heddle
Posts: 126
Joined: Nov. 2005
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Well this is all so interesting!
Let me address a whole bunch of comments:
Sheikh Mahandi: | Quote | | As for possible sites where Carol / David may be drawing "inspiration" - Kent Hovind ("Dr" Dino) contains all the usual, dinosaurs wandered round with Adam/Eve, Cain/Abel, etc...up until Noah. |
Sorry Sheikh, I and (I am 99% sure) Carol are old-earth types. My particular brand of OEC has been dubbed heresy by Dr. Hovind. I have to argue with Hovind types as much as I do with PT types—so I sort of put Hovind on your team, Sheikh.
Sir_toejam, | Quote | | ask him when he will get around to addressing the age of several old testament protagonists. |
You’ve asked me this, and I told you I do believe in the long ages are scientific, not miraculous. There is a post brewing about this, in the series GCT mentioned (in the comment above, where he says he comes to my blog for amusement.) It will go something like this: modern science is gaining an appreciation for the genetic causes of aging, and some foresee greatly extended lifespans. If so, then longer lifespans in principle are not unscientific. (This would mean that God intervened to alter our genes to reduce lifespans) But I need to do some homework on this topic.
GCT| Quote | | I don't know him, I just read and laugh. |
I didn’t know you asked me questions on my blog just for chuckles. You are still welcome, but I am suddenly much more reluctant to engage you in the comments.
Gregonomic,
| Quote | | He has admitted that he thinks the Bible was divinely inspired and is factually inerrant, so we can take that to mean that he accepts the miracles contained therein. Anyone who accepts miracles for an explanation of anything is pretty high on the fundie scale, IMO. |
Well at least this is a definition, that's progress. (Now if someone would carfe to define "creationist"?) If accepting inspiration an inerrancy and miracles makes one a fundie, then I’m a fundie. Your poster child for rational Christianity, Ken Miller, if he is the good Catholic everyone claims, would then also be a fundie—because the Catholic Church (references to official documents upon request) affirms inspiration and inerrancy (without demanding literality) of scripture and affirms miracles as well.
Russell,
| Quote | | and I'm not quite clear on how David's and Carol's "biblical inerrancy" differs from "biblical literalism". |
Biblical inerrancy means that you accept that the writers were inspired to write, and so they wrote without error. You allow, however, that translation errors have occurred, and hyperbole, metaphors, and other figures of speech were used. You also recognize that the writers of that era wrote differently than today—that quotes, for example, were meant to accurately reflect the content but not necessary the exact words. (Biblical Greek, for example, didn’t even have quotation marks.) Now when the facts are brought up, those who want to demonstrate biblical error cry “foul.” Tough beans. We are not going to handcuff ourselves just so you can win a debate. You are free to hold us accountable: these things must be used in a scholarly manner. But they are legitimate parts of the equation.
Literalism is a hermeneutic that minimizes interpretations based on symbolism and metaphors. It is a form of inerrancy, but not the only form. Of course, when people want to argue that the bible is full of errors they demand that you take any questionable passage literally.
STJ, | Quote | | However, that does not answer the question of whether he accepts miracles to be within the purview of science itself, as Carol genuinely appears to. |
On the contrary, I’ve stated my position clearly on a number of occasions: miracles are by definition outside the purview of science, that’s why they are miracles instead of parlor tricks. Science can never, for example, explain the resurrection.
Gregonomic| Quote | | Heddle always ignores questions about miracles, which, again, I take as an admission that he believes them (but doesn't want us to know he believes them, because of how foolish it will make him look). |
Wrong, I have never ignored questions about miracles nor shied away from admitting I believe in them.
Gregonomic, | Quote | | I agree with you 100% that this statement (There is no denying that miracles are part of the Bible. And I don’t think that is in conflict with science. It is outside the domain of science, but not contradicted by it.) is completely untenable, and incongruous with her other claims that the Bible is totally compatible with science. |
I know you are referring to Carol, this applies to me as well. Do you understand that part of debating is recognizing the other person’s perspective? Here it is in a nutshell, speaking for myself: (1) I believe in miracles and (2) miracles by definition cannot be explained by science and (3) the overwhelming bulk of scripture does not discuss miracles (4) anything stated in the non-miraculous accounts is subject to scientific scrutiny.
So, I believe the Red Sea was parted, but I don’t agree that it violates science because it was clearly a miracle, and expressed as a miracle.
However, when the bible says that our universe has a finite lifetime, that is not describing a miracle and is subject to scientific testing, which of course it passed with flying colors. If the bible said the earth was the center of the cosmos, that would be a scientific error that couldn’t be written off as a miracle.
Gregonomic,
| Quote | | Aureola Nominee nailed them on that one though - he/she basically forced them to admit that they can't maintain their claim that "the Bible is perfectly compatible with science" without fencing off significantly large portions of the Bible as science no-go zones. |
Never happened. I would never have to be "forced" to admit that miracles are exempt from the discussion. I have stated it virtually (if not actually) every time the question of the scientific accuracy of the bible arose.
Gee, I thought you guys didn't care about whether or not the bible was consistent with science.
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Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reason for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. --Sam Harris
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