Understanding the holy scriptures is impossible unless God gives you the interpretation

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Only a complete imbocile would be

You misspelled imbecile.

prove either or both [garden, flood] were myths.

According to science, they're incorrect accounts of history by people guessing why the world they live in is as it is under the assumption that it and they were created by a tri-omni god. We're also not going to prove that the Mesopotamian or Viking creation stories are myths beyond noting that they don't agree with the science.

The sad thing is that for some people truth has been reduced to opinion.

I see that almost daily on RF when people refer to their intuitions or faith-based beliefs as spiritual truths.

Do you have an example of a false statement from the Bible?

Yes, but if one is convinced that scripture is infallible, there's no reason to show it to him. Such a believer is a motivated reasoner and begins redefining words and inventing things as hoc to try to reconcile scripture with the evidence that contradicts it.

Scripture is quite clear we will all see Jesus again and it won't be in the "time" we think of as time. It will be in time as God/Jesus/Holy Spirit experience time.

That an example of a clear scripture to you?

Isaac Newton was ..., not a student of scientific education

That's incorrect. He was familiar with the work of philosophers like Descartes and other scientists, especially Galileo and Kepler. The Newtonian (Dobsonian) telescope, which contains a mirror, is an improvement over Galileo's spyglass model.

"Kepler's third law shows that there is a precise mathematical relationship between a planet's distance from the Sun and the amount of time it takes revolve around the Sun. It was this law that inspired Newton, who came up with three laws of his own to explain why the planets move as they do."

Scripture, which is the well of scientific formulation of the earth.

Scripture describes the earth as a flat, domed surface with edges and fixed on pillars. Elsewhere, it says that the earth hangs. Those ideas are both wrong. Science has a different idea about the earth.

Faraday's faith contributed to his scientific insights.

No, it didn't. Faith can never be a path to knowledge. Faraday's contributions are all empirically based and could have been made by an atheist. Likewise with Newton.

I think your conception regarding "faith", is a little bit out there. If you are just saying you believe everything Paul says along with his comrades, well that would be your belief. Faith would entail acting on your belief.

That's not my definition of faith. Belief is enough, and the belief can't be justified, in which case that belief would also be knowledge.

As Paul's false gospel of grace requires no action, well you are simply left with a false belief.

Yes, and if one believes it, he believes it by faith.

God is the claimant, not me.

No, you are. "God" isn't here. You are claiming that a god made those claims. I don't believe you or the people who first wrote them.

what is rational is a matter of consensus or mutual understanding?

Yes. Vary from orthodoxy and you've committed a logical fallacy and gone off the reason reservation.

Arithmetic is pure reason. There are rules for adding and no wiggle room. If even one of the hundreds of additions in summing a column of big numbers is wrong, the final answer is wrong. And those rules are agreed upon by consensus. If you choose to see things otherwise, you're on your own:

“Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water."? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?” - Sam Harris

“If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

I saw a bird yesterday. I know it. How do I demonstrate that I know it?

You can't, which is why you can't be sure that it happened. Practically speaking, we don't worry about such things. We go on as if we did.

Again, you and I may have a different understanding of what we're engaged in here. This isn't a court and no one is trying to convince anyone to make life-changing decisions

 

[Anne1]

Herr Dr. Professor Occam would find whole story

Um, Occam was a devout Catholic friar, theologian, and Catholic apologist. Guess you're wrong.

 

[2ndpillar]

(Dobsonian) telescope, which contains a mirror, is an improvement over Galileo's spyglass model.

"Kepler's third law shows that there is a precise mathematical relationship between a planet's distance from the Sun and the amount of time it takes revolve around the Sun. It was this law that inspired Newton, who came up with three laws of his own to explain why the planets move as they do."

Collaboration is different from "science education". Science education is where you have idiot professors teaching you the same thing years after it has been debunked, or think their theories are indeed fact, when they are not. Is gravity a factor of time, or a factor of mass, or a factor of warped time, a factor of warped space, or a factor of speed, acceleration, or is it something else all together? Does Newton's law of gravity match that of Einstein? What is your scientific estimate of the age of the Universe we live in? What is the age of the Universe we don't live in? Is string theory bunk? I think your science has more holes in it than Einstein's ideas about black holes, or that a black hole can provide a link needed for a space portal. Creative science is mostly created by those on the outside of the acceptable science education system, which is weighted down by the practice of tenure.

 

[2ndpillar]

Yes, and if one believes it, he believes it by faith.

The "demons believe" (James 2:19), because they already know. Where is their faith shown? What do you "believe", and how do you show you "believe", whereas anyone would believe you.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Occam was a devout Catholic friar, theologian, and Catholic apologist. Guess you're wrong.

