving either work being breathed by god, or not.

Both were written by man.

 

Here is another interesting thought, Both were breathed by god. Assuming we are talking about the christian god here. The reason why i can fully and logically assert the above statement is simple by a deduction of the fundamental facts about god described in the bible.

According to the bible, God is all knowing and that everything is through him/ he create(S/D) everything. Thus god is the creator of the bible by creating the thought behind it then giving the thought to the writers to write. Following the obvious logic, God is the creator of the idea of evolution. He created it then gave it to Darwin, (along with an island full of rather persuasive creatures), to then write.

[needimprovement]

as i previously mentioned, what is the difference?

 

one written work compared to another written work with no evidence to support any of the words/concepts held within each work. How do you just decide one is somehow different from the other.

 

A much more profound example of the above statement is simple to question both sides from their most relevant sources.

 

 

What makes the "bible" ""god-breathed"" and the evolution of species by Charles Darwin not god-breathed.

 

there is no evidence supporting or disproving either work being breathed by god, or not.

Both were written by man.

 

Here is another interesting thought, Both were breathed by god. Assuming we are talking about the christian god here. The reason why i can fully and logically assert the above statement is simple by a deduction of the fundamental facts about god described in the bible.

According to the bible, God is all knowing and that everything is through him/ he create(S/D) everything. Thus god is the creator of the bible by creating the thought behind it then giving the thought to the writers to write. Following the obvious logic, God is the creator of the idea of evolution. He created it then gave it to Darwin, (along with an island full of rather persuasive creatures), to then write.

very well said. The Bible was written by holy men and prophets under the inspiration of the holy spirit. ****EDITED

Edited September 14, 2010 by needimprovement

[pioneer]

I would not classify quantum mechanics as "watered-down," and your so-called "bad proof" suffers from a a failure to account for experimental precision. It was improvement in experimental precision that ushered in quantum theory, and even though probability is inherent to the theory, the agreement between predictions and results are far better than for the classical theories they supplanted. Your example of Einstein vs Newton is bogus; you can't just graft probability onto a theory and make it work (Both Newtonian gravity and General Relativity are classical theories in the sense of QM vs classical), and in any event it is not a blanket excuse for data not agreeing with theory.

 

Proof is only as good as the state of the art of technology. Until certain technologies appeared, certain types of proof could not be generated. The proof du jour can change as technology changes, thereby altering what was assumed to be proven. Science is in continuous flux, what we prove today, based on the state of the art, may be disproven as technology changes. All I was saying, fundamental concepts can appear before the needed technology for proof, and may have to wait for the technology to catch up before it can be proven. In the mean time, the state of the art, will continue to prove that which we will become obsolete.

 

Relative to the bible, some things are figurative. If literal interpretation is analogous to old technology, an upgrade to figurative (new tech) would be needed for proof. If we required 16th century technology to prove quantum theory we can never prove it, by default. But if we upgrade the technology now there is proof.

 

There is a thing called symbolism, which is not meant to be taken literally. If it is raining cats and dogs, this is not meant to be taken literally. It creates an image in the mind that needs to be interpreted to mean, the rain was very heavy. As long as we stay literal, we can't prove cats and dogs, unless we can carbon date a lot of bones from cats and dogs in the area specified, which are heaped into piles. Since we can't prove that, then it never rained cats and dogs. For science to assume literally cats and dogs makes science look irrational and lacking common sense. It is not the correct way (technology) to interpret the data. Disproving the cats and dog theory doesn't mean anything, since it misses the point of the theory.

Edited September 11, 2010 by pioneer

[needimprovement]

Needimprovement: I do agree that the Bible is useless as a text to guide us unless we have some infallible interpreter, such as the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Just as any lawyer will tell you that no law is self-interpreting, but always requires a judge to construe and apply it before its meaning can become clear, so too any theologian should realize that a book of messages alone only communicates ambiguously until we have an interpretive community that can focus its significance.

Agreed. In fact if we were to accept the Bible as the self authenticating Word fo God, we would also have to accept the Koran and the Book of Morman as the Word of God...

 

However, we are then confronted by the question of why the Divine Intelligence would bother giving us a book separate from the institution to interpret it, given that neither can codify the meaning to be transmitted in itself? The authority of the book is frequently emphasized in the book itself, but the connection between Christ investing Peter with authority to create an institution to interpret the book is much looser and less certain, so that undermines the significance of all the assertions in the Bible as being the true message of God.

God never gave us the book seperate from the institution. The Bible was not seperated from The Catholic Church until the Protestant Reformation. Likewise the idea that the link between Christ and the institution of One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is "less certain" is a fallicy that comes FROM that very "reformation".

The Protestant reformation could not stand if the 1100 year old, universally accepted, definition of Church remained unchanged. So the Protestants taught a new meaning, a new interpretation of Church - The so called "invisible church of all believers" - An interpretation foreign to anyone in the Church, East or West, prior to that.

When I look for the term "Church" in the Gospels I see it used twice. Both times by Christ and both times in connection with granting the authority to "Bind and Loose"..."Whatever". The first time gives the Keys of the Kingdom to Peter, and the second time tells the faithful to "Tell it To The Church" and then abide by the decision of The Church. I don't see how this is in any way ambiguious. Christ established a visible and authoritative Church.

