Philosophy & Religion Thread

[steross]

I find myself moving towards agnosticism more and more each day...

Yea, I see these deep discussions of Christianity and it boggles my mind. I'm not claiming they are wrong, just that I am so far from being able to accept the basics that to discuss in that detail just seems beyond me.

Here, from last night, is the level I am at:

David Payne: There is a huge hail in Warr Acres, tennis balls, moving toward just north of downtown.
Me (to myself): Aw, man, that is near my house. Please don't let it hit my house. We've got so much going on, dealing with that right now would be a disaster.
Me (deeper to myself): That is dumb. You say you don't believe then who are you saying "please don't" to? Hmmm, maybe I do believe.
Me: Wait, if there is a loving God, why does he throw huge ice balls at us from time to time?

 

[RxCowboy]

Yea, I see these deep discussions of Christianity and it boggles my mind. I'm not claiming they are wrong, just that I am so far from being able to accept the basics that to discuss in that detail just seems beyond me.

Here, from last night, is the level I am at:

David Payne: There is a huge hail in Warr Acres, tennis balls, moving toward just north of downtown.
Me (to myself): Aw, man, that is near my house. Please don't let it hit my house. We've got so much going on, dealing with that right now would be a disaster.
Me (deeper to myself): That is dumb. You say you don't believe then who are you saying "please don't" to? Hmmm, maybe I do believe.
Me: Wait, if there is a loving God, why does he throw huge ice balls at us from time to time?

To see if we can hit. Swing away!

 

[steross]

To see if we can hit. Swing away!

At the end of games, you see athletes thanking God for their skills all the time. If I can't hit and take an ice ball to the nose, is that on me or God?

 

[RxCowboy]

Yea, I see these deep discussions of Christianity and it boggles my mind. I'm not claiming they are wrong, just that I am so far from being able to accept the basics that to discuss in that detail just seems beyond me.

Here, from last night, is the level I am at:

David Payne: There is a huge hail in Warr Acres, tennis balls, moving toward just north of downtown.
Me (to myself): Aw, man, that is near my house. Please don't let it hit my house. We've got so much going on, dealing with that right now would be a disaster.
Me (deeper to myself): That is dumb. You say you don't believe then who are you saying "please don't"
to? Hmmm, maybe I do believe.
Me: Wait, if there is a loving God, why does he throw huge ice balls at us from time to time?

“"Andy Dufresne—who crawled through a river of sh** and came out clean on the other side"

2019, 2020, 2021… I crawled through that proverbial river of sh**, though I hardly came out clean on the other side… have I even come out on the other side yet?

Why does an all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent, loving God allow bad things to happen at all much less to good people. I don’t have an answer, the theodicy is one of the great theological mysteries and I am not sure that there is an answer… except what Jesus said, “The rain falls on the just and unjust.” That’s all I really know.

The word that best defined or described those years, 2019, 2020, and 2021 is “abandonment.” I was abandoned by my wife. She threw it up to me that I have a bad back and couldn’t run a 5k with her. I asked her, “do you really want to be the kind of person who abandons her husband because he has a bad back?” Her response, “I’m not abandoning you.” “Well, yes, if you leave me here by myself that’s the definition of abandonment.” I was abandoned by my church. I found out that through the divorce and isolation from the pandemic that the pastoral staff were checking on her to make sure she was okay. I had no contact from anyone. The only thing that was said was “we dropped the ball.” I was abandoned by my job, an evangelical university. I had seen it before and knew it was coming. Faculty that went through divorce didn’t stay on campus much longer.

I left that church. There was a little startup church that needed a guitar player and had invited me to come play there before the pandemic. So I went.

Easter Sunday the sermon was about Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” Except the translation the pastor chose that Sunday didn’t say forsaken, it said, “My God, my God why have you abandoned me.” I pulled my phone out and my Bible app which has like 20 translations. I could only find one that said abandoned and not forsaken. Why did he choose that translation? We had not talked about what all had happened to me so he couldn’t possibly have known. Jesus took my abandonment on the cross for me. Everything else in the world might abandon me, but my God never will. Even when I’m crawling through a river of sh**. Even when tennis ball sized ice is hurtled from space at my house.

