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Permalink Reply by Unseen on March 17, 2013 at 11:55pm

You realize that the exact same scenario would have unfolded if you'd prayed to ME. Why? Because, the wave that took you to shore didn't just suddenly appear. Like all ocean waves, it had been traveling toward shore for many hours. God didn't make it just for you.

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Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 18, 2013 at 7:43am

@Unseen, that assumes that God is temporally bound, like ordinary matter.  Why would one make that assumption?  I think space aliens could accomplish the feat with just a set of tachyon radios and a wave machine.  ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on March 18, 2013 at 10:09am

What does "temporally unbound" mean? Does it mean, for example, that he can see a car is going to hit a child, then go backward in time and give the driver the flu so he stays home that day?

That you don't know that sort of thing is laughable nonsense says a lot.

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Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 18, 2013 at 3:19pm

Always so serious, despite my reference to aliens and tachyon radios! 

Of course in some ways I'm just having some fun with you, but if you posit the existence of tachyons it becomes quite possible across certain well-chosen frames of reference to do something like that, just by what we know of modern physics.  My colleagues who play with quantum entanglement could probably construct a method as well.   If advanced space aliens can perhaps do it, why not God?  After all, if 150 years ago you proposed to any rational student of natural phenomenon that time was not a fixed, universal property or that matter exhibits wavelike behavior they would have told you that that sort of thing is laughable nonsense, after all.

And yet here we are.

The point is that it seems to me that what is somewhat nonsensical is constraining your conception of Deity to encompass only those things which any well-evolved monkey is able to do on his or her own. Why would you ever believe in a Deity that's so constrained?  If that's what you mean by "God", well then of course I and everyone else would be atheists!

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Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on March 18, 2013 at 3:48pm

@ Prof. Robert

Would “any rational student of natural phenomenon” suggest a supernatural explanation today? I don’t think so. Religion was man’s early attempt at explaining the natural world. God did it all. Since the Enlightenment we have moved on and the gaps are vanishing. I agree with your previous statement that science has continued to evolve over time. We may no longer think in terms of Newtonian gravity and have adapted Relativity and spacetime instead. I am sure this will be improved upon too. It is only by "standing on the shoulders of giants" that they see further and develop new ideas. (Newton I think)

However I do not think the analogy with the OT evolving into the NT is correct. The bible is either the truth or it is not. Its very premise that “God exist” cannot be tested. It has no evidence to offer. It can only be taken on faith and that is the exact opposite of how the Scientific Method works. I think Feynman would have agreed too. Unlike science it does not develop. It is static except for its interpretation.

I would like to hear why you are a Theist and see no conflict there with Science if that is not too prying a question. What is your understanding of a deity? Why are you not an Atheist by now? Maybe I would start a new post if you want?

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Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 18, 2013 at 4:55pm

"The bible is either the truth or it is not."

@Reg, why would you think this about any book? 

What book or newspaper have you ever picked up and said "this is either the truth or it is not?"

It seems to me from reading here (albeit only for a very short while) that what most of the writers object to is not religion or even Christianity.  They object to the particular religious tradition of the Great Awakening in America.  That is the movement that spawned the American Baptist churches, and faiths like the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Pentecostals and Seventh-Day Adventists and whatnot.  It was the meeting-tent movement, where anybody with a bible and a stump could declare himself a pastor.  

Those churches are really 3-sigma outliers within Christendom; in fact they are uniquely American.  The are characterized by a very authoritarian fundamentalism (if you don't have any personal learning to draw from, you have to rest all your authority on the Book).  They also tend for the same reason to be very anti-intellectual and apocalyptic (in fact, many of the splinters were formed when some pastor declared that the end of the world was coming and set a date). Those churches were also strongly tied to the nativist movement in the U.S., and tended historically to be viciously anti-Catholic.  Catholics in the southern U.S. were frequently targeted by the KKK, and even today a fair number of those churches still describe Catholicism as "the Anti-Christ" or "the Whore of Babylon".

So from a Catholic perspective, we find them a bit... exasperating.  We would agree with most of the writers here who find that approach to theology to be poorly reasoned.  We would just tend to be a bit more kind in our words, calling them our "separated brothers and sisters" rather than a bunch of unscientific, uninformed idiots with a noxious theology. ;-)

The problem with your premise that I should therefore be an atheist is that you're like a westerner who says all Asians look the same.  Sitting here in America you get the impression that all theists must be the same as our odd American 3+ sigma outlier.

We're not all the same.

You can start a new post if you think people would be interested.  I can't promise you a whole lot of time, but I'll look in on it.