 

We then have the further problem that both the book formulating the message of God and the expositors interpreting that message, the Church, are historical institutions plagues with all the contingencies and imperfections that go with any historically instantiated message. The canonical texts constituting the Bible were only assembled arbitrarily under political pressures during the first few centuries of Christianity's history up through the Council of Nicea. And then, the exposition of the meaning of those texts by the Church was also highly arbitrary and operated under the influence of a variety of purely mundane and crass political pressures.

Yes it is unfortunate that God's Perfect Church has had it's share of imperfect leaders.

I don't agree with you that "political pressures" played any significant role in the selection of the Canon, but that would be a whole new thread.

 

So the message we are left with still gives us nothing sufficiently secure to rest our entire belief, behavior, and ethics on, often at great cost to our own practical interests and rational insight.

I think that once you work out the issues for yourself, with teh help of the Holy Spirit, you will no longer believe this.

[pioneer]

The Roman Catholic Church began with the acceptance of Christianity by Rome. This marriage was between the pinnacle imperialist culture of the ancient western world, which was rational, had a well developed government, and had much of the best technology of its day. This merged with the gentle Christian teachings of love. The hybrid from this marriage reflected both, and was no longer either of the two originals in pure form.

 

The early Roman Catholic Church retained the glory of Rome mentality, but tempered with the softening and community effect of Christianity. Christianity does not teach conquest, but for the Roman aspect of the hybrid, this was a day at the office. The Church, as it evolved, used this evolving hybrid to enforce when needed, and to recruit when appropriate The Christian turn the other cheek will not work with bullies. Bullies respected the Roman might and power. With the hybrid, it was possible to impact both the sheep and the wolves. The recruited wolves become more Roman-like, while the recruited sheep become more Christian-like, with both under the same power structure. Relative to the bible, interpretations over time would reflect the projections of the hybrid. One would not interpret in a way that makes yourself look wrong. One may not stress the love aspect if you need to kick butt. Rather one would go more old testament.

 

I modern times, a more pure form of Christianity is differentiating itself. Hitler was an example of the Roman aspect of Christianity differentiating itself. It is not coincidence that the goose step and even the swastika had been used by ancient Rome. After the differentiation, the new hybrid shifted increasingly away from Roman and toward Christianity. Now Christians are easy to bully because they lack the Roman toughness blended into their hybrid. But this is also changing the way the bible is seen and interpreted, since the projection is now different.

[needimprovement]

The Roman Catholic Church began with the acceptance of Christianity by Rome. This marriage was between the pinnacle imperialist culture of the ancient western world, which was rational, had a well developed government, and had much of the best technology of its day. This merged with the gentle Christian teachings of love. The hybrid from this marriage reflected both, and was no longer either of the two originals in pure form.

Any example of this nonsense or is this just your opinion?

 

The early Roman Catholic Church retained the glory of Rome mentality, but tempered with the softening and community effect of Christianity. Christianity does not teach conquest, but for the Roman aspect of the hybrid, this was a day at the office. The Church, as it evolved, used this evolving hybrid to enforce when needed, and to recruit when appropriate The Christian turn the other cheek will not work with bullies. Bullies respected the Roman might and power. With the hybrid, it was possible to impact both the sheep and the wolves. The recruited wolves become more Roman-like, while the recruited sheep become more Christian-like, with both under the same power structure. Relative to the bible, interpretations over time would reflect the projections of the hybrid. One would not interpret in a way that makes yourself look wrong. One may not stress the love aspect if you need to kick butt. Rather one would go more old testament.

At what time did this happen?

 

I modern times, a more pure form of Christianity is differentiating itself. Hitler was an example of the Roman aspect of Christianity differentiating itself.

EEK!

 

It is not coincidence that the goose step and even the swastika had been used by ancient Rome. After the differentiation, the new hybrid shifted increasingly away from Roman and toward Christianity. Now Christians are easy to bully because they lack the Roman toughness blended into their hybrid. But this is also changing the way the bible is seen and interpreted, since the projection is now different.

Where are you getting this tripe?

 

The Goose Step was found in ancient Rome?

From Wikipedia

The goose-step is a special marching step usually performed in formal military parades and other ceremonies. While marching in parade formation, troops swing their legs in unison to a nearly horizontally position while keeping their knees locked. In many armed forces the step is modified to raise the legs to a lower angle. Originating in Prussian military drill in the mid-18th century, the step was called the stechschritt (literally, "piercing step") or stechmarsch. "Goose-step," a pejorative term, is not used officially by the armed forces of the nearly 30 countries that maintain this tradition.

 

The Swastika was Roman? Evidently, it was found everywhere in ancient Cultures.

 

"The presence of Swastika is evident in various civiliziation such as the Egyptians, Mayans, Aztec, Inca, Native Americans, Romans, Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, ancient Troy and Celts to name but a few and that derived from the Vedic Dharma of Aryans of Bharat or India." From http://hi-in.facebook.com/pages/Reclaim-the-Swastika-symbol/128870393792705