Absolutely, By all means, the bible is a book of metaphor..
Like when it says the earth was created in about 6 days? That's a metaphor. What it really means is it took about 4.6 billion years to get to it's present state. And when it says humankind was created by God? that's... also a metaphor. As is Noah's flood, Joshua's long day, the death and resurrection of Christ, the.. uh... existence of Christ? What are you actually left with? Marginally less concrete fact than you'll find in, say, The Da Vinci code, and a lot of metaphor and story telling.
On the other hand, if you choose to take it literally (and hey, I don't make the rules. Most creationists I know DO choose to take it VERY literally), then you have to address the absurdities shown in the lists I linked to.
Naturally, you might decide to take some kind of reasonable middle ground - after all, that seems like, well, a reasonable thing to do. You decide that some things are metaphor, and some aren't. But on what basis do you make that distinction? perhaps the ones that are obviously absurd and contradict what we know are metaphor? Thus leaving only ones that appear to support your position which you can claim are intended literally.. that's called data selection, and is a very dangerous position to get yourself into.
Hi there, It's really nice to see that you appear to be very willing to question your views - always a healthy thing. Regarding the age of the earth, you can find a good explanation of why it is known to be considerably older than 6000 years at the Talk Origins Age Of The Earth FAQ and a collection of more in depth FAQs on relevant subjects here. Of particular interest should be the Solar FAQ which will address your concerns about the age/lifespan of our sun, and this article on 'How the Sun Shines'.
These are by no means exhaustive, or even highly detailed articles on the subjects - indeed, they touch barely the tip of the iceberg in terms of evidence avaliable for the age of our planet, but it should certainly give you a good introduction to the material.
Furthermore, I also have to take you up on your claim that "in anything provable, the bible has so far been correct". For starters, there's a fairly extensive list of conflicts between the bible and known science and history here - and while some of them may seem pedantic, of concern only to the ultra-literalist, there are plenty of others which are problematic at any level of interpretation. Also, there's a rather long list of promises and prophecies which have failed here, and some 360-odd instances of the bible contradicting itself here - and just to assure you no foul play is afoot, while those lists are on the Skeptics Annotated Bible website, that site is merely a standard King James Version with additional sidenotes - by all means, use your own copy of the KJV if you don't trust it.
Anyways, I may not agree with your views or opinions, but I must say I have the highest respect for the fact that you are willing to question them. All too often I see people with religious believes cover their ears and start going "lalalala! I can't hear you!" when their beliefs are challenged, so kudos for actually inviting a challenge:)
Hey, some of us WANT these new ID cards, y'know. Well, I need SOMETHING to scrape ice off my windscreen in winter, and my National Insurance card is almost worn through.
*sigh* Go back and read the post to which you replied. I'm not even going to point out what you (deliberately?) misunderstood, because if it's not embarrassingly obvious to you, then either you're a troll, or you're not somebody it is possible to have a reasonable conversation with.
Science once thought the earth was flat and that everything was made of earth, air, water or fire.
And it was science which corrected those theories too. That's what science does. It's self regulating, self improving. I don't see many peer reviewed religious publications around.
Religion, on the other hand, likes to cling to it's dogma for as long as possible, until it's finally completely untenable, then they break that bit off and even more zealously defend their newly-shrunk field. God exists in the gaps where knowledge doesn't, but the good* news is those gaps are getting smaller with each passing day.
But yeah, you're right. Science is stupid, all scientists are know-nothing morons who just like to dress up in lab coats and pretend they know everything. It's not like it's ever given us anything useful like, say... that computer you're using, or the internet you're reading Slashdot through, or the tools and materials to make that chair you're sitting in, or vehicles, or fuels, or medicines, or information about the planet we live on and the universe we live in, or anything like that.
