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Can you please explain more .
Well
What mean by Dark Age, the time when people wrote Torah or Gospel or both ?
It's not about how many people wrote. (one or many) !!
Many people feel like you do, that you have to literally believe in the Bible exactly. I used to think so, because that was what people told me, however I found out that only Jews have the constraint to obey the law (and possibly are constrained to believe the stories, too). This law is not upon other people.
I believe they are real in the sense that they represent us. We do exist, therefore they do. That's actually more real than simply having lived.
Neither. The Dark Ages were between the 6th and the 14th centuries in the West. It noted as being a long period of intellectual darkness where scholarship and learning fell to the side of the road compared to earlier and later ages.
I think validity is measured by the functional relevance to the age in which it exists. And that depends on the people interpreting it. I think fundamentalists are mortally wounding it to the point it may become completely invalid. These "true believers", are anything but. It's validity is only as good as those who live in the present, or deny it, and thus killing God through their zeal to believe.
Who is this a quote from? I have to acknowledge the truths to what it is saying here, however I wish to make some clarifying points. The empiric-analytic sciences do in fact deal with "only the material world". There is nothing wrong with that, as it has to examine the mechanics of how these things work. The evidence that we evolved from earlier species is all there. It's not disputable. The "how" it works part is not a finished chapter in the story of evolution however. That is something we are continuing to understand.
. It just means the nature of nature is in fact far more subtle than what traditional reductionistic methodologies may suggest. Many scientists agree with that. But again, this does not therefore translate into the creation myths of various religious traditions being factually correct in a literal reading of them.I do agree with this.
I kind of agree, but with conditions. Where I advise caution and wisdom is in this. Reductionist methodologies are "atheistic" only in the sense that they look solely at the components on a material level. Throwing God into the picture as a supernatural breaker of natural laws negates doing the science in the first place. The underlying assumption is the natural world has laws and rules and follows those natural laws and rules. And from most everything we know, that seems to be the fact of it. So that's science's focus - the material world. That's it's discipline. And it is correct in being focused that way in order to do their jobs.
I really don't think it's a conspiracy to kill God. To me what it does is kill myths about God. To me its a reason to for us to look at God in a slightly larger and higher light than reducing science to magical "God did it" answers. God needs to be understood in the light of what we are discovering!
Not quite. We've already proven the truth that evolution happens. How it works, is still a work in progress.
It's not going to be "debunked". We're not going to say evolution does not happen. We have clear evidence it does. But what will happen, is that the picture of how it happens is getting larger. And that is happening already. It's not going to mean the book of Genesis happened exactly as written however! That notion needs to be let go off, not just because of what evolution shows, but for every other legitimate scholarly level outside biology.
I tend to agree. One can only go so far without taking into accounts all these other aspects of our being human. You can't just say they're "freebees" that have no role in shaping our evolution. In fact, one could argue we evolved those, in order to evolve ourselves! Now that can give you some pause to think about.
Yes, and bear in mind, it's not just him at the time who was saying this, but many within science themselves. It's not a prophetic revelation to see these things. Legitamate scientisitsa and philosophers recognized this as well. That's why you've had other pursue such things as the Complexity Sciences. The reductionist answers honestly do not go far enough to explaining how evolution works.
No, it will not fall. It will stand, but expand. Do you understand the difference now?
Who is this a quote from? I have to acknowledge the truths to what it is saying here, however I wish to make some clarifying points. The empiric-analytic sciences do in fact deal with "only the material world". There is nothing wrong with that, as it has to examine the mechanics of how these things work. The evidence that we evolved from earlier species is all there. It's not disputable. The "how" it works part is not a finished chapter in the story of evolution however. That is something we are continuing to understand.
I agree that science has been less than holistic. And that is why you have had the rise of the complexity sciences: systems theory, chaos theory, and the like (see map) to look at the interplay and interactions of other areas in how the individual components are affected and influenced in the end result. What was not talked about in science at the time of the birth of the Baha'i' faith was any of these understandings which are more holistic in nature. Self-Organization examined by Erich Jantsch, or Autopoiesis of Stuart Kaufman shed even more light upon biological evolution and how it works.
I for one do not believe it is entirely 'random', in the sense of just purely arbitrary mutations like, "oops! I guess that worked!", sort of way. I think it's a lot more subtle and 'mysterious' than that. That's not saying the mutations don't happen, but I tend to "feel" the fact they happen has some influences going on outside just arbitrary cell mutation. Environmental pressures influence the 'push' to adapt, sort of thing. But this doesn't make it "magic" in the sense of supernatural interventions, like God sitting up there and saying, "I'm going to do this now", an give that person green eyes instead of brown
I do agree with this.
I kind of agree, but with conditions. Where I advise caution and wisdom is in this. Reductionist methodologies are "atheistic" only in the sense that they look solely at the components on a material level. Throwing God into the picture as a supernatural breaker of natural laws negates doing the science in the first place. The underlying assumption is the natural world has laws and rules and follows those natural laws and rules. And from most everything we know, that seems to be the fact of it. So that's science's focus - the material world. That's it's discipline. And it is correct in being focused that way in order to do their jobs.
