142: In His Name We Pray, Ramen

[BrainFromArous]

The Bible does not give any claim as to the age of the earth. People make assumptions about it based on the English translation. The six "days" that are mentioned in Genesis are written simply as "periods of time" in the original Hebrew. In fact, the interaction between the sun and the earth is not even truly established until around the fourth "day", so our concept of "day" can not be applied.

Please do not spread false assumptions about the faith of millions of people.

I'm a student of the Bible - most atheists are, you know - and I know a great deal about what it actually does and does not contain.

The fact remains, though, that millions upon millions of sincere Christians over the centuries have in fact bolstered their opposition to everything from heliocentrism to evolution on what they BELIEVED their scriptures to say.

The "age of the Earth" thing is but one example of people making claims based on the authority of their scriptures even when the scriptures themselves don't actually make those claims. That didn't stop them, of course, because the fidelity and accuracy of their scripture citations were irrelevant to their agenda.

Their objective was to ground their claims in (what they imagine to be) an unimpeachable divine imprimatur as opposed to empirical evidence.

THAT is the point and is the essence of my grievance to this whole "faith" business.

Consider the tale of Noah and the flood. No hiding behind translation issues there... the story has been faithfully "ported" from the oldest extant sources: GOD FLOODED THE WORLD and KILLED EVERYONE EXCEPT THOSE ON THE ARK. Period. The end.

Of course, this did not happen. No matter to those "of faith," because they believe it did. How shall we deal with that? Should their belief be given equal time with the accumulated weight of all available historical, paleontological and geological evidence against this flood having taken place?

And this brings us back, at last, to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Henderson's point was that when it comes to empirical evidence, there is no more reason to believe in Abraham's deity than in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Genesis has the same relationship to biological science that Gygax's Monster Manual has to zoology.

PS - If you really want to have some fun, go rooting through the Old Testament for remnants of Hebrew polytheism insufficiently "ret-conned" by later editors. It's eye-opening.

 

[BrainFromArous]

It's metaphysics because nothing about rights can be proven by science. I can't prove to you that murder is worse than assault the way I can prove to you lead is denser than aluminum, right? So if it's not physics, it is, literally, meta-physics.

Except, of course, the distinction between injuring a body vs causing it to stop living - a distinction wholly objective and quantifiable.

So much for abandoning "faith" leading us to being able to answer all our questions, right?

Show me where I said that, exactly. My point is that "faith" gives us answers rooted in myth and magic or, even worse, proscribes us from even asking questions in the first place.

You should just carefully distinguish between the answers not being "solved through "faith" in some Bronze Age collection of fairy tales about the Sky-Father spirit" because those collections *don't have the requisite authority* or because those collections *never tried to answer those questions in the first place* Only the former is true.

I agree that the works in question sincerely address and are informed by human problems. How could they not? Humans wrote them.

My point, though, goes to WHY the requisite authority was (and is) lacking.

 

[Spuddo]

Quite an enjoyable article; a good read.

 

[Circusfreak]

RAmen to all! pastafarism 4 ever!

 

[Doug]

6,000 years is not accepted by all believers of creationism, "10,000" is more common; and not all or even most creationists disbelieve in dinosaurs, they are in the Bible. The most detailed descriptions come in Job, of the Behemoth and the Leviathan. The behemoth was something massive, with a tail like a tall cedar tree in terms of length, and it had bones like bronze (relatively strong) and iron. The leviathan had a hide covered in shields, and what's a lot like shields: scales, and was an amphibious or primarily water dwelling creature of massive size.

Yeah, because that makes ID so much more likely...

 

[Doug]

It's metaphysics because nothing about rights can be proven by science. I can't prove to you that murder is worse than assault the way I can prove to you lead is denser than aluminum, right? So if it's not physics, it is, literally, meta-physics.

Except, of course, the distinction between injuring a body vs causing it to stop living - a distinction wholly objective and quantifiable.

I believe what he means is that our moral code isn't based on science; i.e. because their is no such thing as measurable good or evil. From a scientific objective standpoint, there is nothing 'evil' about genocide - there is a measurable increase in dead people, and its focused on a group of people indentified by some common fact - that's it.

Which is strictly speaking, correct. Our justice systems (I'm from the UK) still has alot of legacy issues from a time where the bible was considered THE guide for living, and so our laws and courts still have alot of religious overtures. To be honest though, I'd say that we, as human beings, need to have laws and justice systems to maintain social stability, and, whilst its not strictly speaking scientific, we aren't abstract observers, we're humans involved in the system.

 

[rabidmidget]

I felt that due to my avatar, my presence is needed in these comments

Now may we all join hands and pray "May you bless us with your noodly appendage to give us the strength to reunite our pirate brethren, Ramen"

 

[Doug]

Spoiler: Space saving

It's lovely when a comic sums something up better then you possible ever could've.

(Hrrm, perhaps I should've posted a link instead)

Honestly, this one is more relevant.

EDIT:

I felt that due to my avatar, my presence is needed in these comments

Now may we all join hands and pray "May you bless us with your noodly appendage to give us the strength to reunite our pirate brethren, Ramen"

Ramen indeed brother!

 

[Nihilism_Is_Bliss]

i recommend 'the gospel of the flying spaghetti monster' to everyone

 

[WendelI]

this is why i don't like religious discussions any more. they are tiresome nothing gets accomplished and we all dislike each other more. At a point and time we all need to accept that religion it self is too powerful even if is true or not. But yes Flying spaghetti monster is one of the funniest parodies of human experience I have ever seen.

 

[toadking07]

Even as a christian i like FSM. It shows me what parts of my religion are stupid and superfiscial and what parts realy matter. And yes, inteligent design belongs amoung the stupid things.

Yeah, there are a lot of Christian sects and they all look at things a little differently and unfortunately they all get grouped together and the crazies make the news. I'm a Christian and I acknowledge dinosaurs, evolution, and God. Yes I can do that actually.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

Keljeck:
2. If by the "secular school system forcing their belief on their children" you mean, promoting a rational approach to science, then yes, they were forcing their beliefs. Personally, I interpret "secular" not as the bogey-man its often used as (a nice term for "atheist", non?) but as it's intended: separate from religion. Public school, being paid for and run by the government (at least in the US), is inherently a secular organization. They do their best to leave religion, and "beliefs" out of it. That's the whole point. It is not the school's place to teach theism or atheism, or even fence-sitting. They're not teaching religious belief. They're teaching science. (Key takeaway: "secular" does not mean "anti-religion". It means "not religious". Big difference.)

Yeah, but to argue semantics here, a theory that has to rely on interpretation of past events rather than observable events in the present can't be proven fact. A belief in something that can't be proven, regardless of how valid it's arguments are, is a religion. Therefore, it's effectively impossible to have an inherently secular, non-religious school system while it still teaches evolution. It is, along with Intelligent Design, ultimately unprovable.

Until I invent my time machine that is.