(*your view may, obviously differ from mine on whether this is a good thing or not)
If we can't duplicate with intent that which is theorized to occur through purely random processes, then that should tell you all you need to know right there. The next thing someone is gonna say is that their AMD64 X2 CPU came about via "natural selection". Get your head of your ass and read the first part of Psalms 14:1,
You appear to be very confused.
Microprocessors do not reproduce. They do not grow. They are inanimate objects. They are very different to living organisms. Also, you appear to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of evolution. It is not a random process, it is a highly directed process using filtered randomisation. As an analogy (not to evolution, to filtered randomisation), fill a box with balls. Cut small holes in the bottom, and shake randomly.. what do you find? the small ones drop out. Wow! Isn't that amazing! A completely undirected random process of shaking the balls in a box caused them to seperate themselves into collections of big and small. Must be the work of God!
Now, on to your biblical reference:
Psalms 14:1: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
I see. And you accept everything the bible says as true, do you? Putting aside your circular reasoning ("It's true because it says it's true") I assume then that you also stand by the following:
Psalms 137:9 - "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones"
Killed anyone for breaking the Sabbath recently? I'm sure it can't be THAT hard to find someone who works on Sunday, just try your local mall or shops, and as a good Christian, it's your duty according to...
Exodus 31:14 - "Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people."
That's the great thing about the bible. It'd damns itself.. as Penn & Teller said, I wish more people would read the damn bible. We need more atheists.
Of course, you might think I'm quote mining, picking up a few isolated things here and there, but there's plentymorewherethosecamefrom
And before I hear any complaints about using the Skeptic's Annontated Bible, it's merely an ordinary King James Version with some annotations at the side.
Let us rejoice, for this is only the tip of the iceberg. Now that science has been redefined, it's time to Teach The Controversy(tm) about all kinds of subjects, after all, we now know that every viewpoint is equal, facts be damned.
History: What if I don't want to believe the holocaust really happened? In fact, while we're throwing out the baby and the bathwater, let's get rid of the whole damn tub too. Can you *REALLY* prove World War 2 happened? It's only a theory, man.
Physics: None of your liberal hippy crap heliocentricism for me, thankyou. I choose to believe that Earth is the centre of the universe and all the other bodies just have really funky orbits.
Geography: And speaking of Earth, there are those who still think it's flat. There's a controversy for you to teach.
Mathematics: The concept of 1+1=2 offends my religious views. I believe that 1+1=God. I also believe that "God" should be an acceptable answer to any and all exam questions, as ultimately He is the answer to everything.
Physics is the only hard science with enough balls to call something a "law."
All other hard sciences are humble enough to allow for future disproof, hence the "theory."/just sayin'
I suggest you go look up the scientific definitions of law and theory. It's common for people to think that a theory is somehow less than a law - that perhaps things are theories at first, kind of like just a guess, and then they get upgraded to laws once they're confirmed. This is, in fact, utterly wrong. In science theory and law are two different things, and neither is "better" or "stronger" than the other. The IDiot chant of "Evolution is just a theory" for example, shows a horrible (deliberate?) misunderstanding of exactly whaat a theory is in scientific terms.
Not only that, the one guy from the Christian science museum or whatever claimed that the Grand Canyon was created in one day by the flood that Noah escaped on his ark! Fucking senile geezer.
Heh.. I suspect that would be Kent Hovind, a.k.a. Dr Dino, who runs the Dino Adventureland "theme park" in his back yard in an effort to brainwash kids into accepting fradulent evidence for biblical creationism while enjoying exciting low budget rides. I won't link because I don't want to help any search engines reach his site, but check out drdino.com sometime, though beware, it may make you violently ill when you see how hard he works to try and indoctrinate kids. On a rather less brain-rotting note, Skeptical Inquirer magazine visited his "theme park" and did a write up on it a couple of years back, which you can read here. Needless to say the verdict is pretty damning.
