General Music Chat

As an agent of science, I too question everything. Science questions itself and revises the facts as new evidence is uncovered. I do not accept any premise without evidence.

I wish that religious people would take a little more of a scientific approach to spirituality as well. This is not contradictory. Yes, faith is belie in something unproven, but paradoxically, the more something is proven, the more faith one has. This is evdienced in the disciples of Jesu themselves. They RAN AWAY when Jesus was arrested, and invisible when He was sentenced to death. The were afraid. But after the Resurrection, these same cowards, eventually, one by one, went fearlessly to their own deaths or exhile, without complaint or insecurity. What had changed? Jesus had ressurected. They saw him themselves, and spoke with Him. THEY SAW FIRSTHAND, that He had told them the truth, that after 3 days, He would be raised up.

They were afraid and cowardly one moment.

When more evidence appeared, suddenly their faith increased, and they went fearlessly to their own deaths.

Some of the scientific approach should be applied to spirituality. When spiritual ideas are presented, question them. Test them. When they are shown to be false, reject them in favor of truth.

God doesn't need or want, us lying for Him, or living in bubbles for Him, or finding fanciful excuses for things that science proves false.

Once again, I will state it, that many Christians worship writings INSPIRED by God, as if the writings were God Himself. But the book contains inspirations filtered through a human brain, and this allows for error, or exaggeration. Even worse was the cannonization process, which they themselves KNOW came about through many many years of committees and arguments, until general consensus was arrived at. It is funny how, the same God that allegedly WROTE THE WORDS OF THE BIBLE, seemingly with His own hands, allowed a bunch of theologians to debate and argue which books they would keep in, and which ones they would throw out. If God wrote EACH WORD of the Bible, why didn't He cannonize the thing Himself too?

Christians sometimes have the unfortunate position, that if some ancient myths were included in the biblical compilation of 66 books, then ALL OF THE BIBLE MUST BE MYTH. But this is as bad of an extreme, as the one they already take, which is that myths, like how rainbows came to be, MUST BE TRUE no matter what science discovers to the contrary.

The truth is somewhere in between these extremes.

The Bible represents THOUSANDS of years of thought and revelation. The oldest being the Creation story, and the Flood accounts. It is clear now, that these were ancient accounts of how creation occured, that were passed from culture to culture, and borrowed and incorporated into various cultures, as being the best available understanding at the time.

Why would a rainbow be in the sky?

Hmm....

They only seem to appear after a good rain.

They are shaped funny, and they are pretty and beautiful.

It must be a sign of some kind. It is a perfect bow, and not like clouds, which appear all over and have different shapes. This is a perfect arc, with separated bands of colors, as if someone painted it there!

It must be a message from the gods!

But why?

Well, it comes after a rain, so it must have something to do with rains pouring down! And it is beautiful and not menacing, so maybe it is a sign of peace from the gods? But peace about what?

I know, remember those fish fossils we saw in the mountains? There is no river up there, but we saw sea-life scenes, as if it were a picture, sea plants, and shells and fish outlines, that could only be underwater, yet THERE IS NO WATER this high up!

The only answer, is that water MUST HAVE BEEN THIS HIGH UP at one time! Yes, you must be right! But how would that happen?

A FLOOD!!!!

It could only be a flood so magnificent and terifyingly large that it could cover an entire mountain! That must have taken a month or more! To flood so much that it covered a mountain!

Why would it flood that badly? We've never seen anything like that in OUR lifetimes?

Well, it has to be that the gods were angry! They must have been angry at man's actions, and they flooded the Earth, the entire Earth, because if this high mountain was under water, then the ENTIRE EARTH must have been covered!

Why are we here then?

If our ancestors all died in this flood, we wouldn't be here today would we?

Well, you are right!

It must have been that God found favor with "some" of the people of the world, and spared them. But it couldn't be many people He found favor with, cause as we can see, He flooded the ENTIRE EARTH!

Maybe it was only one family?

