Do you believe in hell?

[Hope]

You have it the wrong way round, the spherical Earth idea is Greek, not Jewish.

Sorry, jeremy, you are partly right.  I've been doing a certain amount of reading around this subject over the last few months and managed to get myself confused.  Plato posited the idea of a combinations of circular paths around a spherical earth.  From what I understand (and I may yet be wrong) even Plato regarded these circular paths to all be within a single plane - 1D, in effect)

The Jewish Bible is full of metaphors about the shape of the Earth.  It is referred to as circular, as having four corners, as being immovable and set on pillars, as having tent like heavens, as hanging on nothing. 

As you say, all these are metaphorical references.  Iirc, they all come from the poetry books.  Are you saying that poetry has to be taken as literally true?

[BeRational]

You have it the wrong way round, the spherical Earth idea is Greek, not Jewish.

Sorry, jeremy, you are partly right.  I've been doing a certain amountnof reading around this subject over the last few months and managed to get myself confused.  Plato posited the idea of a combinations of circular paths around a spherical earth.  From what I understand (and I may yet be wrong) even Plato regarded these circular paths to all be within a single plane - 1D, in effect)

The Jewish Bible is full of metaphors about the shape of the Earth.  It is referred to as circular, as having four corners, as being immovable and set on pillars, as having tent like heavens, as hanging on nothing. 

As you say, all these are metaphorical references.  Iirc, they all come from the poetry books.  Are you saying that poetry has to be taken as literally true?

For goodness sake!
Of course we are not, but some Christians point to these passages as if they foretold something we did not know about the universe.

I am pleased to see that you do not claim this and that the book has ONLY information known at the time.

This being the case why would anyone conclude it was inspired by some all knowing being?

If I went back in time I could inspire a better book!

[Hope]

But we do see some Christians claiming the bible does indeed have information of this kind. The thing is, it is only AFTER some scientific discovery.

Again, I'd disagree with your second point.  As for the 1st, who would these 'some Christians' be? 

[BashfulAnthony]

You have it the wrong way round, the spherical Earth idea is Greek, not Jewish.

Sorry, jeremy, you are partly right.  I've been doing a certain amountnof reading around this subject over the last few months and managed to get myself confused.  Plato posited the idea of a combinations of circular paths around a spherical earth.  From what I understand (and I may yet be wrong) even Plato regarded these circular paths to all be within a single plane - 1D, in effect)

The Jewish Bible is full of metaphors about the shape of the Earth.  It is referred to as circular, as having four corners, as being immovable and set on pillars, as having tent like heavens, as hanging on nothing. 

As you say, all these are metaphorical references.  Iirc, they all come from the poetry books.  Are you saying that poetry has to be taken as literally true?

For goodness sake!
Of course we are not, but some Christians point to these passages as if they foretold something we did not know about the universe.

I am pleased to see that you do not claim this and that the book has ONLY information known at the time.

This being the case why would anyone conclude it was inspired by some all knowing being?

If I went back in time I could inspire a better book!

You always seem to know what Christians think. How? Name three who believe the above!

[jeremyp]

You have it the wrong way round, the spherical Earth idea is Greek, not Jewish.

Sorry, jeremy, you are partly right.  I've been doing a certain amount of reading around this subject over the last few months and managed to get myself confused.  Plato posited the idea of a combinations of circular paths around a spherical earth.  From what I understand (and I may yet be wrong) even Plato regarded these circular paths to all be within a single plane - 1D, in effect)

In your reading, you clearly haven't got as far as Eratosthenes.  He's famous for two things.  One is a mathematical sieve.  Guess what the other one is.

The Jewish Bible is full of metaphors about the shape of the Earth.  It is referred to as circular, as having four corners, as being immovable and set on pillars, as having tent like heavens, as hanging on nothing. 

As you say, all these are metaphorical references.  Iirc, they all come from the poetry books.  Are you saying that poetry has to be taken as literally true?

No, I'm not, but they are the only things in the Bible that give a clue as to the thinking of its authors on the subject.  If you had to make a guess, it would be that the Bible's authors World view was of a flat Earth.  This should not be unexpected, it was only at around the time the Bible was written - or later - that the World's most advanced thinkers (the Greeks) started coming up with the idea of a spherical Earth.

[Hope]

Of course we are not, but some Christians point to these passages as if they foretold something we did not know about the universe.

Of course, we are regularly told by folk like yourself that only the original authors knew what they meant by what they wrote.  Is there any reason why such material might not indicate a greater understanding thatn we like to conceive?

I am pleased to see that you do not claim this and that the book has ONLY information known at the time.