As Penn & Teller said, it's interesting to note that there are two groups who believe the exact same thing... IDers believe that we were put here by an "unspecified intelligence", which should coincide perfectly with the Raelian belief that were were put here by aliens... yet, put the two in a room fast enough, and the IDer can't back away fast enough.
I guess you can have any "unspecified intelligence" you like so long as it's the Judeo-Christian God.
A very religious Person could argue : "God made the CPU, because he is the creator of everything"
Well, sure, you can argue that God made the universe in which you find the man who designed the factory that built the chip that goes in the computer...
What that fails to take into account however is that The Flying Spaghetti Monster made the God who made the universe in which you find the man who designed the factory that built the chip that goes in the computer...
Can you think of any useful applications for any aspect of biology? Um...medicine?
Um.. yes, thankyou. I kind of thought specific examples weren't required as it should be obvious to anyone that the list of practical uses for biology is nearly endless.
I'm not sure if you just kinda missed my point - perhaps you didn't read the parent to whom I was replying, or whether you really are the one and only Captain Obvious - in which case, it's a great pleasure to finally meet you:)
Can you think of any useful applications for any aspect of biology? If so, there's your answer.
All biology is connected to evolution.
That's a bit like saying "Can anyone think of any useful applications for all this processor and microchip stuff? What does it really give us? Sure, computers and faxes and the internet are handy, but do we really need to know about all this microchip and transistor stuff?"
A very small town is being planned. This town consists of just 6 buildings - 3 houses, and 3 service buildings - a gasworks, a power station, and a waterworks.
Each house must recieve all 3 services - gas, water and electricity. To recieve a service, the house must be connected to the service building by a pipe*. The pipes can be as long as you like, and have as many corners or junctions as needed. However, the pipes from the different services must not cross at any point. The pipes can also not be routed through the houses, the houses are an endpoint only.
So in super-lameo-ASCII vision (ignore the dots, they're just there because Slashdot doesn't seem to like strings of spaces), the design for a 2 house town would look like this:
So the question is, can you find an optimal design for a 3 house town?
*the truly observant amongst you will note that electricity tends to travel down wires rather than pipes. Nothing to say the wire's not inside of a pipe though, is there?
Having said the above, you could just have cunningly disguised the first part of your question by putting it in the subject line of your post. Damn your eyes for being such a master of stealth and disguise!..yeah, okay, I'm an idiot.
I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, and every sack had seven cats, and ever cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?
There is no meaningful answer to your question.
You haven't specified who, if anyone, is going to St Ives, but presumably it's zero.
I think the question you were looking for is:
As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, and every sack had seven cats, and ever cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?
I presume you have "cellar door" in your sig due to the fact it's often said those particular words has an especially attractive sound when detached from their individual meanings. This has been attributed to various different people, and often just "a famous linguist". In fact it was J.R.R Tolkien who said it in his essay "English and Welsh"
Just thought you might want to know... probably not though. We now return you to your irregularly programmed schedule.
I wonder if the RIAA boss would put his pinky to his mouth when he demanded that? And if you can't pay up, they set the sharks with lasers on their heads on you.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely, By all means, the bible is a book of metaphor..
Like when it says the earth was created in about 6 days? That's a metaphor. What it really means is it took about 4.6 billion years to get to it's present state. And when it says humankind was created by God? that's... also a metaphor. As is Noah's flood, Joshua's long day, the death and resurrection of Christ, the.. uh... existence of Christ?
What are you actually left with? Marginally less concrete fact than you'll find in, say, The Da Vinci code, and a lot of metaphor and story telling.
On the other hand, if you choose to take it literally (and hey, I don't make the rules. Most creationists I know DO choose to take it VERY literally), then you have to address the absurdities shown in the lists I linked to.
Naturally, you might decide to take some kind of reasonable middle ground - after all, that seems like, well, a reasonable thing to do. You decide that some things are metaphor, and some aren't. But on what basis do you make that distinction? perhaps the ones that are obviously absurd and contradict what we know are metaphor? Thus leaving only ones that appear to support your position which you can claim are intended literally.. that's called data selection, and is a very dangerous position to get yourself into.
