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Thread: They Sold Their Souls

  1. #121
    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." That was the first day of our being as given to Moses to write down for the benefit of the Israelites and subsequently us. It was Jesus Christ Who did that to begin a story that was ordained before the worlds were made and eventually given to us in 66 great Books that compile our Bible. The whole point of that Book is that it can save you or it can destroy your future which only time will tell. Being already condemned do you really want to remain in that situation?
    Mosaic authorship = an assumption that nothing in the text proves.

    " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Again only if you believe the book and not some other religion.

    "given to us in 66 great Books that compile our Bible" Well there are they just got edited out or lost (and occasionally redound)
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  2. #122

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Mosaic authorship = an assumption that nothing in the text proves.
    Christian theistic evolution essentially argues that the text isn’t directly relevant to and therefore not in conflict with the possibility of “guided” evolutionary biology. The problem with that workaround, though, is there’s no context left to indicate how anyone knows the “intelligent designer” in this scenario is the God of the Bible and not some other entity. To me, the rhetorical exercise is just a variation on the same appeal to ignorance that demands science prove a negative, or at least advance beyond ever-shifting goalposts, absolving religious origin stories of any need for evidence while also ensuring science will never have enough.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=pwnerL8M1pE
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  3. #123

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Thesaurian View Post
    Christian theistic evolution essentially argues that the text isn’t directly relevant to and therefore not in conflict with the possibility of “guided” evolutionary biology. The problem with that workaround, though, is there’s no context left to indicate how anyone knows the “intelligent designer” in this scenario is the God of the Bible and not some other entity. To me, the rhetorical exercise is just a variation on the same appeal to ignorance that demands science prove a negative, or at least advance beyond ever-shifting goalposts, absolving religious origin stories of any need for evidence while also ensuring science will never have enough.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=pwnerL8M1pE
    Christian evolutionists (the majority of Christians according to the cited Pew data) do not demand that science proves anything; they simply assert the existence of a prime mover. Evolution itself is not an ontological argument. Like all scientific discovery/observation it is not in inherent conflict with other ways of knowing. From an epistemological perspective, there is a contradiction in accepting scientific revisions while denying theological ones.



  4. #124

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    The “simply asserting” part is why religion is not equivalent to science. The conflict typically arises when someone tries to claim that it is.
    Last edited by Lord Thesaurian; January 20, 2022 at 01:48 PM.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  5. #125

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by fkizz View Post
    There was a functionality reason for millenia one was suposed to study 6-8 years before interpreting the Bible. If Bible was literal, not even one year would be needed in traditional settings.

    Define young earth creationism. You're mixing up people of almost 2 millenia ago with modern protestant denominations today, when ancient Christianity always went for non-literalism in the Bible.
    YEC as the modern phenomna of a 6000 year earth is honestly beyond me, Sumeria is ~6000 years old and epic of gilgamesh speaks of a giant flood and pre-flood people, same for Xia Dinasty in Ancient China claims of a giant flood, 6000 years YEC are ironically sceptical of the great flood given there is very little time left to make the flood relevant to such a point.

    That said in ancient times geology was less advanced and even knowing the earth was round people had to trust math and numbers ran by astrologists and math enthusiasts, even in Ancient Athens. Creationism vs whatever else of the time wasn't a religious issue but a product of its time.

    So the Bible was never intended to be interpreted literally, in middle ages there was ~7 year period training before you would qualify to be an official interpreter for a reason, just knowing what it said or reading it wouldn't do the job, and in Roman times it wasn't meant to be taken literally.
    Biblical literalism went viral when a several layers-depth text became an easy surface read, like reading the newspaper.

    Actually before Council of Nicea one of the problems of Constantine was Bishops being too flexible on Biblical interpretation, Coucil of Nicea demanded consensus, its mere existance and Sponsorship by the Emperor wouldn't make sense if Biblical Literalism was already thing.
    Young-earth creationism is the view that humanity and the world were created by God and that this took place only a few thousand years ago. This is distinguished from the view that humanity evolved from other lifeforms over the course of millions of years.

