I believe in both a god and science. Some god probably could have just created the universe and the laws of the universe and then shit just happened according to those laws.
Poll: Do you support evolution?
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Sounds like you don't understand the concept of omnipotence.DJjaffacake said:
OP: I support evolution, and am as Catholic as any good Irishman.
As far as I'm concerned it's the best explanation given the facts. That's good enough for me. I will say that on this forum... I predict 90-95% will pick evolution on the poll. We're not really a good representative of everyone everywhere.
I'm went to a good quality public university so don't turn this into a class thing. Unless you go to a completely shitty school, it's easy to at least acquire the basics of an education. The part where you might have had bad experiences with some professors doesn't detract from the overall points I made either.Jarimir said:
You're just making excuses.
Is there any actual evidence that any of those are in effect?BrassButtons said:
A day is something that only exists on planets. It's the period of their rotation. If an individual existed outside of space and time, he or she would have no day at all. Therefore there's no reason to assume that when the Bible says a day, it means anything other than an Earth day.zombiejoe said:
A) See above.Hafrael said:
B) Omnipotence is a self-contradictory concept anyway.
All you've done is to provide a possible definition for a "day", and then assume that definition MUST be applicable to the phrase in the bible. Since the Bible contains many phrases of multiple interpretations, and is rife with symbolism and metaphor, you know no such thing. I can write tons of different meanings for "Days".DJjaffacake said:
"The days past as weeks since she left me" - Do I literally mean that the length of time she left me can be measured in weeks?
"I don't go there until the day the sun rises in the west" - Am I literally referring to a 24 hour period in which the planet reverses its rotation?
"The day has gone by so fast!" - Has the planet's rotation sped up?
The Hebrew word yom (יוֹםDJjaffacake said:
has the most common meaning of "day" (as in Yom Kippur - Day of Atonement) but also has the older, more obscure secondary meaning of "a large unspecified amount of time". There's of course lots of arguing between the confirmations on the context in which yom is used in Genesis. In other instances in the Old Testament it is much clearly that it's the second meaning.There are many translation problems in the bible, not surprising for a book that has been translated and further translated through translations so many times. Take the famous "camel through a needle's eye" for example, where an early Greek translation of the original (or possibly a translation thereof) might have slipped and written kamilos (camel) instead of kamêlos (cable, rope).
It's not a 'possible definition' it's the definition. On Earth, a day is 24 hours. On other planets, a day is however long it takes for them to rotate once. Everywhere else, there is no such thing as a day. All the examples you gave are clearly not meant to be taken literally. If you were to say, "On Wednesday I did X," most people would assume you meant exactly what you said. And that's what the Bible says, that on a given day God did something.Murrdox said:
Thank you. That would certainly seem to provide a plausible reason why a day might not mean a day.Quaxar said:The Hebrew word yom (יוֹם
There are many translation problems in the bible, not surprising for a book that has been translated and further translated through translations so many times. Take the famous "camel through a needle's eye" for example, where an early Greek translation of the original (or possibly a translation thereof) might have slipped and written kamilos (camel) instead of kamêlos (cable, rope).
And therein is the second part of your problem. You're assuming the language in that section of the Bible is meant to be taken literally. The Bible is filled with symbols, double-meanings, and allegory. Since you can't go right up and ask the person who wrote the Bible what they intended, it's often quite ambiguous as to what parts of the Bible are meant to be literal and which are figurative. The entire story of Revelations can be taken symbolically, as can the entire creation story.DJjaffacake said:
Even the Garden of Eden has been interpreted differently over the years. In contemporary Biblical times it was sometimes literally a place by the Tigris river. In modern times its interpretation has been changed to more of a metaphysical paradise. Do you literally think a "flaming sword" guards the entrance to Eden? Interesting that a sword would be placed to guard a place when no wars had taken place yet, so there was no need to invent swords. Makes more sense that the sword is a symbol of something.
So for you to jump to the conclusion that we have to use a literal meaning of "Day" as in "24 hours" is erroneous. "Day" in the context of an allegorical or symbolic work could mean a literal day, or it could be just a symbol for the passage of a period of time. You have no way of knowing.
Except Earth didn't exist through most of the shit God was doing...DJjaffacake said:
Also, how is omnipotence self-contradictory?