She is (wrong)? You haven't made the case that she is wrong. @Audie wrote, "Herr Dr. Professor Occam would find whole story to be absurdly contrived." She is correct, as was Occam, and Occam's livelihood is irrelevant. His Razor is valid whatever his day job.

The "demons believe" (James 2:19), because they already know. Where is their faith shown?

Belief is either justified by sufficient evidence properly understood in which case it is knowledge, or it is believed by faith, in which case it is not. Let's say that you believe it's time to cast a spell to ward off demons because they're active at midnight and your reliable clock says it's midnight now. Those two beliefs are different. One is supported by evidence properly understood - the time based in looking at the clock - and the other isn't, meaning that if it's believed, it's believed by faith.

What do you "believe", and how do you show you "believe", whereas anyone would believe you.

I use reasoned, evidenced argument. If my argument is compelling to critical thinker, it will change his mind. If the other person can't distinguish sound argument from fallacious argument or he is unwilling to change his position, then there is nothing to say to him and no burden of "proof" until and unless he develops those skills, because there is no possibility of teaching such a person anything:

“Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water."? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?” - Sam Harris

Collaboration is different from "science education". Science education is where you have idiot professors teaching you the same thing years after it has been debunked, or think their theories are indeed fact, when they are not. Is gravity a factor of time, or a factor of mass, or a factor of warped time, a factor of warped space, or a factor of speed, acceleration, or is it something else all together? Does Newton's law of gravity match that of Einstein? What is your scientific estimate of the age of the Universe we live in? What is the age of the Universe we don't live in? Is string theory bunk? I think your science has more holes in it than Einstein's ideas about black holes, or that a black hole can provide a link needed for a space portal. Creative science is mostly created by those on the outside of the acceptable science education system, which is weighted down by the practice of tenure.

You said that, "Isaac Newton was ... not a student of scientific education." I showed where that was incorrect. Newton famously quipped that if he has seen further, it was because he stood on the backs of giants.

Where did you get collaboration out of that? Galileo (died 8 January 1642) and Kepler (died 15 November 1630) were both dead when Newton (born 25 December 1642) was arrived on the planet. He never met either.

 

[Audie]

Um, Occam was a devout Catholic friar, theologian, and Catholic apologist. Guess you're wrong.

" find the whole story"? Seems a lot is left out there.

In the event, I don't think " devout " means,
" believe without reason" or " blindly believe the absurd".

 

[2ndpillar]

I use reasoned, evidenced argument. If my argument is compelling to critical thinker, it will change his mind. If the other person can't distinguish sound argument from fallacious argument or he is unwilling to change his position, then there is nothing to say to him and no burden of "proof" until and unless he develops those skills, because there is no possibility of teaching such a person anything:

So says you.

 

[2ndpillar]

You said that, "Isaac Newton was ... not a student of scientific education." I showed where that was incorrect. Newton famously quipped that if he has seen further, it was because he stood on the backs of giants.

Newton could read and write. As for Galileo, his writings were couched, an example being his thoughts on the earth circling the sun was written in a fictional book, not a book of science. Apparently, Galileo wasn't couched enough, for the Inquisition wound up breaking the man. Now Leonardo, he knew how to hide his discoveries. Newton did not go to some school of Galileo, for Galileo had established no school, for he was locked up in his home by the Roman church until he died. The Roman church eventually started their own Universities, pushing their own agendas. Church schools such as Harvard, have pretty much lost their grip on reality, by using a Marxist Progressive lens on the world around them. Their Christian roots were flawed, but they have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. They have jumped from the humanist Paul to the avowed Atheist humanist Marx. Your Mr. Science, Mr. Fauci, was an undergraduate of a Jesuit school, Holy Cross. I guess that is how he got so wayward of what truth is and isn't, by way of the influence of large sums of money. The science of today is mostly a product purchased by the money changers, and the educators are good with that. Pay them to find dragons, and they will be glad to find you dragons. Ask them to find you the source of covid, and they will direct you to some dark cave in the middle of nowhere, not some covid viral center whose job was to produce covid viruses, in which the first cases occurred.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So says you.

Yes, I do. You asked.