    I feel like you're drawing a distinction between 20th-century YEC and pre-20th-century YEC when no such distinction is warranted. Theories of deep time and evolution weren't unknown to patristic, medieval and Reformation writers, and when you read their reasoning for rejecting these theories, it's explicitly religious and rooted in the Bible rather than personal prejudice or incredulity. They don't reject evolution and deep time because they're unsatisfied with the proposed mechanisms or explanations for them, but because they consider the ideas themselves to be contrary to the Word of God. For example, Augustine writes in The City of God:

    Unbelievers are also deceived by false documents which ascribe to history many thousand years, although we can calculate from Sacred Scripture that not 6,000 years have passed since the creation of man.
    Note Augustine's basis for believing in a recent creation date: the sacred Scriptures, the same ones Christians rely on today.

    We can have a reasonable debate about whether or not young-earth creationism is the correct interpretation of Scripture, but it's beyond dispute that this is a historical interpretation and one shared by the most prominent patristic, medieval and Reformation theologians.
    Last edited by Prodromos; January 20, 2022 at 02:54 PM.
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  6. #126

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Thesaurian View Post
    The “simply asserting” part is why religion is not equivalent to science. The conflict typically arises when someone tries to claim that it is.
    I don't know anyone who has claimed that religion and science are the same. Acknowledging the merits of science does not preclude one from finding value/meaning/truth in philosophy or theology.



  7. #127

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Using the Bible as a source for scientific hypotheses or benchmarks is common throughout Church history, and multiple examples have been given from early fathers to the present day. That’s why the estimate of several thousand years since creation as opposed to billions of years of evolution is a widely used metric. One reason science and religion are not equivalent is because when scientific evidence and religious doctrine conflict, that means religion has a problem, not science. To insist there is room for religious speculation in that narrowing gap which is still unknown to science is to concede the premise. That’s how modern Christianity has arrived at discarding the Biblical account as allegorical flourish, in favor of theistic evolution, to begin with.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  8. #128

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Thesaurian View Post
    If nothing else, the basic problem of the Biblical creation account is not a question of context or symbolism. It represents the fundamental misunderstanding of the world inherent to the Mesopotamian creation myths overall: the assumption itself that what one might call “creation” happened in any one moment in time.
    I think an overemphasis on the etiological aspect of creation myths is somewhat of a modern Western misunderstanding of their social function. These are symbolic narratives by their nature. The vast majority of people alive today and throughout history didn’t/don’t have any codified system of distinguishing different forms of knowledge. Even in modern societies that are dependent upon the scientific knowledge of some subset of the population, few people have much use for distinguishing between scientific fact and moral narrative. My opinion here draws heavily upon the ethnographic literature I was exposed to when I started out in sociocultural anthropology, but it really became clear to me when I was interviewing West Africans from a few different ethnic groups about their creation myths. It was difficult to ascertain what exactly they considered to be literally true in a factual sense and it was as if thinking about the myths in that way had never occurred to them before, but two things were clear: (1) that they saw their creation myths as abstractions in some sense, and (2) that they really didn’t think it was important as to whether or not the myths were literally true or not, despite being certain that they were true in some sense. Similar observations have been made across many cultures. Creation myths are first and foremost a compelling vehicle in which to carry meaning.

    When I read Genesis from a strictly secular historical perspective, I can’t see that it was intended to be taken literally. It certainly has layers of meaning, some of which aren’t obvious without historical context. I’ll give some examples. First, there is Tehōm in Genesis 1:2. Usually translated as “the deep”, this is the primordial sea, associated in Canaanite mythology with Yām, the god of the sea, who battles Baᶜal Hadād, the head of the Canaanite pantheon. Likewise, Tehōm is Tiāmat in Akkadian, who is defeated by Marduk in the Babylonian creation myth. Again, Marduk being the head of the respective pantheon. In Genesis, Tehōm is neither a deity nor a threat to ᵓĚlōhīm (God). Rather, it is simply a thing that is easily reshaped according to God’s will. In Genesis 1:16, two more Semitic deities are similarly demythologized. For this message to come across, the text depends upon an audience being familiar with the Canaanite and/or Mesopotamian myths.