Lets look a the Bible in the context of when it was written, the people at the time knew nothing of the universe beyond our solar system and next to nothing of our planets history and how it works. They had no concept of day other than the Earth's rotation day. Today people attempt to make the Bible's reference's more rational with what we know now i.e. Days, in order to make it fit in with stuff that disproves it.Murrdox said:
We now know exactly what a day is and that our 24 hour day is only applicable on our planet, you can't take that knowledge and retroactively apply it to an outdated worldview. We also now know that the Earths rotation is slowing down, about 450 million years ago the Earth's day was 3 hours shorter, which further disproves the Bible's notion of an Earth based day being a concept for a deity as the length of our day is changing based solely on our planet's motion. Yes the Bible is a bunch of metaphorical stories and in parts is not literal, but it's also an attempt to understand the world and give meaning to our existence based on the information available at the time.
Language evolution certainly is. Slang is a perfect example of it--you get both short-term variations in linguistic patterns, as well as long-term trends due to cultural isolation. Those long-term trends start out the same as the short-term variations, but stick.DJjaffacake said:
Look at the English language. Twenty years ago the term "blog" didn't exist, or was extremely rare at any rate. Fifty years ago no one outside the military and academia had heard of the internet. Language has changed in accordance with its environment (human culture).
There also was a Vatican publication recently updating Latin, an example of a top-down evolution of language.
As far as the Creation story in the Bible goes, I'm in full agreement with the Medieval monks: If you're trying to learn history via the Bible, you're using the book wrong. Even if the authors got the history of some of it right, that was so beside the point as to be irrelevant--it's like critiquing a Renaissance painting because that brick was in the wrong place. The point of the Bible is the message it contains (for the record, I disagree with much of it). The Creationists are wrong to interpret Genesis literally, and the atheists are wrong to demand all Catholics/Christians do so.
No, it's just one of the definitions. [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/day]DJjaffacake said:
The common example is if you have omnipotence can you make a rock so heavy that you can't lift it? I mean you have the power to do anything right? I can do this down at my local query why can't an Omnipotent being do this? And if he can't do that he is not Omnipotent.Hafrael said:
An omnipotent being could make a rock so heavy it couldn't lift it, and then lift it anyway. That's what omnipotence means.Eddie the head said:
I always find it funny that people present these arguments as if they haven't been addressed, as if they're new. This has been debated for a long, long time. There are in fact 5 different types of omnipotence, and this paradox only applies to some of them (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox).Hafrael said:
Of course, to the geologist the answer is simple: beer. Specifically, the beer can experiment. If God is omniscient, he'd know about pore fluid pressure, and know that lifting dead weight isn't the only way to handle the situation. Never believe Sheldon Cooper--fantastic advances in science have been made via copious amounts of drinking!
The REAL issue is theodicy. Omnipotence+omniscience=valid solutions. Omnipotence+omnsicence+omnibenevolence=problems. Theodicy is the school of thought attempting to address that problem (remember, in science it is no flaw to accept a proposition ad arguendum in order to explore the logical consequences of that position--in other words, the mere fact that I do not believe in a deity in no way prevents me from engaging in discussions of the implications of such a being, and in fact such discussions are necessary in order to support the notion that "There is no God" is a scientificaly valid position).
If you wish to bring theology into this discussion, let's pay our dues, shall we? A lot of great minds have worked on these problems, and even if they are wrong it is incumbant upon us, if we value intellectual rigor, to at least familiarize ourselves with the highlights before we enter into the discussion. We expect no less from Creationists, after all.
I don't think this is much of a problem.Dinwatr said:
Omnipotence allows the being perfect self-control. So such a being can easily restrict themselves from interfering with their own projects. This is how the being can create a rock they can't lift; by simply choosing not to lift it.
Omnibenevolence does not demand no evil, just justice (at least).
And so we come to humans, who are granted the ability to choose between good and evil. Omnipotence allows such a creation to exist even though omnibenevolence does not wish to see any evil. Originally, there is no evil (or pain or suffering or what have you) in the world until the humans choose it, and then they suffer the consequences of straying. Omnipotence could fix this in a moment, but does not as that would strip us of free will. Omniscience means that the being still sees everything and feels pain too through the perfect empathy of omnibenevolence. Omnibenevolence promises eventual justification and also grants leniency, as well as promising all good things later and providing some today, but cannot demand immediate rectification to an all-good state due to the constraints omnipotence has placed upon it.
Because we are human and because we have the choice to do good or bad, preventing all bad from happening would rob us of or autonomy. So the omnipotent being prevents his own (total) interference even though we go against his nature and hurt him. The glory is always with the humans who choose good, but you cannot have that without the choice.
All I know is, I'm expected to support one way or the other because, either way, I'm being told that's what happened (or most likely happened).