Newton could read and write. As for Galileo, his writings were couched, an example being his thoughts on the earth circling the sun was written in a fictional book, not a book of science. Apparently, Galileo wasn't couched enough, for the Inquisition wound up breaking the man. Now Leonardo, he knew how to hide his discoveries. Newton did not go to some school of Galileo, for Galileo had established no school, for he was locked up in his home by the Roman church until he died. The Roman church eventually started their own Universities, pushing their own agendas. Church schools such as Harvard, have pretty much lost their grip on reality, by using a Marxist Progressive lens on the world around them. Their Christian roots were flawed, but they have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. They have jumped from the humanist Paul to the avowed Atheist humanist Marx. Your Mr. Science, Mr. Fauci, was an undergraduate of a Jesuit school, Holy Cross. I guess that is how he got so wayward of what truth is and isn't, by way of the influence of large sums of money. The science of today is mostly a product purchased by the money changers, and the educators are good with that. Pay them to find dragons, and they will be glad to find you dragons. Ask them to find you the source of covid, and they will direct you to some dark cave in the middle of nowhere, not some covid viral center whose job was to produce covid viruses, in which the first cases occurred.

This still deflects from your comment about Newton and my rebuttal of it. Somehow, you've got Paul, Marx and Fauci in there. It's like a Dylan song with all of these characters*

I'll just assume that since you offer no counterargument, you have none, and thus I consider the matter is resolved. Debate ends with the last plausible, unrebutted argument.

I don't see the value in asking you to remain on point again. You either can't or won't.

*This is Dylan's Desolation Row. Look at how many characters appear in it. The Grateful Dead's cover of this is linked below:

They're selling postcards of the hanging, they're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors, the circus is in town
In walks the blind commissioner, they've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker, the other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless, they need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight, from Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy, "It takes one to know one, " she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis style
And in walks Romeo, he's moaning. "You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend, you'd better leave"
And the only sound you can hear after the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row

Ophelia, she's 'neath the window for her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maid
For her, death is quite romantic she wears an iron vest
Her profession is her religion, her sin is her lifelessness
And though her gaze is fixed upon Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk
Now he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette
And he went off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him, but he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden, the stars are beginning to hide
The fortune telling lady has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel and the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is either making love or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing, he's getting ready for the show
He's going down to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients, they're all trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser, she's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read, "Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on the penny whistles, you can hear them blow (note: this is where Jerry harmonized with Bobby for the 1st time and the crowd cheers)
If you lean your head out far enough from Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains, they're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera in a perfect image of a priest
They are spoon feeding Casanova to get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence after poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls, "Get outta here if you don't know" (Jerry harmonizes again and the crowd love it)
Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row"

At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do
Then they take them to the factory where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go
Make sure that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody's talking about, "Which side are you on?!"
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot they're fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row

[last verse omitted for lack of characters]

 

[Unfettered]

No, you are. "God" isn't here. You are claiming that a god made those claims. I don't believe you or the people who first wrote them.

That is fine.

Yes. Vary from orthodoxy and you've committed a logical fallacy and gone off the reason reservation.

I don't think that conforms to many realities. It is a regular occurrence that people respond in unexpected ways to situations or stimuli that are not known or seen by others, who may judge the former to be acting irrationally. Once the latter become aware of the situation or stimuli—once they come to the same understanding as the person they judged to be irrational—they see that the behavior they were witnessing was quite rational.

Arithmetic is pure reason. There are rules for adding and no wiggle room. If even one of the hundreds of additions in summing a column of big numbers is wrong, the final answer is wrong. And those rules are agreed upon by consensus. If you choose to see things otherwise, you're on your own:

“Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water."? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?” - Sam Harris

“If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

I don't see how this is relevant to what I said.

You can't, which is why you can't be sure that it happened. Practically speaking, we don't worry about such things. We go on as if we did.

Then go on as if I experienced God, or demonstrated that I know I did, since I can't demonstrate that I know that, either.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It is a regular occurrence that people respond in unexpected ways to situations or stimuli that are not known or seen by others, who may judge the former to be acting irrationally.

Yes, I know. I recall the first time I saw somebody with a Bluetooth walking through an airport seemingly talking to himself.

Once the latter become aware of the situation or stimuli—once they come to the same understanding as the person they judged to be irrational—they see that the behavior they were witnessing was quite rational.

That's a rare experience for me. The Bluetooth example was an anomaly. I usually find that if they appear irrational up front, further inquiry doesn't change that.

Then go on as if I experienced God

That's for you to do. I go on as if you have made a claim that you cannot support.

 

[Muffled]

Why? Is it because they disagree with your personal beliefs and interpretation of the Bible?

I believe it is due to self deception. I was there at one time when I did not hear as well as I thought I did.

 

[Muffled]

You'll get .multiple interpretations with anything.

Sometimes the translation gets in the way: The passage in I Thes 4 says that Jesus will come with the shout of an archangel. I believe the JWs mistakenly take the meaning of "with" to mean Jesus was an archangel shouting but most likely due to the rest of Biblical context, it means that Jesus was accompanied by an archangel shouting.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

I believe it is due to self deception. I was there at one time when I did not hear as well as I thought I did.