    From there it goes though the six days or creation that are arranged in a poetic/symbolic form that employs structural symmetry: the light is paired with the sun, the moon, and the stars; the sea and sky are paired with the fish and the birds; the land and plants are paired with animals and humans. Literally word for word in this section: “God created man in his image. In the image of God, he created him – male and female he created them”.

    At Genesis 2:4, it’s as if a new creation story begins with another story of the creation of man. In this section (in contrast to the previous one) God is referred to by his name Yahweh, which is literally that which causes to exist. Now he creates a man, whose name is literally “a man” or “man” in the generic sense and from him a woman, whose name is “life giver” an epithet of the Canaanite mother goddess. Again, this appears to be a demythologization. There is no apparent concern for making this second narrative consonant in a factual sense with first narrative. Though there are no jarring contradictions, this has been a concern of many modern commentators.

    Though most believers of the Abrahamic religions consider God to have created the Universe, creation of matter is not actually addressed in the text, only the arrangement of matter. It also doesn’t say “In the beginning”. The definite article is missing from the Hebrew text, but that makes it hard to translate. Maybe it could be something like “when beginning” or very literally “in beginning”.

    I'm just brushing over some issues that may be missed in a plain reading of the English text. If I went further into the primeval history as outlined in Genesis, I could point out time and again how characters have names that indicate their role in the story. This is not how stories that are meant to be understood as factual history are written.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  9. #129

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz
    I think an overemphasis on the etiological aspect of creation myths is somewhat of a modern Western misunderstanding of their social function. These are symbolic narratives by their nature. The vast majority of people alive today and throughout history didn’t/don’t have any codified system of distinguishing different forms of knowledge. Even in modern societies that are dependent upon the scientific knowledge of some subset of the population, few people have much use for distinguishing between scientific fact and moral narrative. My opinion here draws heavily upon the ethnographic literature I was exposed to when I started out in sociocultural anthropology, but it really became clear to me when I was interviewing West Africans from a few different ethnic groups about their creation myths. It was difficult to ascertain what exactly they considered to be literally true in a factual sense and it was as if thinking about the myths in that way had never occurred to them before, but two things were clear: (1) that they saw their creation myths as abstractions in some sense, and (2) that they really didn’t think it was important as to whether or not the myths were literally true or not, despite being certain that they were true in some sense. Similar observations have been made across many cultures. Creation myths are first and foremost a compelling vehicle in which to carry meaning.
    As far as the other monotheists are concerned, it seems Islam and Judaism have managed to relatively avoid the controversy, so that makes sense. Even among Christians today, it’s a uniquely Protestant issue due to the reliance on the authority of the Bible. That said, the belief that God created everything in existence ex nihilo as described in Genesis was standard doctrine until the 19th century. Under more modern assumptions of theistic evolution, conflict with the Biblical message is inevitable. As you mention, that’s the problem with an emphasis on the Genesis account as causal or explanatory. Unfortunately such emphasis is fundamental to the Christian story of the world.
    This [theistic evolution] vision of the origin and development of species in general, and human beings in particular, conflicts with the biblical account, even when infused with an appeal to divine direction and purpose. Evolutionary creationists deny the Genesis 1 account of God’s specific and immediate (not mediated by natural processes) creation of fish, birds, land animals, and finally human beings, choosing instead to say that God created each of these living beings through natural mechanisms over long periods of time. Implicit in their position is also a denial of the biblical account of the fall, since such an evolutionary process has no room for a historical Adam and Eve.