But how would they have been spared, when these waters covered the entire Earth? And the land animals would have perished as well, wouldn't they? The only possible answer, is a boat... A HUGE BOAT!!! Big enough for some people, and the ancestors of all the animals we see around us too! God must have told the people to bring a mating pair of each kind of animal to spare them, so they could repopulate the Earth!

Wow! He must have been VERY angry, to even kill all the animals but a remnant! Can you imagine living through that time? Not knowing if the waters would ever recede or not?

And that is why the Rainbow is found in the sky, and only after it rains. It must be a promise of peace, that God would never do such a thing again!

Yes, that must be it!

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In finding fossils on a mountain, where there was no river that high, the only thing ancient people could conceive is that a flood must have reached the tops of those mountains. How else would underwater life, plants and fish be up that high?

They had no knowledge of plate techtonics then, and that mountains can literally rise and fall, as the Earth's crust smashes into itself. They could not possibly envision, that YES, the mountain WAS under water at one time, but rather than the water being raised to reach the mountain, it was the mountain that was raised FROM UNDER THE WATER to it's present position.

True story. This happened just last year at a local church.

They were doing that "testifying thingie" that some indy churches do, & this guy stood up & confessed to having an affair with the preacher's wife.

A friend of mine goes there. He said that you coulda cut the tension with a knife.

I think I'da been pretty embarassed just to have attended to hear that on any given Sunday.

There aren't many ppl that I consider adequate preachers, but the ones that do are the ppl who can talk about specific things that happen to us all, & how we can deal with life's little challenges. There's a guy on TV that's pretty damned good at it. I think his name is Joel something-or-other. He applies his beliefs in good ways, in clear concise language, in a soft-spoken way.

The ppl that shout at the tops of their lungs, or give me big blanketing statements about what I should be doing, are BS artists, & I simply laugh them off.

I've found that there are a LOT of BS artists in any given religion. It disgusts me when I see it. Most of the preachers I've met & spoken to seemed to be some really power-mad bigotted ppl, for the most part, frustrated when they don't get the attention of the entire world.

I just figure that this must be their 1st time around...LOL

Craig, are you a member of the old testament or the new testament of the bible?
And Sans, how about you? new or old?

Although it's not addressed to me I'll answer that. I am a new testament Christian. I believe the whole bible is the inspired word of God. I believe that Christ came and fulfilled the old testament prophecies and that we are under the new law and no longer under the old law.

OK.

Craig, are you a member of the old testament or the new testament of the bible?

Not sure what you mean? Which do I subscribe to?

The Bible is a compilation of 66 books, various pieces of text, written over a period of thousands of years. The Jews finally cannonized some of their sacred texts into the Tanakh, what Christians call "The Old Testament" and Christians wanting their own holy book, kept the Tanakh, although they changed it's ordering and subdivisions, and also included a "New Testament" which contains 4 Gospels, or personal accounts of the Life of Jesus, Acts, which is a history of the ministry of the Apostles of Jesus and the formation of the early church, and 21 personal letters (or epistles) written to various individuals and churches for instruction and guidance, and ending with Revelation, a vast prophetic book, of the end times.

So, the Bible includes manuscripts from various authors, and time periods, including historical content, poetry, prophecy, and personal letters.

It is a compilation of all these, officially canonized to become "scripture" by the church. Although, different churches use different versions of "scripture". Catholics for example, include books that most Protestant churches do not.

I believe the Bible is inspired of God, both Old and New Testaments, but that the earilest manuscripts, were recordings of well-known ancient myths that were accepted truth by MANY cultures and religions at the time.

I don't have a problem with including early myth accounts of Creation, any more than I do with including poetry or personal letters as a part of the Bible's canonization.

While I accept the OBVIOUS truth, that the earliest parts of the Bible are myth-based. I accept the testimonies of later documents, which were generally EYE-WITNESS accounts to what the author witnessed or a contemporary witnessed.

So, for example, when a disciple of Jesus testifies that Jesus ressurrected, I have no problem believing this account of what he witnessed. And when he later died for what he believed, there should be no doubt by ANYONE, that he at least BELIEVED he saw, what he said he saw. Who gives their life up, just to keep a tall tale circulating?

