For John, BLUF: Parties have big contradictions contained within their ranks. Nothing to see here; just move along.
Renee Astee, over at Cappadocia in Lowell, makes a good point about political parties.
Regards — Cliff
Renee Astee, over at Cappadocia in Lowell, makes a good point about political parties.
Regards — Cliff
10 comments:
The Bible can't even keep itself straight. Within the first two pages, we are told first that God created all the animals, then humankind, (Genesis 1:25-27), but then, not even half a dozen paragraphs later, we are told that God created Adam first, and then added the animals afterwards. (Genesis 2:18-19). No wonder all our Bible-thumping politicos and their adherents are so comfortable with contradiction.
Umm. not cool, considering a gross misinterpretation of Genesis?
The Bible isn't a science book, never was. It is a book of why we exist, not how. Two different questions. Ultimately, we're have meaning and purpose to our lives beyond being evolved primates, even though we are indeed that is how we became to be. But Why? I can't accept evolution as being the complete answer, even thought it doesn't answer a lot of missing pieces.
Genesis considering they had limited understanding of science, knew life was created in a process, and not merely imagined. People give the Scripture a hard time, due to the timing of the process.
Time is a unit of measure, based on a human perception. Time doesn't exist in Heaven, God doesn't go by time the same way we understand time. The laws of physics actually come into play, because 'the time' for light to travel and the force of gravity play a key role in keeping everything in place and order.
Marie, are you really interested in getting into this one? (It's constantly amazing to me how poorly familiar otherwise religious and Bible-oriented people are with the book they keep throwing at the rest of the world). You're attributing a "limited understanding of science" to something quite literally impossible to misunderstand that has nothing to do with science or it's denial at all. Quite simply: When you say A happened, then B, and then not even a page later say B happened, then A, it's not for a lack of scientific understanding. It's because you are quite obviously contradicting yourself. It would be good if you could deal with it, but here we are.
So, since you're scratching for a fight, let's review the text, shall we:
(I happen to be partial to my grandfather's Revised Standard Version, but it's not like this stuff is materially different in any other translation--it's pretty straightforward--and I'd welcome you to offer any alternative translation you prefer. And I'll use ellipses to shorten things for brevity's sake, but if you'd like, I'd be happy to type the whole thing out in case you'd continue to prefer to take other people's word about what's in the book rather than reading things for yourself).
Genesis 1:25-27 "God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind ... And God saw that it was good. Then God said 'Let us make humankind in our image' ... So God created humankind in his image".
I'll skip for you the "be fruitful and multiply" part and go straight to the other side OF THE SAME PAGE where it starts talking about Adam:
Genesis 2:18-19 "Then the Lord God said 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner'. So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air..."
We're talking about living with contradiction here. Bible-oriented politicians are by definition starting from a position of contradiction. It's where they live. It's what they say. It's what they do. It's just what it is.
The rest of us are pretty clear on that. It's too bad that you are far too defensive to accept it.
And, yes, if you'd like to keep picking at this, we can get into the Book of Numbers next. (My personal favorite). But this isn't about you denying what is literally said in the Bible vs allegorically intended by the Bible--it's about the simple issue of contradiction. And if you cannot accept that the Bible contradicts itself, then you have far greater problems than I will ever be able to solve for you. (The contradiction between the eye-for-an-eye part, vs the turn the other cheek part, is pretty straightforward, too, while we're on the subject).
But maybe this is just the contradiction between Catholicism, where you were given Priests to interpret the whole thing for you, and intercede on your behalf towards your reward, vs Lutheranism where we were given the whole thing to learn from front to back because we were told to expect that we'd be questioned directly. In any case, I paid attention, and I am forever frustrated at how few others did or do.
Life contradicts itself.
http://www.catholicmemes.com/captions/god-put-a-ring-on-it/
And then God created Saturn… and He liked it, so he put a ring on it.
Troll with a troll.
Again not cool, and unrelated to the issue raised in my post at Cappadocia.
John Henry Newman
"Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."
Freeman Dyson talked about the larger issue in the current issue of The New York Review of Books, reviewing Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist?: An Existenial Detective Story. If humans (or some form of thinking ET) didn't exist, would the world really exist? Who would know? Or care?
One thing that surprised me in reading the article was that science, as "science" came less than two centuries ago, invented by Cambridge College Master William Whewell in 1833. "He was waging a deliberate campaign to establish science as a professional discipline distinct from philosophy."
More than those who don't know the difference between Lutherans and Baptists are those who reject religion for science, but don't peer into the cubbyholes of Darwinism. It seems to me they are living off a large Western cultural deposit, without realizing it or replenishing it.
"After us the deluge."
Regards — Cliff
If more of religion were to offer some reasonable ground inclusive of science, more would prefer to support both. Jesuits, for one relevant example, paradoxically prioritize education, while being based on the bizarre (to some of us, at least) pronouncement that if the Church/Pope declares something to be black that they would likewise maintain it to be black, regardless of knowing better. At least theirs was/is a step in a right direction.
I find that science folk are less dogmatic about their rejection of religion. They by no means reject spirituality en masse, and they often prefer to be men and women of a certain faith. Perhaps this is analogous to certain religious folk embracing science, but the difference in the Catholic example is there is no Pontiff at the top of the "science" pyramid scheme requiring conformity in order to belong.
I find no contradiction in believing there is more beyond what our science can confirm. However, I find unacceptable contradiction in being told that my beliefs are wrong nevertheless.
To me, the Deists had it right when they offered Creation as it's own proof of a/the Creator, with the analogy of a watch itself proving the existence of a watchmaker. Why is it so hard for everyone to be comfortable with the consistency of that? Why do people "of faith" have so little of it, to doubt that their Creator might be perfectly capable to have created us exactly as we are, molecule for molecule, via millennia upon millennia of evolution, like some giant cosmic pool shot among the atoms?
Ironic that such would conceive God to be far more capable than "the faithful" would ever be able to conceive. Ironic that those who deny contradiction deny the very power which they blindly insist can only exist apart from science.
Small minds. Little faith. Sad.
Sigh... how does this conversation relate to the link?
Had a relative inform me back in 1968 a Jesuit told her contraception was OK. Meanwhile I learned about Natural Family Planning, I get mock despite all the knowledge I obtained about my body. It doesn't matter, a Jesuit said it so I'm wrong.
"Parties have big contradictions contained within their ranks".
Yes they do.
So, commenting here, (rather than on the original post if you hadn't noticed the difference), putting the topic of "contradiction" on top of the discussion of Catholicism, I observed that the written basis of Christianity and Catholicism is contradiction.
Is that so hard to follow?
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