 

[RxCowboy]

At the end of games, you see athletes thanking God for their skills all the time. If I can't hit and take an ice ball to the nose, is that on me or God?

I taught statistics to pharmacy students on an evangelical campus. When I taught about random events, the toss of a fairly balanced coin, and the laws that govern random events, I asked a question before the first lecture: if events in this universe can truly be random, how can God be sovereign? The answers were what you would expect from students who had never thought in any depth about either randomness or theology.

If you can't hit that's you. You can make yourself a better hitter, even if you can't make yourself a major league hitter. If you get hit on the nose with an ice ball, it's a random event.

 

[TheMonkey]

Can you give us a for instance of the mental gymnastics?

Dispensationalism is a 20th century invention, primarily by John Nelson Darby (also premillenial rapture) that was made widespread with the Scofield study bible. It requires a wooden, literal reading of scripture. It also requires that the timelines found in the SSB be accepted as accurate. But as I’ve asserted, the Bible is not a chronograph. Not a single word of it was written with the intent and purpose of creating timelines, so by definition the Scofield timelines are an extra-scriptural exercise.

View attachment 19253

I’m traveling, so I can’t go back to the book we studied to give specifics, and my memory is a bit fuzzy. In general, I would say I had come to the conclusion that our interpretation of God has evolved through the centuries. It’s quite a coincidence that God would reflect our advancements in morality (no longer killing women and children) and compassion (loving our enemy).

Instead of acknowledging that the Bible is as much a reflection of people as (or more so than) a reflection of God himself, fundamentalist theologians doubled down and created a timeline in which God interacts with humans differently. In each era, salvation is attained through different means. Not because God changed his mind or because we gained understanding. But because there was a new covenant. This feels very transactional and inhumane. Why did the people during Abraham’s time have such a narrow path to heaven compared to people today? This question could foster days of discussion performing those mental gymnastics I mentioned in order to justify a system of salvation that is “renegotiated” era by era.

But, if you don’t take a literal view of the Bible, and if you don’t see it as “inerrant and infallible” then you can appreciate that it demonstrates our maturation as a society.

 

[RxCowboy]

I’m traveling, so I can’t go back to the book we studied to give specifics, and my memory is a bit fuzzy. In general, I would say I had come to the conclusion that our interpretation of God has evolved through the centuries. It’s quite a coincidence that God would reflect our advancements in morality (no longer killing women and children) and compassion (loving our enemy).

Instead of acknowledging that the Bible is as much a reflection of people as (or more so than) a reflection of God himself, fundamentalist theologians doubled down and created a timeline in which God interacts with humans differently. In each era, salvation is attained through different means. Not because God changed his mind or because we gained understanding. But because there was a new covenant. This feels very transactional and inhumane. Why did the people during Abraham’s time have such a narrow path to heaven compared to people today? This question could foster days of discussion performing those mental gymnastics I mentioned in order to justify a system of salvation that is “renegotiated” era by era.

But, if you don’t take a literal view of the Bible, and if you don’t see it as “inerrant and infallible” then you can appreciate that it demonstrates our maturation as a society.

I accept that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. I also accept that it has no meaning until we give it meaning. It's like the song Hotel California, Don Henley can say what it means to him as the author all day long, but people are going to read into it what they want to read into it. So, what do those two things mean together? I'm still working that out.

 

[steross]

I taught statistics to pharmacy students on an evangelical campus. When I taught about random events, the toss of a fairly balanced coin, and the laws that govern random events, I asked a question before the first lecture: if events in this universe can truly be random, how can God be sovereign? The answers were what you would expect from students who had never thought in any depth about either randomness or theology.

If you can't hit that's you. You can make yourself a better hitter, even if you can't make yourself a major league hitter. If you get hit on the nose with an ice ball, it's a random event.