To be honest, other Christians could say the same about you and your preferred version of Christianity. However, I suspect that you won't accept that it is possible for you to be wrong, as these Christians you disagree with wouldn't believe that they are wrong either. Ironically, you and other Christians who hold opposing beliefs to yours are sure that you are both correct in your convictions, despite the fact that these varying convictions contradict each other.

 

[jimb]

To be honest, other Christians could say the same about you and your preferred version of Christianity. However, I suspect that you won't accept that it is possible for you to be wrong, as these Christians you disagree with wouldn't believe that they are wrong either. Ironically, you and other Christians who hold opposing beliefs to yours are sure that you are both correct in your convictions, despite the fact that these varying convictions contradict each other.

How many people that you know, religious or not, believe that their thinking is wrong?

 

[Ignatius A]

You misspelled imbecile.

According to science, they're incorrect accounts of history by people guessing why the world they live in is as it is under the assumption that it and they were created by a tri-omni god. We're also not going to prove that the Mesopotamian or Viking creation stories are myths beyond noting that they don't agree with the science.

I see that almost daily on RF when people refer to their intuitions or faith-based beliefs as spiritual truths.

Yes, but if one is convinced that scripture is infallible, there's no reason to show it to him. Such a believer is a motivated reasoner and begins redefining words and inventing things as hoc to try to reconcile scripture with the evidence that contradicts it.

That an example of a clear scripture to you?

That's incorrect. He was familiar with the work of philosophers like Descartes and other scientists, especially Galileo and Kepler. The Newtonian (Dobsonian) telescope, which contains a mirror, is an improvement over Galileo's spyglass model.

"Kepler's third law shows that there is a precise mathematical relationship between a planet's distance from the Sun and the amount of time it takes revolve around the Sun. It was this law that inspired Newton, who came up with three laws of his own to explain why the planets move as they do."

Scripture describes the earth as a flat, domed surface with edges and fixed on pillars. Elsewhere, it says that the earth hangs. Those ideas are both wrong. Science has a different idea about the earth.

No, it didn't. Faith can never be a path to knowledge. Faraday's contributions are all empirically based and could have been made by an atheist. Likewise with Newton.

That's not my definition of faith. Belief is enough, and the belief can't be justified, in which case that belief would also be knowledge.

Yes, and if one believes it, he believes it by faith.

No, you are. "God" isn't here. You are claiming that a god made those claims. I don't believe you or the people who first wrote them.

Yes. Vary from orthodoxy and you've committed a logical fallacy and gone off the reason reservation.

Arithmetic is pure reason. There are rules for adding and no wiggle room. If even one of the hundreds of additions in summing a column of big numbers is wrong, the final answer is wrong. And those rules are agreed upon by consensus. If you choose to see things otherwise, you're on your own:

“Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water."? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?” - Sam Harris

“If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

You can't, which is why you can't be sure that it happened. Practically speaking, we don't worry about such things. We go on as if we did.

It's quite clear. You're struggles arent mine.

 

[shunyadragon]

Oh it's God's fault people don't seek Him for the truth rather than trusting in themselves?

Which omnipotent, all-knowing and all wise God gets the blame that humans are highly flawed and fallible. There are many diverse conflicting views of what is truth? In Creaton God determined the faulty nature of humans to make bad decisions. Of course considering the many diverse conflicting beliefs in God(s) people most often believe some variation what their parents and peers believe..

I prefer to seek knowledge and not the illusive fallible human claim that some sort of truth actually exists from the human perspective.

 

[jimb]

Which omnipotent, all-knowing and all wise God gets the blame that humans are highly flawed and fallible. There are many diverse conflicting views of what is truth? In Creaton God determined the faulty nature of humans to make bad decisions. Of course considering the many diverse conflicting beliefs in God(s) people most often believe some variation what their parents and peers believe..

I prefer to seek knowledge and not the illusive fallible human claim that some sort of truth actually exists from the human perspective.

You seek knowledge and ignore the truth? That is some boast!

 

[Audie]

To be honest, other Christians could say the same about you and your preferred version of Christianity. However, I suspect that you won't accept that it is possible for you to be wrong, as these Christians you disagree with wouldn't believe that they are wrong either. Ironically, you and other Christians who hold opposing beliefs to yours are sure that you are both correct in your convictions, despite the fact that these varying convictions contradict each other.

Hey, god can't be wrong!

 

[Audie]

It's quite clear. You're struggles arent mine.

It's clear "you're" struggle is with spelling.