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Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on March 18, 2013 at 5:14pm

Maybe I got something “lost in translation” there. Surely if one makes the assertion that “I believe in God” and that god is the Christian god then it must follow that one believes the Bible to be the “Truth”. As the Bible has not changed in (say) 2000 years then the analogy to the way Science works does not stand up. Someone who does not believe the Bible is the Truth does not have to be an Atheist. They could be Muslim, Hindu, etc. So if you are a Christian of any denomination you must accept that the Bible is the “Truth”.  I as an Atheist (or if I was Muslim) would not see it as such ergo to me it would not be.

As an person living in Ireland and having been raised and schooled as if Catholicism was the only faith going I think I have a good perspective on it. I do not think all Asians are the same. I do contend though that all Asians are Asian. All Christians are Christian but do look different in the sense of being members of separate denominations. They all accept the bible as the truth.

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Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on March 18, 2013 at 5:35pm

Just to clarify Robert – I was not trying you imply that you should be an Atheist. I was wondering why you are not one. In other words what is it about Catholicism that you see as justifying your belief in the existence of a God – apart from the Bible being the “Truth”.

However that would be for another post.

Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 20, 2013 at 10:11am

@Reg, I'm sorry if I'm not being clear.

I made no analogy between the Bible and science.  I compared the Bible to a compilation or anthology of scientific writers.  Put the Great Books and seminal papers of science together in one tome, from Archimedes to Einstein, and that would be the rough equivalent of the Bible.  A great reference which not only shows current science, but shows a progression of scientific thought over time which helps people learn how to think scientifically.  Not everything in it is "true" in the literal sense; some of the old has been replaced by the new, even some of the new has been modified or updated by more recent scholarship.  The anthology would not include all works, and much useful research would be passed down through other writings or teaching.   At the same time, the compilation would be "true" in that it truly presented science over time, and gave someone seeking understanding true insight into its workings.  You're not going to go far wrong by referencing Newton, even though that there are aspects of Newton's understanding that have been updated, and his language was the language of his age.

That would be a pretty good understanding of the Catholic position, as well as that of all the pre-Reformation Christians and some of the post-Reformation ones.  Biblical literalism is a minority view.

Permalink Reply by Sagacious Hawk on March 18, 2013 at 6:02pm

What you are talking about is Biblical literalism. You've already said you don't agree with that, and of course, all of us here think it's silly, but that's not what Reg is referring to. There are certain parts of the Bible that must be considered true by Christians. The New Testament claims of Jesus being the Messiah, the miracles he performed, dying on the cross, being raised from the dead, being born of a virgin and not of a man, fulfilling prophecy from the Old Testament, the prophecies of the Old Testament as well as the foundational aspects of Judaism like the covenant God formed with Abraham and the Jews being the promised people -  all of these claims have to be true for Christianity to be true. If they are not true, the claims of the divine nature and sacrifice of Jesus fall apart.

The claims of the Gospels that Jesus is the Christ are the only way anyone today knows about those claims. This is the divine revelation, the Good News, that must be taken on faith because no evidence exists to point to the fact that it is true. So when Reg says:

"However I do not think the analogy with the OT evolving into the NT is correct. The bible is either the truth or it is not. Its very premise that “God exist” cannot be tested. It has no evidence to offer. It can only be taken on faith and that is the exact opposite of how the Scientific Method works. I think Feynman would have agreed too. Unlike science it does not develop. It is static except for its interpretation."

It is these claims that must either be true or not. These are the ones that must be taken on faith. These are the ones that are static. It is at this point that one accepts faith over rationality, which is, as Reg said, unlike the scientific method.

So yes, whether Genesis is factually true is unimportant and yes, it is particular to American Protestantism, but the claims that Jesus was the Messiah born of the union of God and Mary, died for the sins of the world, came back to life and and rose into Heaven to come again one day, these are the basic claims of all Christianity and believing them makes one a Christian no matter what else is or isn't attached to it or what one thinks of other Christians.

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on March 19, 2013 at 8:01pm

The point is that it seems to me that what is somewhat nonsensical is constraining your conception of Deity to encompass only those things which any well-evolved monkey is able to do on his or her own. Why would you ever believe in a Deity that's so constrained?  If that's what you mean by "God", well then of course I and everyone else would be atheists!

You find the idea of a magical sorcerer overlord plausible and worthy of worship. THAT is enough to make me an atheist!

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Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 20, 2013 at 10:15am

If I were asked to worship a magical sorcerer overlord then I would reject that as well.  Well done! 

Then what?  After we reject one hypothesis, most of us don't stop there and praise ourselves for our wisdom.  We move on to consider other hypotheses.

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