    https://www.desiringgod.org/articles...e-in-evolution
    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz
    At Genesis 2:4, it’s as if a new creation story begins with another story of the creation of man. In this section (in contrast to the previous one) God is referred to by his name Yahweh, which is literally that which causes to exist. Now he creates a man, whose name is literally “a man” or “man” in the generic sense and from him a woman, whose name is “life giver” an epithet of the Canaanite mother goddess. Again, this appears to be a demythologization. There is no apparent concern for making this second narrative consonant in a factual sense with first narrative. Though there are no jarring contradictions, this has been a concern of many modern commentators.
    I’ve been struck by that as well on the annual read-through. The word “day” is the same as the one used for the multiple days of creation, יוֹם, yome, which afaik typically refers to divisible periods of time if not literal days. In any case, perceived conflict between evolutionary biology and the Bible among the religious tends to favor the Bible. Intuitive I suppose, but I stumbled upon this:

    https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.19-05-0106

    All this to say there should be enough bias in play to come up with a factually consistent theology on this that is also consistent with some coherent reading of the text, if the text is true in any relevant sense. Maybe there is and I just haven’t heard of it. I hear a day for the Hindu Brahma is equal to 4.32 billion years. Go figure.
    When I read Genesis from a strictly secular historical perspective, I can’t see that it was intended to be taken literally. It certainly has layers of meaning, some of which aren’t obvious without historical context. I’ll give some examples. First, there is Tehōm in Genesis 1:2. Usually translated as “the deep”, this is the primordial sea, associated in Canaanite mythology with Yām, the god of the sea, who battles Baᶜal Hadād, the head of the Canaanite pantheon. Likewise, Tehōm is Tiāmat in Akkadian, who is defeated by Marduk in the Babylonian creation myth. Again, Marduk being the head of the respective pantheon. In Genesis, Tehōm is neither a deity nor a threat to ᵓĚlōhīm (God). Rather, it is simply a thing that is easily reshaped according to God’s will. In Genesis 1:16, two more Semitic deities are similarly demythologized. For this message to come across, the text depends upon an audience being familiar with the Canaanite and/or Mesopotamian myths.

    From there it goes though the six days or creation that are arranged in a poetic/symbolic form that employs structural symmetry: the light is paired with the sun, the moon, and the stars; the sea and sky are paired with the fish and the birds; the land and plants are paired with animals and humans. Literally word for word in this section: “God created man in his image. In the image of God, he created him – male and female he created them”.

    Though most believers of the Abrahamic religions consider God to have created the Universe, creation of matter is not actually addressed in the text, only the arrangement of matter. It also doesn’t say “In the beginning”. The definite article is missing from the Hebrew text, but that makes it hard to translate. Maybe it could be something like “when beginning” or very literally “in beginning”.
    I think the problem this presents to modern Christian observers by the nature of the text is, if it’s at all true in some sense, it nevertheless must be made clear what sense that is. Christians consider the Old Testament a teleology pointing from the first human to Jesus, so a causal reading is baked in by any reading I can come up with. Most Protestants consider the Bible to be unerring and infallible based on writings from John, Peter and Paul. I suspect a critical comparison to similar mythology wouldn’t do any favors in that regard, but who knows. Stranger things have been tried.
    I'm just brushing over some issues that may be missed in a plain reading of the English text. If I went further into the primeval history as outlined in Genesis, I could point out time and again how characters have names that indicate their role in the story. This is not how stories that are meant to be understood as factual history are written.
    I think Paul spoke to that as well when he juxtaposed Jesus to Adam in I Corinthians 15. Perhaps one could read both men figuratively. Whoever Adam is meant to symbolize, his function as the original cause of physical and spiritual death in the world is remedied by Jesus and the promise of the resurrection, the fundamental bookends of Christian theology. I suspect Adam being the chance evolutionary byproduct of untold thousands of generations of creatures who lived and died before him would present problems if the text is meant to be true in any dogmatic sense, New or Old Testament. If the beginning of the story is just an allegorical myth, perhaps the end is as well.
    Last edited by Lord Thesaurian; January 20, 2022 at 09:06 PM.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  10. #130
    ggggtotalwarrior's Avatar hey it geg
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    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Ok but what does any of this have to do with schizophrenic ramblings about musicians selling their souls to Satan?
    Rep me and I'll rep you back.

