Quote:
My point was not that you or anyone should get on a bandwagon. My point was the logical reasoning contained in the letter itself, hence my "wisdom indeed" comment after the letter. That wisdom is there even if noone signed the letter.
hannahjoy:
And that "wisdom" is a logical fallacy.
Yes, as you say, I would agree that just because the Bible is not necessarily intended to be a science textbook, does not mean that what it says that relates to science or scientific conclusions is wrong.
In my view, it is the scientifice evidence that we have that shows certain parts of the Bible, if interpreted in particular literal ways, are wrong.
hannahjoy wrote:The Bible contains stories that purport to be historical, and infer scientific claims. The people who have believed in Creation and the Flood for thousands of years didn't have all the scientific evidence we have today, but they weren't stupid - they recognized claims to historical truth when they saw them.
Whether the claims are accurate or not is a separate question.
I would mostly agree. Yes, it is unfair to conclude that people in the past or the present who believe in the flood or the literal creation are stupid.
I am not sure I would agree that the stories that many assume are purported to be historical or to infer scientific claims are really as such. To the extent that the historical factuality or scientific accuracy are irrelevant to the central message the particular author was trying to convey, whether or not the author or his original audience accepted the historicity or factuality is also irrelevant to what the stories are 'purporting.'
Let's say, as a thought experiment, we had a Hebrew from the time of Moses transported to today and she became a witness in a murder trial, having witnessed a person being stabbed and robbed on the street. Her testimony might be quite accurate regarding the relevant facts of the case. She saw the knife. She saw the person stabbed. She saw the face of the murderer. However, because of her world view, her testimony might contain many statements which were not really factual because of her background. The cars she saw moving down the street were not chariots without drivers. The smoke coming from the exhaust, or from vents in the street, were not from fires.
Now, she might be trying to give as accurate a narrative as she could, but it would not be fair to say that her descriptions
taken literally in the words she would have used should taken as 'purported literal fact,' even though they were based on events she actually witnessed. Certainly, the modern day jury would not take them all as such, even though her testimony may be sufficient to convict the murderer.
I agree that science and religion can coexist. It's current scientific opinion and the Bible is it was written that are in conflict.
Again, I would disagree that science is in conflict with the Bible as written, only in conflict with some interpretations of sections of the Bible. Yes, I would grant that there are legitimate intellectual reasons for making what many feel is 'the most straightforward' interpretation of the Bible. However, this does not necessarily make it the correct one, or even the originally intended meaning.
It is worth keeping in mind that we have a number of examples of people making the most straightforward interpretation, of reading the Bible 'just as it is written,' and being wrong. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other early Protestant leaders read their Bibles 'just as written' in their minds and it was very clear to them. The earth does not move. Neither does it spin on its axis, nor does it move through the heavens. This does not mean Luther, Calvin, et. al. were stupid. I think it just means that they were used to a certain understanding, and they saw no good reason to discard this understanding based on the evidence at hand. In fact, at the time of Luther there was really no evidence to suggest Copernicanism was more likely to be true than the prevailing Ptolemaic system. Luther and Calvin in a sense made the right choice, given the information they had.
Still, they
were wrong.
Today, we have orders of magnitude more powerful evidence of the truth of evolution than Galileo and Kepler had regarding the truth of the Copernican system, and shortly after their time, Copernicanism began to move into the realm of being predominantly accepted.
I haven't studied the fossil record. Whichever position I take would have to rest on another authority. I'm sorry you don't approve of the authority I've chosen.
I don't see that it is really just a matter of picking authorities. The one authority has been shown not to necessarily be reliable regarding scientific matters, not because it is not intended to be a scientific text, but because of the extra-biblical evidence we have. It seems to me we should accept this evidence and move on, just as the Protestants in the 1700's moved past the views of the Luthers and Calvins of the 1600's.