Hi there,
:)
It's really nice to see that you appear to be very willing to question your views - always a healthy thing.
Regarding the age of the earth, you can find a good explanation of why it is known to be considerably older than 6000 years at the Talk Origins Age Of The Earth FAQ and a collection of more in depth FAQs on relevant subjects here. Of particular interest should be the Solar FAQ which will address your concerns about the age/lifespan of our sun, and this article on 'How the Sun Shines'.
These are by no means exhaustive, or even highly detailed articles on the subjects - indeed, they touch barely the tip of the iceberg in terms of evidence avaliable for the age of our planet, but it should certainly give you a good introduction to the material.
Furthermore, I also have to take you up on your claim that "in anything provable, the bible has so far been correct". For starters, there's a fairly extensive list of conflicts between the bible and known science and history here - and while some of them may seem pedantic, of concern only to the ultra-literalist, there are plenty of others which are problematic at any level of interpretation. Also, there's a rather long list of promises and prophecies which have failed here, and some 360-odd instances of the bible contradicting itself here - and just to assure you no foul play is afoot, while those lists are on the Skeptics Annotated Bible website, that site is merely a standard King James Version with additional sidenotes - by all means, use your own copy of the KJV if you don't trust it.
Anyways, I may not agree with your views or opinions, but I must say I have the highest respect for the fact that you are willing to question them. All too often I see people with religious believes cover their ears and start going "lalalala! I can't hear you!" when their beliefs are challenged, so kudos for actually inviting a challenge
Billions and billions? Shouldn't it be the Sagannet?
WTF do they do with all the hundreds of small items that they confiscate each day?
They sell them. Ever wanted to buy a 10 lb bag of scissors? here's yer chance.
Hey, some of us WANT these new ID cards, y'know.
Well, I need SOMETHING to scrape ice off my windscreen in winter, and my National Insurance card is almost worn through.
*sigh*
Go back and read the post to which you replied. I'm not even going to point out what you (deliberately?) misunderstood, because if it's not embarrassingly obvious to you, then either you're a troll, or you're not somebody it is possible to have a reasonable conversation with.
Yes, the SIMPLE believeth every word.
Science once thought the earth was flat and that everything was made of earth, air, water or fire.
And it was science which corrected those theories too. That's what science does. It's self regulating, self improving. I don't see many peer reviewed religious publications around.
Religion, on the other hand, likes to cling to it's dogma for as long as possible, until it's finally completely untenable, then they break that bit off and even more zealously defend their newly-shrunk field. God exists in the gaps where knowledge doesn't, but the good* news is those gaps are getting smaller with each passing day.
But yeah, you're right. Science is stupid, all scientists are know-nothing morons who just like to dress up in lab coats and pretend they know everything. It's not like it's ever given us anything useful like, say... that computer you're using, or the internet you're reading Slashdot through, or the tools and materials to make that chair you're sitting in, or vehicles, or fuels, or medicines, or information about the planet we live on and the universe we live in, or anything like that.
(*your view may, obviously differ from mine on whether this is a good thing or not)
If we can't duplicate with intent that which is theorized to occur through purely random processes, then that should tell you all you need to know right there. The next thing someone is gonna say is that their AMD64 X2 CPU came about via "natural selection". Get your head of your ass and read the first part of Psalms 14:1,
You appear to be very confused.
Microprocessors do not reproduce. They do not grow. They are inanimate objects. They are very different to living organisms.
Also, you appear to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of evolution. It is not a random process, it is a highly directed process using filtered randomisation. As an analogy (not to evolution, to filtered randomisation), fill a box with balls. Cut small holes in the bottom, and shake randomly.. what do you find? the small ones drop out. Wow! Isn't that amazing! A completely undirected random process of shaking the balls in a box caused them to seperate themselves into collections of big and small. Must be the work of God!