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  11. #131

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Thesaurian View Post
    I’ve been struck by that as well on the annual read-through. The word “day” is the same as the one used for the multiple days of creation, יוֹם, yome, which afaik typically refers to divisible periods of time if not literal days.
    The suggestion that yōwm in its typical usage means anything other than a literal day seems to arise from a desire to interpret Genesis 1 as literally consistent with modern science, which is circular reasoning in my opinion, and doesn't actually accomplish its goal considering the sequence of events (which I'll return to). The word can be used to refer to an indeterminate span of time, but to my recollection, these cases are always plural. Genesis 4:3 is often translated as "in the course of time" but it is literally "in the course of days". In 1 Kings 1:1, it is often translated as "years", but it is literally "King David was old and advanced in days". The only reason to translate it as "years" instead of "days" is to match the idiom in English. Hebrew has a similar idiom that uses days. Likewise, we may say "for years" to indicate a long time. In Hebrew, it would be "for days". In English, we do have the idiom "in those days", but it doesn't change the length of time a day represents.

    I found an illustration of the structural symmetry I was referring to:

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    This follows a typical structure of Hebrew poetry. As does the AAB form here: “God created man in his image. In the image of God, he created him – male and female he created them”. It's a parallelism followed by a contrast. Something that occurs over and over in the biblical text.

    The assumed reason for these forms, in addition to aesthetics, is that they facilitated memorization of the texts in an almost entirely non-literate society. Even today, some Haredi kids manage to memorize the first five books of the Bible word for word by age 13. An archaeologist I work with at TAU was doing a presentation at a Haredi school in which he was reading some passages, and the entire class corrected him on his pronunciation of a particular word. He looked down at the vowel pointing and noticed in this particular case the word had an atypical pronunciation, which the kids remembered without having it in front of them.

    Here's an example that always sticks in my head:

    qaḥ-nā ᵓeṯ-binḵā ᵓeṯ-yəḥîḏḵā ᵓăšer-ᵓāhaḇtā ᵓeṯ-yiṣḥāq

    The syllables are 2 then 3 then 4 then 5, all rhyming until the final one that breaks the numerical pattern.

    The literal meaning is "take now, your son, your only, whom you love, Isaac".

    Quote Originally Posted by ggggtotalwarrior View Post
    Ok but what does any of this have to do with schizophrenic ramblings about musicians selling their souls to Satan?
    The thread seems to have gone the way of almost every other EMM thread.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  12. #132

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz
    The suggestion that yōwm in its typical usage means anything other than a literal day seems to arise from a desire to interpret Genesis 1 as literally consistent with modern science, which is circular reasoning in my opinion, and doesn't actually accomplish its goal considering the sequence of events (which I'll return to). The word can be used to refer to an indeterminate span of time, but to my recollection, these cases are always plural. Genesis 4:3 is often translated as "in the course of time" but it is literally "in the course of days". In 1 Kings 1:1, it is often translated as "years", but it is literally "King David was old and advanced in days". The only reason to translate it as "years" instead of "days" is to match the idiom in English. Hebrew has a similar idiom that uses days. Likewise, we may say "for years" to indicate a long time. In Hebrew, it would be "for days". In English, we do have the idiom "in those days", but it doesn't change the length of time a day represents.
    Thanks that makes sense from the standpoint of narrative consistency. I think you’re right that the malleability of the usage of yōwm has mostly been interpreted in the west by a need for basic factual consistency. For my part I was just looking for the semantic, so the idiomatic explanation and English liberties with translation accomplish that. One other interesting usage I found was in Genesis 6:5, where God observes “that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (yōwm - daily?),” yet in the next chapter, the word again refers to a literal day on which the global flood began. There are also some interesting appearances in Job referring to relative ages of people and at least one case that seems lost in translation (30:25). By and large the most common usage seems to refer to literal days, and as you say, any grey area comes from plural or subsequently idiomatic usage.
    I found an illustration of the structural symmetry I was referring to:

    This follows a typical structure of Hebrew poetry. As does the AAB form here: “God created man in his image. In the image of God, he created him – male and female he created them”. It's a parallelism followed by a contrast. Something that occurs over and over in the biblical text.