So while anyone can dispute whether they really saw, what they claimed they saw, or that there could be some other explanation, NO ONE should doubt that the disciples BELIEVED everything they testified to, and later recorded in writings.

This is an important and honest way of dealing with the Bible, whether you are a believer or a critic.

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It is not mimicking, it is amplifying. Much like when Christ used the boat to get on the water where his voice would carry.

Nope, nothing like that.

Christ's voice was UNDISTURBED, and UNCHANGED. The sound waves were FROM HIS VOICE, and continued out unaltered.

Not so with a microphone, which turns the acoustical sound waves of your voice, into electrical impulses, which then travel through a wire, and are then reproduced by an amplifier, and sent to the voice coil, which undulates back and forth, in reaction to a magnet set near it. This motion vibrates a speaker cone, which then pressurizes the air around it, producing sounds. But they are not ORIGINAL sounds, and are instead, REPRODUCTIONS of sounds, an APPROXIMATION of what you sound like.

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And you say I cause division.

What's up with this?
http://www.geocities.com/craigmaxim/craig.html

Once again, I will state it, that many Christians worship writings INSPIRED by God, as if the writings were God Himself. But the book contains inspirations filtered through a human brain, and this allows for error, or exaggeration.

You haven’t exactly vindicated science with this statement, Craig The same error prone brain responsible for textual criticism is also responsible for coming up with scientific theories, and then trying to show a possible solution that works. Ironically, because you find one solution that explains the theory doesn't mean there isn't another one that also explains it, but scientists usually stop at the first success and call that truth. Utility does not equal truth.

Christ's voice was UNDISTURBED, and UNCHANGED. The sound waves were FROM HIS VOICE, and continued out unaltered.

Craig, have you ever been in an anechoic chamber? It shows what the voice would sound like completely unaltered by resonance of the voice bouncing off of anything. In other words, a completely unaltered voice would not be heard more than 20 feet away. So the crowds that heard Jesus' voice weren't hearing it UNDISTURBED, and UNCHANGED. The sound waves were from his voice being enhanced by rocks and the ground and everything in the area.
So, if modern technology enhancing the ability to get the Word out is wrong, then the Bible should be passed down word of mouth instead of using the MODERN printing presses.
God gave man the intellect to build PA systems as well as printing presses. The same printing presses that were used to print the books and newsletters that tell your story.
Why are you trying SO hard to prove that Neanderpaul's faith is wrong just because they use a PA system. Jesus didn't carry a Bible, and yet, that is where all your points are coming from. Lighten up, dude.

Once again, I will state it, that many Christians worship writings INSPIRED by God, as if the writings were God Himself. But the book contains inspirations filtered through a human brain, and this allows for error, or exaggeration.

You haven’t exactly vindicated science with this statement, Craig The same error prone brain responsible for textual criticism is also responsible for coming up with scientific theories, and then trying to show a possible solution that works. Ironically, because you find one solution that explains the theory doesn't mean there isn't another one that also explains it, but scientists usually stop at the first
success and call that truth. Utility does not equal truth.

You talk about scientists as if they were one big united group, but that's not how it is at all. Scientists are highly competitive; when one writes a paper promoting a new theory, there's three ready to provide opposing theories. Science does not stop when the first theory is published; the theory is tested, refined and either supported or denounced. That is the beauty of science; it is self-cleansing and seeks to find the truth regardless of the man speaking. I really don't care what religious people believe or do, as long as it doesn't impinge on my rights.

I really don't care what religious people believe or do, as long as it doesn't impinge on my rights.

I agree Jimmy, as long as that shyt goes both ways!

word

Hmmm, let's see, science has provided you a longer life (vaccines, medical treatments, etc), a better life (thank you refrigerator inventer) and a more meaningful life (I know where I fit in in the cosmos). How has that impinged on your rights? Were it not for the scientists we'd still be living in caves. Don't forget to thank science when hit you that loop button or turn your amp on tonight. I know I won't.