“"Andy Dufresne—who crawled through a river of sh** and came out clean on the other side"

2019, 2020, 2021… I crawled through that proverbial river of sh**, though I hardly came out clean on the other side… have I even come out on the other side yet?

Why does an all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent, loving God allow bad things to happen at all much less to good people. I don’t have an answer, the theodicy is one of the great theological mysteries and I am not sure that there is an answer… except what Jesus said, “The rain falls on the just and unjust.” That’s all I really know.

The word that best defined or described those years, 2019, 2020, and 2021 is “abandonment.” I was abandoned by my wife. She threw it up to me that I have a bad back and couldn’t run a 5k with her. I asked her, “do you really want to be the kind of person who abandons her husband because he has a bad back?” Her response, “I’m not abandoning you.” “Well, yes, if you leave me here by myself that’s the definition of abandonment.” I was abandoned by my church. I found out that through the divorce and isolation from the pandemic that the pastoral staff were checking on her to make sure she was okay. I had no contact from anyone. The only thing that was said was “we dropped the ball.” I was abandoned by my job, an evangelical university. I had seen it before and knew it was coming. Faculty that went through divorce didn’t stay on campus much longer.

I left that church. There was a little startup church that needed a guitar player and had invited me to come play there before the pandemic. So I went.

Easter Sunday the sermon was about Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” Except the translation the pastor chose that Sunday didn’t say forsaken, it said, “My God, my God why have you abandoned me.” I pulled my phone out and my Bible app which has like 20 translations. I could only find one that said abandoned and not forsaken. Why did he choose that translation? We had not talked about what all had happened to me so he couldn’t possibly have known. Jesus took my abandonment on the cross for me. Everything else in the world might abandon me, but my God never will. Even when I’m crawling through a river of sh**. Even when tennis ball sized ice is hurtled from space at my house.

The difficult thing for a nonbeliever responding to things like this is there is virtually no way to respond without heading into the world of offensive to the believer.

 

[GratefulPoke]

I accept that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. I also accept that it has no meaning until we give it meaning. It's like the song Hotel California, Don Henley can say what it means to him as the author all day long, but people are going to read into it what they want to read into it. So, what do those two things mean together? I'm still working that out.

Setting aside the many types of errors in the bible, that is something it does not claim of itself.

 

[RxCowboy]

Setting aside the many types of errors in the bible, that is something it does not claim of itself.

Only the original manuscripts are free from error, none of which we still have. “Inerrant” and “error free” are not equivalent terms.

Science in the Bible is only accurate in that it accurately reflects the understanding of the natural world at the time and in the cultural context of the oral traditions/original manuscripts. With that said, my view of “inerrancy and infallibility” is not the one shared by most evangelicals or any fundamentalists.

 

[GratefulPoke]

Only the original manuscripts are free from error, none of which we still have. “Inerrant” and “error free” are not equivalent terms.

Science in the Bible is only accurate in that it accurately reflects the understanding of the natural world at the time and in the cultural context of the oral traditions/original manuscripts. With that said, my view of “inerrancy and infallibility” is not the one shared by most evangelicals or any fundamentalists.

The definition of inerrant literally means "containing no errors". So your claim is directly counter to the meaning of the word. If you mean something other than inerrant, why not use that word instead?

I'm also not sure what the purpose of the claim is when you have set the standard as no bible in existence meets your standard of inerrancy. Furthermore, the bible does not claim itself to be inerrant in the first place.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition​

adjective​

1. Incapable of erring; infallible.
2. Containing no errors.
3. Of or pertaining to inerrancy. Without error, particularly used in reference to the Bible.
4. Not liable to error.
   "an unerring marksman"

 

[LaB_OkState]

The definition of inerrant literally means "containing no errors". So your claim is directly counter to the meaning of the word. If you mean something other than inerrant, why not use that word instead?

I'm also not sure what the purpose of the claim is when you have set the standard as no bible in existence meets your standard of inerrancy. Furthermore, the bible does not claim itself to be inerrant in the first place.