Now, on to your biblical reference:
Psalms 14:1: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
I see. And you accept everything the bible says as true, do you? Putting aside your circular reasoning ("It's true because it says it's true") I assume then that you also stand by the following:
Psalms 137:9 - "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones"
Killed anyone for breaking the Sabbath recently? I'm sure it can't be THAT hard to find someone who works on Sunday, just try your local mall or shops, and as a good Christian, it's your duty according to...
Exodus 31:14 - "Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people."
That's the great thing about the bible. It'd damns itself.. as Penn & Teller said, I wish more people would read the damn bible. We need more atheists.
Of course, you might think I'm quote mining, picking up a few isolated things here and there, but there's plenty more where those came from
And before I hear any complaints about using the Skeptic's Annontated Bible, it's merely an ordinary King James Version with some annotations at the side.
Let us rejoice, for this is only the tip of the iceberg. Now that science has been redefined, it's time to Teach The Controversy(tm) about all kinds of subjects, after all, we now know that every viewpoint is equal, facts be damned.
History: What if I don't want to believe the holocaust really happened? In fact, while we're throwing out the baby and the bathwater, let's get rid of the whole damn tub too. Can you *REALLY* prove World War 2 happened? It's only a theory, man.
Physics: None of your liberal hippy crap heliocentricism for me, thankyou. I choose to believe that Earth is the centre of the universe and all the other bodies just have really funky orbits.
Geography: And speaking of Earth, there are those who still think it's flat. There's a controversy for you to teach.
Mathematics: The concept of 1+1=2 offends my religious views. I believe that 1+1=God. I also believe that "God" should be an acceptable answer to any and all exam questions, as ultimately He is the answer to everything.
Everybody knows that the Toast King owns the entire moon
(links are to flash animations, for anyone who feels they should be warned of that kind of thing)
Physics is the only hard science with enough balls to call something a "law."
/just sayin'
All other hard sciences are humble enough to allow for future disproof, hence the "theory."
I suggest you go look up the scientific definitions of law and theory. It's common for people to think that a theory is somehow less than a law - that perhaps things are theories at first, kind of like just a guess, and then they get upgraded to laws once they're confirmed. This is, in fact, utterly wrong. In science theory and law are two different things, and neither is "better" or "stronger" than the other. The IDiot chant of "Evolution is just a theory" for example, shows a horrible (deliberate?) misunderstanding of exactly whaat a theory is in scientific terms.
Not only that, the one guy from the Christian science museum or whatever claimed that the Grand Canyon was created in one day by the flood that Noah escaped on his ark! Fucking senile geezer.
Heh.. I suspect that would be Kent Hovind, a.k.a. Dr Dino, who runs the Dino Adventureland "theme park" in his back yard in an effort to brainwash kids into accepting fradulent evidence for biblical creationism while enjoying exciting low budget rides.
I won't link because I don't want to help any search engines reach his site, but check out drdino.com sometime, though beware, it may make you violently ill when you see how hard he works to try and indoctrinate kids.
On a rather less brain-rotting note, Skeptical Inquirer magazine visited his "theme park" and did a write up on it a couple of years back, which you can read here. Needless to say the verdict is pretty damning.
As Penn & Teller said, it's interesting to note that there are two groups who believe the exact same thing...
IDers believe that we were put here by an "unspecified intelligence", which should coincide perfectly with the Raelian belief that were were put here by aliens... yet, put the two in a room fast enough, and the IDer can't back away fast enough.
I guess you can have any "unspecified intelligence" you like so long as it's the Judeo-Christian God.
A very religious Person could argue : "God made the CPU, because he is the creator of everything"
Well, sure, you can argue that God made the universe in which you find the man who designed the factory that built the chip that goes in the computer...