That methodology does not mean that it is atheist in the sense of outright denying God exists! This is something I find extremely annoying that people say because science doesn't drag religious figures into its models, sticking God on top of the transition from one species to the next, that they are "atheist scientists". The image created is that of a dark room full of cigar-smoking atheist scientists conspiring together to destroy God and all religious faith. And that's nonsense.
As far as us not just being biological machines, I completely agree! We are thinking and imaginative beings, and we are also spiritual beings. ALL of those factors in fact DO play a role in our very own biological evolution! This is not in dispute here. More and more the complexity sciences recognize this. Culture actually influences evolution. They call it bio-cultural feedback loops. And it goes even deeper than that. We can deliberately alter the shapes of our own brains through practices such as meditation. We are literally choosing to alter the course of our evolution. And when we talk about our spiritual natures, then this gets into ever far deeper waters which I won't go into here as I'll be typing too long for this post. Suffice to say, even though all of this is true, it does not mean it's "outside" of us, or happening outside of the natural system. It just means the natural system is far more subtle and interconnected, literally co-creating itself. That image is far more holistic than just the mechanistic clockwork universe of reductionistic philosophies.
I really don't think it's a conspiracy to kill God. To me what it does is kill myths about God. To me its a reason to for us to look at God in a slightly larger and higher light than reducing science to magical "God did it" answers. God needs to be understood in the light of what we are discovering!
Not quite. We've already proven the truth that evolution happens. How it works, is still a work in progress.
It's not going to be "debunked". We're not going to say evolution does not happen. We have clear evidence it does. But what will happen, is that the picture of how it happens is getting larger. And that is happening already. It's not going to mean the book of Genesis happened exactly as written however! That notion needs to be let go off, not just because of what evolution shows, but for every other legitimate scholarly level outside biology.
I tend to agree. One can only go so far without taking into accounts all these other aspects of our being human. You can't just say they're "freebees" that have no role in shaping our evolution. In fact, one could argue we evolved those, in order to evolve ourselves! Now that can give you some pause to think about.
Yes, and bear in mind, it's not just him at the time who was saying this, but many within science themselves. It's not a prophetic revelation to see these things. Legitamate scientisitsa and philosophers recognized this as well. That's why you've had other pursue such things as the Complexity Sciences. The reductionist answers honestly do not go far enough to explaining how evolution works.
My only objection has to be say that evolution isn't real. All the rest of this is where the rest of the "harmonzing of science and religion" gets interseting. And I will stress here again, that in order for that to happen, we have to be willing to let go of our mythological images of God, and quit trying to hope science will one day confirm the Book of Genesis is scientifically factual. That is never going to happen, nor would we want it to!
No, it will not fall. It will stand, but expand. Do you understand the difference now?
I was duly impressed. Good thoughts. Let's keep them coming.
Don't apologize. I'm thoroughly enjoying our conversation.
This would be true for the human embryo. It's not going to turn into a chicken, one would hope if for no other reason than maintaining the mental well-being of the human mother not giving birth to another species from her body.
No. The same cell will not exist millions of years ago (not a billion). The blueprint for a modern human did not come into existence until the modern human evolved. Then the blueprint began being passed onto its descendants. All blueprints for all life forms did not exist in the first cells. You cannot equate this with embryonic development.
Potential yes, but not the information to make a human. Move the numbers around after a few million years, now you get a human which then passes its number sequence evolution handed them on down to its subsequent generations.
And that's not correct. As I said before we weren't "planned". We evolved. We are simply the result of evolution creating. Once we emerged out of this soup, then we became a thing at that point. Prior to that we were simply "potential" whatevers that happened to take shape into our form, as it did all other forms that are arising from it.
Yes, and that's a point I tried to address before about Platonic Forms. No, they weren't "hidden". There was no iPhone in the mind of God just waiting for evolution to create Steve Jobs.
What existed previously is really one thing, creativity. What best describes evolution is what Whitehead called, "The creative advance into novelty". And that is exactly is. Novelty. Novelty is not uncovering some pre-existent form hidden in the cells, hidden in some "plan of God". It is not making the invisible visible. Novelty means it never existed at all.Until the instructions change within it and the instructions become inherited as it carries those new instructions forward.
And that underscores my very point about wanting to believe we were a "planned child". Somehow, finding out your parents had you by accident seems to us in our minds to mean we weren't loved. But is that in way true? Does that diminish the love of the parents to us knowing we weren't planned? It certainly doesn't diminish their love, but only what we tell ourselves. And that is the core of the issue here. It's not the evidence, but the emotional willingness to accept the reality of our birth because we aren't mature enough to understand Love is not dependent on us being intentional births. To me, it makes us all the more special we were not!!
Don't apologize. I'm thoroughly enjoying our conversation.
This would be true for the human embryo. It's not going to turn into a chicken, one would hope if for no other reason than maintaining the mental well-being of the human mother not giving birth to another species from her body.