I'll support something when I'm actually in a position to find out what happened myself (as close to first-hand as I possibly can), as opposed to being someone who was just taught about it by my teacher/mentor who was taught about it by his teacher/mentor and so forth.
And even then, it's not of much importance to me. I'm more interested in what's going to happen than what already happened.[/quote]
This is a fairly famous image from time, taking all the skulls from the various humans from throughout history.
Want further evidence? May I introduce you to ring species.
When species encounter a natural obstacle it can't get over or through, it tends to go around it. Giant mountains, valleys, you name it. For our example, lets use Gulls.
The gulls are far north somewhere in Siberia. They can?t go further north, do to the frigid climate. However, the gulls can spread east and west, finding new food resources and nesting sights. For a while, this process only appears of caused only minor local variations. Maybe the colors are a bit different, some of the meals change, but all the gulls can mate with any other gull that is flying range.
Millions of years later, the gulls has spread entirely around the North pole, one making a trip across the Atlantic to Britain, while the rest have settled in Sweden. So, some of the British gulls fly to Sweden, the species has come full circle. However, when spring comes, cross mating happens, there are no eggs from the unions of these gulls. It appears they are no longer the same species.
The British gulls can still successfully mate with the Canadian gulls, the Canadians can still breed with the ones in Alaska, those can mate with the gulls in Siberia, who can have sex with the birds in Moscow, who can still create eggs with the Swedish gulls.
But the British gulls are genetically distinct enough from the Swedish gulls that they can no longer mate.
This is what happened to the Herring gulls, very clear evidence for evolution. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
I'll support something when I'm actually in a position to find out what happened myself (as close to first-hand as I possibly can), as opposed to being someone who was just taught about it by my teacher/mentor who was taught about it by his teacher/mentor and so forth.
And even then, it's not of much importance to me. I'm more interested in what's going to happen than what already happened.[/quote]
This is a fairly famous image from time, taking all the skulls from the various humans from throughout history.
Want further evidence? May I introduce you to ring species.
When species encounter a natural obstacle it can't get over or through, it tends to go around it. Giant mountains, valleys, you name it. For our example, lets use Gulls.
The gulls are far north somewhere in Siberia. They can?t go further north, do to the frigid climate. However, the gulls can spread east and west, finding new food resources and nesting sights. For a while, this process only appears of caused only minor local variations. Maybe the colors are a bit different, some of the meals change, but all the gulls can mate with any other gull that is flying range.
Millions of years later, the gulls has spread entirely around the North pole, one making a trip across the Atlantic to Britain, while the rest have settled in Sweden. So, some of the British gulls fly to Sweden, the species has come full circle. However, when spring comes, cross mating happens, there are no eggs from the unions of these gulls. It appears they are no longer the same species.
The British gulls can still successfully mate with the Canadian gulls, the Canadians can still breed with the ones in Alaska, those can mate with the gulls in Siberia, who can have sex with the birds in Moscow, who can still create eggs with the Swedish gulls.
But the British gulls are genetically distinct enough from the Swedish gulls that they can no longer mate.
This is what happened to the Herring gulls, very clear evidence for evolution. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
Omniscience plus omnipotence precludes choice. God created everything, and knows how each and every action will lead. God knows what will cause every person to choose right or wrong, all the circumstances and conditions that lead to that choice. Every little niggling issue in a person's life, every glint of sun light in their eye, every movement of an animal that causes the car crash that made them late for work, every gene in their body which determines who they are, who they will be, what advantages and disadvantages they will have in life. Some people are born tall, into prosperity, where making the "moral" choice is easy.discrider said:
Then you have those borns in horrible conditions. Growth stunted because of starvation, being fed lies daily, made to think horrible things are good. Take Shin Dong-hyuk, writer of Escape From Camp 14, who was kept in the North Korean Interment camp, camp 14. The guy was born into prison. Interment is a North Korea practice where enemies of the state, plus three generations of their families, are sent to concentration camps for life. There are people living in their camps for a single grandparent supporting the South during the Korean war. To say the conditions in the camp are horrid does not even begin to cover things.
Back on topic, Shin was taught that the Kims are gods, that their imprisonment was just, and he should put the state above everything else. When Shin was 14, he turned his mother in for just talking about escaping. Shin felt it was just at the time, having been told that escaping was morally wrong and he had seen the consequences of the family members who didn't tell on attempted escapees. Shin didn't escape from the camp not because of the daily torture, the eight months he was in solitary confinement (imagine not being able to stand, and only getting to move your knees when you get your daily torture), but because Shin wanted food. Only after leaving North Korea and it's insane double think did he find some sane morals to follow.