    The assumed reason for these forms, in addition to aesthetics, is that they facilitated memorization of the texts in an almost entirely non-literate society. Even today, some Haredi kids manage to memorize the first five books of the Bible word for word by age 13. An archaeologist I work with at TAU was doing a presentation at a Haredi school in which he was reading some passages, and the entire class corrected him on his pronunciation of a particular word. He looked down at the vowel pointing and noticed in this particular case the word had an atypical pronunciation, which the kids remembered without having it in front of them.
    As a kid compelled to memorize sections of the KJV, I always had an almost envious respect for the capacity of (I guess) the Haredi kids to memorize the entire Torah - in the original Hebrew, no less. The AAB format was a lifesaver in any case. Along those lines, I wonder if I’m correct in supposing the traditional Jewish reading of the Genesis account culminates in a kind of Spinoza’s God, that is, to know God is to know the culmination of all natural and supernatural processes that resulted in the existence of his “first born child,” Israel. I’m not sure how the individual personhood of God as a parent who created humans to solve his loneliness - the “why” - fits into the “how,” but I probably misunderstand it.

    https://rabbisacks.org/faith-lecture...-we-come-from/

    From a Christian perspective, the Vatican seems to have taken the most pragmatic approach, but it’s worth noting that Curial pronouncements insisted upon a literal historical interpretation of Genesis until the mid 20th century, and even then, did not arrive at an acceptance of the gradual as opposed to instantaneous formation of life and a formal rejection of intelligent design until the late 90s. Given the problem a lack of a historical Adam presents for the teleology of the introduction of sin, official doctrine on origins is now TBD, unless and until Rome changes her mind (again).
    Quote Originally Posted by ggggtotalwarrior View Post
    Ok but what does any of this have to do with schizophrenic ramblings about musicians selling their souls to Satan?
    The evolutionists have obviously sold their souls to Satan. How else could they have come up with such a cunning deception?
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  13. #133
    Morticia Iunia Bruti's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    When i remember right, my catholic teacher told us already in the 80s in Germany, that the Bible is not to be taking literally its stories are symbolic parabels. I can't believe, that we seriously discussing this.

    Fun fact: in German "alt an Tagen" has the same meaning has the jewish advanced in days.
    Cause tomorrow is a brand-new day
    And tomorrow you'll be on your way
    Don't give a damn about what other people say
    Because tomorrow is a brand-new day


  14. #134
    ggggtotalwarrior's Avatar hey it geg
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    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    No sorry Morticia, almost every faith in the world is wrong in the face of the 2000 year old book compiled over several hundred years. All existence is only a few thousand years and the evidence to the contrary was concocted by Satan himself

    Anti-evolution/Literalist Christians still existing in 2022 and aggressively asserting their arguments is actually incredible. It’s peak “the Bible is 100% and true and we know this to be so because the Bible says it is 100% true” logic
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  15. #135
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    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by Morticia Iunia Bruti View Post
    When i remember right, my catholic teacher told us already in the 80s in Germany, that the Bible is not to be taking literally its stories are symbolic parabels. I can't believe, that we seriously discussing this.

    Fun fact: in German "alt an Tagen" has the same meaning has the jewish advanced in days.
    As multiple people have mentioned here already, the point of contention isn't with Catholics but rather Evangelical type Christians.

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  16. #136

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    To be clear, Christians aren't opposed to science; after all, we wouldn't have modern science without its Christian founders. What Christians oppose is the modern academic paradigm and its naturalistic assumptions which a priori rule out the truth of Christianity. The same naturalism that animates their rejection of Biblical creation animates their rejection of Biblical prophecy and miracles. This naturalism is held on faith and shouldn't be conflated with science or reality. The conflict between Christianity and naturalism, then, isn't between religion and science so much as between two competing philosophical worldviews.

    It's not that naturalists have more facts or data than Christians; rather, naturalists and Christians bring different worldviews to the same data (e.g. fossils) and come to different conclusions about what it means. Christians aren't the only ones whose belief system affects their interpretation of the data; everyone comes to the data with certain presuppositions about its nature and the appropriate methods of understanding it. So while there appears to be a consensus among scientists against Biblical creationism, this should be understood as a consensus of naturalist scientists who a priori reject anything their methodological naturalism can't explain. The problem with this reasoning is that when taken to its logical conclusion one would have to reject not only the Biblical account of creation, but everything that can't be explained naturalistically, including objective truth, morality and even the reliability of science itself.

