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This thread is for the christain out there. Seriously does everything rely on the Bible? Even when the Bible does not make sense at all? How does one get to this sort of thinking?

Your making qualitative determinations with which one would have to agree. How does one respond to that?

Hoops wrote:Your making qualitative determinations with which one would have to agree. How does one respond to that?

I guess I am making these determinations from what I have seen.

In my world view science and religion would work well together. But then I really started to study the science more and realized it doesn't work well with each other at all.

I guess I should say how does one reject science so easily?

I guess I should say how does one reject science so easily?

I dispute this assertion as well. Science is an explanation, an investigation, of the physical world we have now. The Bible tells us that this current expression of creation was not always so. And it also tells us that this is not the last expression of creation. At the second coming, after all, the world will be changed again. I wonder why we have to use only the parameters you proscribe in order to support something that at its beginning is outside those parameters. That simply makes no sense to me. Isn't there truth in spiritual life, isn't love true? Isn't altruism true? Compassion? The inexplicable love a parent has for her child? Why are those truths less significant then scientific truths?

That's not to say that science is always and permanently exclusive of the Bible. In fact, Christians would tell you that it is God's creation that allows for such scientific discovery. There is a permanence, consistency to God's creation, just as He said there would be after the flood and until the second coming.

Hoops wrote:

I guess I should say how does one reject science so easily?

I dispute this assertion as well. Science is an explanation, an investigation, of the physical world we have now. The Bible tells us that this current expression of creation was not always so. And it also tells us that this is not the last expression of creation. At the second coming, after all, the world will be changed again. I wonder why we have to use only the parameters you proscribe in order to support something that at its beginning is outside those parameters. That simply makes no sense to me. Isn't there truth in spiritual life, isn't love true? Isn't altruism true? Compassion? The inexplicable love a parent has for her child? Why are those truths less significant then scientific truths?

That's not to say that science is always and permanently exclusive of the Bible. In fact, Christians would tell you that it is God's creation that allows for such scientific discovery. There is a permanence, consistency to God's creation, just as He said there would be after the flood and until the second coming.

I must be confused...

To me a lot of religious people just go by what the Bible says and if it contradicts science than obviously the science is wrong.

My friend once said to me that he believes in a God that can do anything because he is God. I just don't believe in a God that would hide evdience of a flood, human creation, and language development.

Rambo wrote:Seriously does everything rely on the Bible?

No.

Rambo wrote:Even when the Bible does not make sense at all?

Can you please point to an offending passage? There are lots of ways in which something can "not make sense at all." I suspect you mean that certain passages when read literally conflict with science. In most of those instances an in context reading makes better sense of the reading and gives room for science and the Bible to co-exist quite peacefully.

Rambo wrote:How does one get to this sort of thinking?

It's actually a quite recent thing. The main impetus for a certain kind of thinking arose during the fundamentalist/modernist controversy. Try the wikipedia article for a primer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamenta ... ontroversy

The main problem is that Mormons tend to be pretty ignorant of most of the world of Christianity, only seeing the most visible and noise examples of Christianity in the US. These also are usually fundamentalists of one stripe or another. Thus, most Mormons get a slanted view of what Christianity is all about. Christians also return the favor by misunderstanding Mormonism.

I must be confused...

To me a lot of religious people just go by what the Bible says and if it contradicts science than obviously the science is wrong.

My friend once said to me that he believes in a God that can do anything because he is God. I just don't believe in a God that would hide evdience of a flood, human creation, and language development.

That is what most Christians do. And I think that's okay. But it (christianity) is based on historical claims. And most thinking Christians will contend with the scientific and historical evidence with the light they have at the time and to the point that it satisfies.

To me a lot of religious people just go by what the Bible says and if it contradicts science than obviously the science is wrong.

My friend once said to me that he believes in a God that can do anything because he is God. I just don't believe in a God that would hide evdience of a flood, human creation, and language development.

No, I don't think that's it all. I guess one could put it that we have the advantage of the biblical record, not a disadvantage. Do you think He has hidden evidence of the flood? Or is it, from your perspective, He has hidden the actual date of the flood.

Language development? Don't we agree that language began as a single language (or a single developing strain, which is more accurate but irrelevant to this point)? And that fits with the tower story.

Aristotle Smith wrote:
The main problem is that Mormons tend to be pretty ignorant of most of the world of Christianity, only seeing the most visible and noise examples of Christianity in the US. These also are usually fundamentalists of one stripe or another. Thus, most Mormons get a slanted view of what Christianity is all about. Christians also return the favor by misunderstanding Mormonism.

I think you may be right about this.

Aristotle, you and Hoops seem to be very different christians to me. I may be wrong but when you see something that contradicts science you take that story as a myth that has meaning to it. Where Hoops takes the Bible for what it says.

[/quote] And most thinking Christians will contend with the scientific and historical evidence with the light they have at the time and to the point that it satisfies.[/quote]
Really? Mmmmm.....kay.