I always wonder why some Christians insist that Jesus and the Bible is literal truth. Seems to me this would actually serve to diminish faith.
Faith is belief in the absence of proof. By accepting that God, Jesus or Biblical literalism can not be proven, one would be embracing faith. The central tenant of religion
Did you ever notice the Old Testament is a lot like Festivus?
Feats of strength throughout…Samson, David, Daniel(in a way), Solomon in ways…
Airing of Grievances- Job, Joseph’s brothers, the taken slaves to Egyt and Babylon… etc.
Miracles, feasts…
Yes, the Bible as the Actual Perfect Word of God is a pretty stupid hill to die on, doctrinally, IMO as well.
well, faith as it is described in the Bible is not what we call faith in all other definitions
faith is simply trusting in God, Jesus and the HolySpirit. Believing and having Faith specifically in Jesus come from (Wes hit on this) is that the eye witness accounts have never been disproven.
you play the game of why make up the story of his resurrection and ascension, but no one has ever disproven it. why would the Romans steal the body, why would all four book account for not just them seeing Jesus alive, but the accounts of 500 plus seeing him as well?
Science, like the Telescope, only confirms that we and the whole Universe are a creation, created by a very powerful thing, AKA God. And the irony of science is that one of the main driving forces in itself being “Born” was to show how God created things… we got into “why” God did things and lost focus on the worship and trusting Him…
Any form of Recovery shows how the Spiritual side of things then adds into the God Creator thing…
so, the New Testaments shows the eye witness account of those who were with Jesus for the three years up to His ascension… and I can pull tons of common sense insights on how the NT is shown to be a valid record of eye witness testimony, and backing into the faith thing… one has to believe that … like someone who truly believes a ford is better than a chevy. both are vehicles and both do the job… but one “choses” their alliance and give their faith and trust on only one particular brand.
as of those “reading” the Bible. Its more than that. the majority of folk who tell me about “their” version of the Bible have it wrong… as I did before I sat down and read it with a open heart and mind to hear what it had to say and not to try to destroy it and find wrong in it…
you see, if someone (Like me early in my recovery) hated God and felt Both He and I were unworthy, and I can end up seeing it, so can other if they want to find what it truly means…
God’s love for His creation always interrupts our rebellion against our creator… most want to focus on the war and His punishment miss the Love and pateince and the fact that he only actually punishes us after a long time and does it to course correct my buut!
and if yo urealize God is God, and Jesus is Jesus… we are nothing but His serveants… and boy we love the false idea of being in charge ourselves and our lives; we arent.
i enjoyed the read gentleman on pondering the Universe with some open minded ness!
I hope, even with the rabbit hole of God and Jesus, we keep this going for the Telescope!!
Love it and love you all!
I’m glad it’s worked out for you DD. I really am. I also agree with you that we should focus our conversation back to the telescope. It will show us some amazing things in the coming months / years. We were probably treading on some dangerous ground here trying to resolve religion and I would hate to have this thread discontinued. Thanks mods for allowing us leeway to have some enlightened conversation, which I believe we were able to keep civil.
and that’s great! congrats on getting off of alcohol that’s an impressive feat and shows a lot of inner strength.
I have no problem with anyone having religion. It’s when that line blurs and then their religion has to be MY religion.
IMO blind faith is one of the most dangerous things mankind invented. Think of the millions that have died because of what their religion teaches. Or even the non religious using others religions against them to achieve bad things. You can look back at how bloody history was, but it’s still happening all over the world. Even with the ‘best intentions’ it’s not necessarily the best for who it’s being done to. There’s a good quote that goes along with this: good people do good things, evil people do evil things, but to make good people do evil things you just have to add religion.
You wanna believe what you believe that’s fine, just keep it to yourself or your family.
also new images of jupiter. pretty crazy how much smaller the red spot has gotten over the years.
Amazing that three earths could fit inside that centuries old storm.
Some I think conflate faith and trust. Trust is belief from evidence. You can see a Ford. You can see a Chevy. You like the way one looks and sounds. You can objectively know their respective reliability history. You may remember a time sitting in a Ford admiring it
That’s the thing about religion. You shouldn’t need to struggle for proof. Religion is belief unconcerned with empirical proof. It’s faith-based
Put it this way. Religion is the science of belief without empirical evidence and Science is the religion of empirical evidence for truth. I like what Sagan has to say here:
Stephen Gould described it as “non-overlapping magisteria”. Science covers the empirical universe, while religion covers questions of moral meaning and ethical value.
Bravo, TNutZz, you can live on my planet!!
I’m a huge carl sagan fan. I like NDT but he’s a bit ego-y at times.
I know a bunch of highly intellectual sciency engineering types that are super religious. Watching them struggle to prove to themselves what they will never prove is somewhat entertaining. I don’t envy them.
He comes across like he thinks he should be getting laid like the Stones. Though I did like his remake of the Cosmos series and generally find him very intelligent and entertaining.
I’m not so sure…
How low a probability do mathematicians believe makes an event essentially impossible? Émile Borel has estimated 10-50; and William Dembski has calculated a lower limit of 10-150, based on the number of elementary particles in the universe and the age of the universe. Yet the probability of abiogenesis is far, far less than either figure, like 10 to the 40,000 power less…
Disproving a hypothesis is no way to prove a different hypothesis. There can be thousands of hypothesis and they can all be wrong. Man has long looked for simple answers to explain that which he doesn’t understand. I think we’re moving past that, slowly.
I got to AA 19 years ago by “attraction rather than promotion” after watching its effect on my younger brother’s life. The tenets and community in AA are for me essentially what I surmise religion is for many other people. The concept of Higher Power suits me because I can and do define it concretely and narrowly (for the purposes of AA only) as the people in the AA group and because others can intuit, decide, imagine, guess or think of their Higher Power/God/Nothing in whatever light they choose. IMO, it harkens back to the ancient day of polytheism where multiple gods did their thing which allowed people to draft a team of gods that made some sort of sense to them. We all want the comfort of being aligned with a team, if only in desperate times, don’t we?
Yay for everybody except the Packers…
I think my wife would like Thor (aka Hemsworth) in the second round. She’d have him on IR by week two with a hyperextended crank.
Incorporates a lot of the discussion above.
Well I guess that’s better than on a piece of toast.
Apple and oranges.
With Santa, you have a legend growing from a story.
With Jesus, you have a fulfillment of prophesy. Ancient texts (not just the Bible) reference Him. There really is not argument that He existed, there’s only what you esteem Him as.
Jesus was literally here. He was literally crucified. He was literally seen after crucifixion. What do you do with that? It’s a matter of faith at that point. Do you suppose it was part of some sham and that he wasn’t really dead as some had speculated? Do you suppose He wasn’t in a grave at all as some suggested? Or, do you assume He rose from the dead on the 3rd day?
This is exhibited in all walks of life. Accepting a theory of our origins and boasting on it being definitive is dangerous and yet silly at the same time.
Actually, spare your family, too. 
It’s fine if you believe this. But it also relies on non empirical evidence. We can’t say it’s true. But you should be free to believe what you choose