    Philosopher James Anderson has written a paper titled, "Secular Responses to the Problem of Induction." In it he concludes, "On the basis of this survey, it is evident that there presently exists no satisfactory solution to the problem of induction from a secular perspective." In other words, while "supernaturalism" warrants belief in both the uniformity of nature and the occasional miracle, naturalism warrants belief in neither. The naturalist has no epistemic justification for his belief in the reliability of science, which can only be grounded in an appeal to the supernatural. It's ironic that some naturalists are so committed to the narrative of a conflict between Christianity and science when in reality it's naturalism that shreds any confidence one might have in the scientific method.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quentin Smith, atheist philosopher of religion
    Due to the typical attitude of the contemporary naturalist… the vast majority of naturalist philosophers have come to hold (since the late 1960s) an unjustified belief in naturalism. Their justifications have been defeated by arguments developed by theistic philosophers, and now naturalist philosophers, for the most part, live in darkness about the justification for naturalism. They may have a true belief in naturalism, but they have no knowledge that naturalism is true since they do not have an undefeated justification for their belief.
    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Lewontin, atheist biologist
    Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
    Quote Originally Posted by Thomas Nagel, atheist philosopher
    In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean the entirely reasonable hostility to certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to association of many religious beliefs with superstition and acceptance of evident empirical false hoods. I am talking about something deeper---namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true, and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and naturally, hope that I am right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

    My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and desiring as fundamental features of the world. Instead they become epiphenomena, generated incidentally by a process that can be entirely explained by the operation of the nonteleogical laws of physics on the material of which we and our environments are all composed. There might still be thought to be a religious threat in the existence of the laws of physics themselves, and indeed the existence of anything at all, but it seems to be less alarming to most atheists.
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    Exarch, Coughdrop addict

  17. #137

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Though a necessary framework for religious arguments, it’s usually unwise to attempt a critique of scientific evidence on philosophical grounds. It relies on a false equivalence between metaphysical conjecture or symbolism and physical evidence or observation, as discussed above. Even in the desired context, the idea that apparently counterintuitive scientific discoveries necessitate a supernatural resolution has become a meme, not a serious position. My cat thinks Alexa is the goddess of food because he only understands that he gets fed when she reminds us. I find his ritualistic supplication before the machine adorable but otherwise unconvincing. Irreducible complexity is a philosophical argument, not a scientific analysis. To borrow one of Lewontin’s examples, the existence of speciation has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt using DNA evidence (at a minimum), and “how giraffes” can be explained in under two minutes.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=3OjOELUA-hY
    Last edited by Lord Thesaurian; January 21, 2022 at 02:13 PM.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  18. #138
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    To be religious is one thing but to actually believe comes only from God and it's called faith, the same faith that Christ has and is imputed into everyone born again of the Spirit of God. It is by this gift that we believe that the Bible is the word of God and so cannot be anything other than the truth. Every soul born has already been turned over to the devil and so believing is not possible unless that person has their eyes opened by God thanks to the action of Jesus Christ at the cross on their behalf. That's where the truth lies.

  19. #139

    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    I don´t know if I have Metallica posted yet, but I find this clip interesting, it´s just 2:30mins, so I post it.




    Last edited by razerbelkin; January 25, 2022 at 01:06 PM.

  20. #140
    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: They Sold Their Souls

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    To be religious is one thing but to actually believe comes only from God and it's called faith, the same faith that Christ has and is imputed into everyone born again of the Spirit of God. It is by this gift that we believe that the Bible is the word of God and so cannot be anything other than the truth. Every soul born has already been turned over to the devil and so believing is not possible unless that person has their eyes opened by God thanks to the action of Jesus Christ at the cross on their behalf. That's where the truth lies.
    Of course your problem here is the firm believer in any other faith could type what amounts to the same thing.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

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