What that fails to take into account however is that The Flying Spaghetti Monster made the God who made the universe in which you find the man who designed the factory that built the chip that goes in the computer...
Can you think of any useful applications for any aspect of biology? Um...medicine?
:)
Um.. yes, thankyou. I kind of thought specific examples weren't required as it should be obvious to anyone that the list of practical uses for biology is nearly endless.
I'm not sure if you just kinda missed my point - perhaps you didn't read the parent to whom I was replying, or whether you really are the one and only Captain Obvious - in which case, it's a great pleasure to finally meet you
I'm flabberghasted.
Can you think of any useful applications for any aspect of biology?
If so, there's your answer.
All biology is connected to evolution.
That's a bit like saying "Can anyone think of any useful applications for all this processor and microchip stuff? What does it really give us? Sure, computers and faxes and the internet are handy, but do we really need to know about all this microchip and transistor stuff?"
Sigged :P
Jack Thompson really needs to pick his targets better. After all, GTA:SA or Manhunt may have shocking content, but they look like an episode of the Tellytubbies in comparison to the bible with all it's cruelty and violence, intolerance, injustice, questionable 'family values', and misogyny
Heck, there are some people who'd be amazed by:
1. Type in your SSN number
2. HOLY CRAP DUDE! Look! The calculator knows your SSN! Hackers must've got in 'cuz it was broadcasting an IP address!
A very small town is being planned. This town consists of just 6 buildings - 3 houses, and 3 service buildings - a gasworks, a power station, and a waterworks.
Each house must recieve all 3 services - gas, water and electricity.
To recieve a service, the house must be connected to the service building by a pipe*. The pipes can be as long as you like, and have as many corners or junctions as needed. However, the pipes from the different services must not cross at any point. The pipes can also not be routed through the houses, the houses are an endpoint only.
So in super-lameo-ASCII vision (ignore the dots, they're just there because Slashdot doesn't seem to like strings of spaces), the design for a 2 house town would look like this:So the question is, can you find an optimal design for a 3 house town?
*the truly observant amongst you will note that electricity tends to travel down wires rather than pipes. Nothing to say the wire's not inside of a pipe though, is there?
Answer in ROT-13. Paste here to decode
Ybbx pnershyyl ng gur dhrfgvba, "pna lbh svaq na bcgvzny qrfvta?" Ab, lbh pnaabg, fvapr lbh pna'g svaq n jbexvat qrfvta ng nyy. Vs lbh jnag gb trg ernyyl fznegnefr nobhg vg lbh pna chapu n ubyr guebhtu lbhe cncre naq pbaarpg lbhe cvcr gb gur bgure fvqr, be jenc nebhaq gur rqtrf gb onfvpnyyl znxr vg 3 qvzrafvbany naq nibvq pebffvat lbhe yvarf, ohg ernyyl, gung'q or nobhg nf purnc nf.. jryy, nf zr nfxvat guvf dhrfgvba va gur svefg cynpr.
Did it! ..only problem is now my monitor has marker lines all over it :(
Having said the above, you could just have cunningly disguised the first part of your question by putting it in the subject line of your post. ..yeah, okay, I'm an idiot.
Damn your eyes for being such a master of stealth and disguise!
I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, and every sack had seven cats, and ever cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?
There is no meaningful answer to your question.
You haven't specified who, if anyone, is going to St Ives, but presumably it's zero.
I think the question you were looking for is:
As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, and every sack had seven cats, and ever cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?
About your sig..
I presume you have "cellar door" in your sig due to the fact it's often said those particular words has an especially attractive sound when detached from their individual meanings. This has been attributed to various different people, and often just "a famous linguist". In fact it was J.R.R Tolkien who said it in his essay "English and Welsh"
Just thought you might want to know... probably not though.
We now return you to your irregularly programmed schedule.
I wonder if the RIAA boss would put his pinky to his mouth when he demanded that? And if you can't pay up, they set the sharks with lasers on their heads on you.