No. The same cell will not exist millions of years ago (not a billion). The blueprint for a modern human did not come into existence until the modern human evolved. Then the blueprint began being passed onto its descendants. All blueprints for all life forms did not exist in the first cells. You cannot equate this with embryonic development.
Potential yes, but not the information to make a human. Move the numbers around after a few million years, now you get a human which then passes its number sequence evolution handed them on down to its subsequent generations.
And that's not correct. As I said before we weren't "planned". We evolved. We are simply the result of evolution creating. Once we emerged out of this soup, then we became a thing at that point. Prior to that we were simply "potential" whatevers that happened to take shape into our form, as it did all other forms that are arising from it.
I seriously believe much of this difficulty in people understanding this stems from a certain "denial" that we weren't "planned children". In our minds it reduces our value of our species to ourselves to not consider ourselves as the apple of God's eye, the great achievement of his creation. But that's purely an emotional thing because we don't know yet how to see the absolute brilliance of humanity, not in spite of not being the "best", but specifically because we are not. I'd like to ask you a question regarding this. How does it make you feel to imagine God didn't create us as the crowning achievement of his creation? Would believing that make you feel like you're nothing? I would seriously enjoy discussing this point with you.
Yes, and that's a point I tried to address before about Platonic Forms. No, they weren't "hidden". There was no iPhone in the mind of God just waiting for evolution to create Steve Jobs.
This is evolution. We did not exist in the mind of God, in the eternal plan of God to be human beings. What did however exist in God is Creativity. God is Creativity itself. God creates. God issues forth creativity into form, which takes its course through evolution into myriad and wondrous forms! If I were to anthropomorphic God for a minute, I believe God is both surprised and delighted in everything that takes shape of its own! It is Joy. Creation is Joy. Creation is Life. Life is the divine Joy! Love is that Joy. That Joy is Love.
Until the instructions change within it and the instructions become inherited as it carries those new instructions forward.
And that underscores my very point about wanting to believe we were a "planned child". Somehow, finding out your parents had you by accident seems to us in our minds to mean we weren't loved. But is that in way true? Does that diminish the love of the parents to us knowing we weren't planned? It certainly doesn't diminish their love, but only what we tell ourselves. And that is the core of the issue here. It's not the evidence, but the emotional willingness to accept the reality of our birth because we aren't mature enough to understand Love is not dependent on us being intentional births. To me, it makes us all the more special we were not!!
This is true, of course. Our notions of perfect tend to be quite artificial and unnatural excluding things we arbitrarily decide we don't like. The perfection of God is the Purity of the Eternal within the temporal, the Infinite in the finite, etc.
Where on earth did you find that picture of my 112 millionth great grandmother? I can definitely see the family resemblance in her eyes.
Why would you say that? I think science looks at the purpose of things all the time. The purpose of lungs is to breathe, the purpose of eyes is to see, and so forth.
So then you do not accept the science? You're confusing me here. You say you do, then you say this which rejects the science which says we are in the same kingdom. Perhaps you don't know what these classifications are? Here's a reference so we're on the same page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_(biology)
This is a contradiction to what you said to me in post #144. "Our bodies are considered an animal life form." You then talked about the spiritual aspects of man being different from animals, while accepting that biologically we are part of the animal kingdom. Now you're saying something opposite, again.
But in your rejecting our biology as part of the animal kingdom , you are excluding the science. You're making up your own to fit your theology. Where are these Baha'i' scientists which have entirely different classification systems than the rest of modern science and research of their own? Who are they? What are their names? Where are their published research? You can't just make stuff up and then call it science. It has to actually be science.
Sure, you can understand this as loving creation, of which our evolved life forms is part. Again, I ask you the important question I really would like you to answer, please. I'll repost the question I asked in post #170 here:
Where on earth did you find that picture of my 112 millionth great grandmother? I can definitely see the family resemblance in her eyes.
Well the Baha'is and whatever-Windwalker-is have been let in here, so I'm gonna roam in:
I'd put forth that Love is absolutely core to the nature of God. This being the case, Creation and the development of forms that we observe, including the emergence of humans from ancestors like the fellow pictured below, can only be absolutely perfect in the view of God. With all actions and events stemming from God's creation and setting-in-motion of things, in that context then all must be in some way planned - God has set things up such that all is just as it is now, including having arranged for the emergence of humanity. Being Love, God could not set things up in such a way as to be other than perfect.
In the context of this thread I am speaking of what can be and is considered a Christian point of view, albeight a very updated progressive understanding of it. At that level it does easily respect and embrace other understandings of God from other religions. I have no problem wearing that hat here as it is my native language, so to speak. Mods have been in this thread and not raised a concern, so from my perspective it's fine. If they wish to move it that's fine, but I certainly want to continue this discussion. In all honesty, I like it here in the Christianity DIR as it's something Christians need to understand about how Christianity can and does think the way I am expressing it here, not just the fundamentalist and traditionalist strains of it which many wish to claim Christianity is to the exclusion of other voices.