I claimed nothing of the sort, BR.  What I said is that the Bible deals in purpose and intention.  Whilst these can be deemed to be infomation, they are of a different nature to scientific knowledge.

This being the case why would anyone conclude it was inspired by some all knowing being?

Possibly because it deals with aspects of life that can't be investigated 'scientifically', and things that are supra-science.

If I went back in time I could inspire a better book!

Oh, you're another of these folk who reckon that you'd produce something that tells everything as it is, thus destroying humanity's freedom of choice  and comndemning us to being mere robots?

[BeRational]

Hope

Why would me giving these primitive people the benefit of a greater understanding of how the universe works turn them into robots.

I would love a time traveller from the future to come and write a book detailing things known in the future. It would not make us robots but could be a great help.

Do you accept the bible has no one information in it that was not already known at the time?

[Hope]

In your reading, you clearly haven't got as far as Eratosthenes.  He's famous for two things.  One is a mathematical sieve.  Guess what the other one is.

I'd heard of him, but never seen his name written down.  Suppose it has to do with the fact that a lot of this kind of stuff I learn is from the radio or from TV documentaries.

No, I'm not, but they are the only things in the Bible that give a clue as to the thinking of its authors on the subject.  If you had to make a guess, it would be that the Bible's authors World view was of a flat Earth.  This should not be unexpected, it was only at around the time the Bible was written - or later - that the World's most advanced thinkers (the Greeks) started coming up with the idea of a spherical Earth.

IIRC, the Greeks were borrowing ideas from the East which we appear to have completely lost the records of.

[Hope]

Why would me giving these primitive people

For one thing, 'these primitive people' had no less complex social structures as we have today and they understood a number of natural situations at leastr as well as we do.   They weren't primitive; they were just less reliant on technology.  Technology doesn't make a society more advanced in the widest sense of the word - in fact, in some ways, it makes a society less advanced (how many children of the 1st Century AD would have believed that an egg came from a box or that milk came from a factory?

...the benefit of a greater understanding of how the universe works turn them into robots.

Is a knowledge of how the universe works the most important aspect of human life?  I doubt it.  By making out that it is, you divorce society from the more important things - like relationships with other human beings and turn humanity into spoon-fed robots who don't think things through.

I would love a time traveller from the future to come and write a book detailing things known in the future. It would not make us robots but could be a great help.

I doubt it would help us in any way at all.  After all, if we were to discover something by this means that hadn't been discovered for another 300 years in reality, what would that do to the future?

Do you accept the bible has no one information in it that was not already known at the time?

No, I don't.  The Bible is a progression of new concepts and ideas steadily building on existing understanding. 

[trippymonkey]

So just how much of the Bible can one, technically, get rid of

[Anchorman]

So just how much of the Bible can one, technically, get rid of

-
None of it.

[trippymonkey]

Hope almost suggests we can at least not pay any attention to early parts of it. From a practical POV anyway.

[cyberman]

Hope almost suggests we can at least not pay any attention to early parts of it.

I don't think he does. Isn't he simply saying that, contrary to what the fundies think and what the atheists want us to think, it is not a set of scientific and historical data/

[Nearly Sane]

Hope almost suggests we can at least not pay any attention to early parts of it.

I don't think he does. Isn't he simply saying that, contrary to what the fundies think and what the atheists want us to think, it is not a set of scientific and historical data/

Lazy, incorrect and habitual generalisation about atheists.

[cyberman]

Hope almost suggests we can at least not pay any attention to early parts of it.

I don't think he does. Isn't he simply saying that, contrary to what the fundies think and what the atheists want us to think, it is not a set of scientific and historical data/

Lazy, incorrect and habitual generalisation about atheists.

Fair point - there are many atheists who don't want that. Many who, for example, would not do something so facile as simply choose a verse from the OT and smugly write "we are told" after it, as though it tells you anything at all about Christians beliefs about God.

But there are some, aren't there NS? The odd one here and there who wants discussing Christian beliefs to be simply about finding something daft or inconsistent in the OT and then smugly saying "ah, but gods had sex with women we are told" >chortle chortle<

But I am sure you would never indulge in such lazy, inaccurate habitual behaviour.

Now, let's just see what's going on on other threads...

[Nearly Sane]

Hope almost suggests we can at least not pay any attention to early parts of it.

I don't think he does. Isn't he simply saying that, contrary to what the fundies think and what the atheists want us to think, it is not a set of scientific and historical data/

Lazy, incorrect and habitual generalisation about atheists.

Fair point - there are many atheists who don't want that. Many who, for example, would not do something so facile as simply choose a verse from the OT and smugly write "we are told" after it, as though it tells you anything at all about Christians beliefs about God.