His view likely depends on verbal plenary inspiration. And his view of the infallibility of God, which would make an attestation that God’s Word because it is from God is therefore without error.

 

[LaB_OkState]

I’m traveling, so I can’t go back to the book we studied to give specifics, and my memory is a bit fuzzy. In general, I would say I had come to the conclusion that our interpretation of God has evolved through the centuries. It’s quite a coincidence that God would reflect our advancements in morality (no longer killing women and children) and compassion (loving our enemy).

Instead of acknowledging that the Bible is as much a reflection of people as (or more so than) a reflection of God himself, fundamentalist theologians doubled down and created a timeline in which God interacts with humans differently. In each era, salvation is attained through different means. Not because God changed his mind or because we gained understanding. But because there was a new covenant. This feels very transactional and inhumane. Why did the people during Abraham’s time have such a narrow path to heaven compared to people today? This question could foster days of discussion performing those mental gymnastics I mentioned in order to justify a system of salvation that is “renegotiated” era by era.

But, if you don’t take a literal view of the Bible, and if you don’t see it as “inerrant and infallible” then you can appreciate that it demonstrates our maturation as a society.

I would have hated to study Song of Songs with dispensationalists

 

[GratefulPoke]

His view likely depends on verbal plenary inspiration. And his view of the infallibility of God, which would make an attestation that God’s Word because it is from God is therefore without error.

God is infallible-->God's word is infallible-->because God is without error is circular logic.

If the bible is without error, but we can demonstrate it does in fact have errors, would that not undercut the claim altogether? Also where in the bible is it claimed it is without error?

What is interesting is the idea of biblical infallibility is a 19th and 20th century phenomenon. It doesn't have a historical basis in the church or in Christian doctrine. Divine inspiration =/= infallibility.

Plus, I have found in these conversations when someone says the bible is infallible what they actually mean is that their interpretation of the bible is infallible. Divine approval for one's own opinions and thus able to shut down debate.

 

[LaB_OkState]

Plus, I have found in these conversations when someone says the bible is infallible what they actually mean is that their interpretation of the bible is infallible. Divine approval for one's own opinions and thus able to shut down debate.

Not what I was wanting to do, but the dispensationalists do that

 

[GratefulPoke]

Not what I was wanting to do, but the dispensationalists do that

Fair!

 

[RxCowboy]

The difficult thing for a nonbeliever responding to things like this is there is virtually no way to respond without heading into the world of offensive to the believer.

This is an open and free discussion. You won't offend me. I want to try to answer your questions.

 

[RxCowboy]

The definition of inerrant literally means "containing no errors". So your claim is directly counter to the meaning of the word. If you mean something other than inerrant, why not use that word instead?

I'm also not sure what the purpose of the claim is when you have set the standard as no bible in existence meets your standard of inerrancy. Furthermore, the bible does not claim itself to be inerrant in the first place.

Ah, the dictionary definition fallacy. When we are using it in this context, "inerrancy" is a doctrine, not merely a word that means "containing no errors". A doctrine is much more complex than the dictionary definition of the word.

 

[RxCowboy]

Plus, I have found in these conversations when someone says the bible is infallible what they actually mean is that their interpretation of the bible is infallible. Divine approval for one's own opinions and thus able to shut down debate.

This is true. And that's why I said, "my view of “inerrancy and infallibility” is not the one shared by most evangelicals or any fundamentalists." It is my opinion, based on my own studies.

 

[RxCowboy]

I would have hated to study Song of Songs with dispensationalists

When I was married to the redhead and taking Old Testament literature, we went through Song of Songs. One evening I opened up the Bible and had her read SoS 2:6 and told her that I was going to do what it said as she read it. So she read, "His left hand is under my head and his right arm embraces me" and I slid my left arm behind her head and my right arm around her waist and came face to face with her. She looked at me, blinked a couple of times, then looked at the book and said, "How did THAT get into the Bible?"