But there are some, aren't there NS? The odd one here and there who wants discussing Christian beliefs to be simply about finding something daft or inconsistent in the OT and then smugly saying "ah, but gods had sex with women we are told" >chortle chortle<

But I am sure you would never indulge in such lazy, inaccurate habitual behaviour.

Now, let's just see what's going on on other threads...

Agreed there are some. I think it's fair enough to treat the Bible as literal if dicussing it with someone who is a literalist but incorrect to do so with someone who doesn't. It is also fair enough to ask why their view is ciorrect as opposed to the literalist, but I'm not an atheist because teh Bible is a bit odd in parts so I tend to stay away from teh discussions on it.


Thwere are some areas where I struggle to see how even a metaphorical reading has in any sense something worthwhile to say such as the Flood but then that's true of Bashful Anthony as well.

[cyberman]

Why does it have to be metaphorical? Why can't it just be wrong?

Maybe the people who wrote it thought it was true, were neither lying nor employing metaphor, but were just wrong?

[Nearly Sane]

Why does it have to be metaphorical? Why can't it just be wrong?

Maybe the people who wrote it thought it was true, were neither lying nor employing metaphor, but were just wrong?

Again agreed, it could welll be and if the individual thinks that I (and others) should deal with their beliefs on that basis. It's why I mentioned BA because he does disassociate himself from that approach.

[Dicky Underpants]

I won't push any more after this post, but I'm still wondering why your accusing CS Lewis of being odious was relevant to the point you made.

Gor blimey! It's really quite simple: even though I sometimes find C.S. Lewis quite odious, I still concede that he had the mental capacity and imagination to perceive  that life on other worlds beside this was a distinct possibility. A possibility that some on this thread seem reluctant to grant. No big deal - I don't live my life in the expectation of having a close encounter with little green beings from a planet circling a star in the Andromeda nebula

[Dicky Underpants]

(And just to placate cyberman yet again, I realised from the first that you weren't among the 'alien-life-deniers'.)

Are there any?

It is quite clear from this thread that some are very unwilling to concede this. Perhaps not so strangely, it is often among those who consider that Christ's Incarnation and Atonement was a once-only event in the universe. God incarnating himself and atoning for the sins of beings in distant galaxies just makes such believers seem just that bit less 'special'. Shaker picked up on this idea of how certain Christians like to feel 'special' - which prompted my own post.

[BashfulAnthony]

I won't push any more after this post, but I'm still wondering why your accusing CS Lewis of being odious was relevant to the point you made.

Gor blimey! It's really quite simple: even though I sometimes find C.S. Lewis quite odious, I still concede that he had the mental capacity and imagination to concede that life on other worlds beside this was a distinct possibility. A possibility that some on this thread seem reluctant to grant. No big deal - I don't live my life in the expectation of having a close encounter with little green beings from a planet circling a star in the Andromeda nebula

Why always green?  I would prefer a nice shade of blue.

[Dicky Underpants]

However, he was prepared to consider that life on other worlds was entirely plausible - something that some people here seem anxious to deny (quoting statistics on occasion, as if they offered any reasonably argument on these matters)

Perhaps you can 'name and shame' the 'some people here', DU.  I've already asked Len to do something similar, but he hasn't been able to do so yet.

You will find at least one whose attitude seems distinctly opposed to the idea, if you look.

[Dicky Underpants]

I won't push any more after this post, but I'm still wondering why your accusing CS Lewis of being odious was relevant to the point you made.

Gor blimey! It's really quite simple: even though I sometimes find C.S. Lewis quite odious, I still concede that he had the mental capacity and imagination to concede that life on other worlds beside this was a distinct possibility. A possibility that some on this thread seem reluctant to grant. No big deal - I don't live my life in the expectation of having a close encounter with little green beings from a planet circling a star in the Andromeda nebula

Why always green?  I would prefer a nice shade of blue.

Well, I suppose they might be friendly, and therefore prepared to take our preferences into consideration whilst determining how we perceived them (presuming that their vastly superior intelligence would allow them to control our perceptions in this manner). On the other hand they might just want to scare the shit out of you....

[cyberman]

(And just to placate cyberman yet again, I realised from the first that you weren't among the 'alien-life-deniers'.)

Are there any?

It is quite clear from this thread that some are very unwilling to concede this.

Not being funny, I haven't seen that. can you post a quote for me?

[cyberman]

You will find at least one whose attitude seems distinctly opposed to the idea, if you look.

Instead of treasure-hunt clues like this, why not just name them and quote them? I am not trying to refute you, I just want to know what you are referring to.