The point I made above in response to Izzy’s inadvertent juxtaposition of “seriously” and “literally,” and subsequent discussion, came vividly to my mind today when they announced at church the full title, including subtitle, of one of the Lenten book discussion groups to be formed, which will read and discuss Reading the Bible Again for the First Time:
Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally
By Marcus J. Borg. (Review of the book at the link.)
“Resistance is futile…” 
Brief hijack:
What books would you recommend to someone who is interested in taking the bible seriously, but not literally?
I’m going to order (it’s on wishlist now) Rescuing the bible from fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the meaning of scripture and Why Christianity must change or die .
Meatros,
Try Bill Moyers’ book Genesis. it’s a roundtable discussion of the book of Genesis by a panel of different religious scholars, including Christian, Jewish, Muslim and agnostic viewpoints. Very compelling stuff.
Cool, I definately will!
Thanks!
I find this hard to believe. Nor have you brought any evidence that this is so.
Again, there may be evidence that a lot of people believed things that were not true (or factual, if you prefer) but not any that these people did not believe that they were factual.
The fact that you can come up with contradictory details in the various myths is very inconclusive. As has been noted before, there is often a lack of understanding of the language and literary styles being used. And - in the case of the Bible at least - there are often very simple explanations for apparent “contradictions” - we’ve been through this before.
Or it is possible - in some cases (Socrates?) - that the contradictions are very subtle and of a philosophical nature, and escaped the attention of the majority of the audience until a clever heretic showed up to point them out.
I would suggest that some of your proofs here work in the exact opposite direction than you intended them. The fact that the Midrashim you cited earlier felt compelled to address the details of Biblical stories (instead of just dismissing them as Polycarp did to the Lot story) shows that they took the details as being literal. And the fact that Socrates challenged the Greek religion by pointing to contradictions suggests that contradictions were not accepted as being irrelevant by adherents of these religions (I am aware of the fact that you addressed this by saying that he found traction only because the religion was losing steam anyway, but this does not wash, IMHO. Are we to believe that the stories were not taken literally by adherents of the religion, but began being taken literally when the religion died down?).
Your example of the cowboy is again irrelevant. All you are showing again is that people will sometimes believe things that are at variance with the facts. Nothing new in that, and not what we are discussing here.
And I ask you again for some form of backup for your claim that “the notion that Scripture adhered to that factual presentation only arose shortly thereafter [the 18th century]”. That is - as mentioned before - a fantastic claim. It is blatantly false in the case of the Jewish tradition, and I strongly suspect in the Christian one as well. Where’s the beef?
Meatros, I think highly of Spong (and one of my proudest claims is that I am personally acquainted, if only casually, with him). However, his thoroughgoing debunking of theism in the Tillichian usage of the term leaves one with a rather abstract concept of God as an amorphous philosophical doctrine or pervasive force of the Universe that does not match up with what I and other Christians sense Him to be. But I’d encourage your reading of him nonetheless, if only as an antidote to the bizarre claims of some allegedly-orthodox Christians. I haven’t yet read Borg, and am looking forward to doing so. I used to enjoy the theological exercise of reading J.B. Phillips back in the 60s, and would recommend his work.
Cool, thanks!
My wish list is approaching epic standards: I’m going to order a few of these books this week.
I have a couple of other words other than “scientific theory” i would like evolutionist to explain.
This more accurately describes nature (IMO) than what evolution teaches. The human body itself is constantly decaying and degenerating which contradicts a theory of systematic improvement.
How can this be explained if the whole purpose of evoluntion is to improve to survive?
Wrenchead? Is that anything like Justhink?
What, exactly, is your question, wrenchead? What do you believe is the conflict between entropy and evolution?
WRENCHEAD -Okay, I’m not going to get into it to much: I’m going to post a link and if you truly want answer you will read it:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#thermo
Once you read those links, which summarize the issue way better than I ever could, you will see why evolution does not violate the second law.
Wrenchhead I would also like an explaination of this:
This is a total mischaracterization of evolution. From where did you learn this?
Evolution is about change, not becoming better.
To give you the short answer on entropy, wrenchy, life is not a closed system. If you don’t understand what that statement means, please click on Meatros’ links. As Meatros said, if you really want to know the answers, they’re easy to find, and they’re really not assailable. Do you really think a century of evolutionary science would simply ignore an obvious physical contradiction to the theory? Do you think it’s all just a massive conspiracy?
I’m not saying that wrenchhead believes this, but I’ve been on several boards where there is a crazy idea that there is a conspiracy afoot. Something about “all the money that’s poured into it”. It’s depressing because instead of learning about evolution some people choose to go to overly bias sites (dr. Dino, anyone?) and then take anything that person says as the truth.
Simple: you have misunderstood evolution. It does not operate with a “purpose”, nor does it work to “improve” a species.
Organisms adapt to their immediate surroundings. If the environment changes more quickly than the population is able to adapt, extinction can result.
Remember: natural selection operates by removing organisms (or just their genes) from the population. Extinction is the result of a high-level form of selection: an entire species is selected against.
Well, there’s these thousands of people conjuring up evidence that doesn’t agree with the Bible Stories.
If that ain’t a conspiracy, i don’t know what is.
Uhm… exept maybe a small group of people trying to twist parts of evidence, ignoring all the other evidence, pretending to be scientific, coming up with bogus rhetorical refutations, admit they are incorrect then repeat it anyway and who pressure school boards in spreading their message.
They are lying and (much worse) they know they are lying.
What are they really after?
Now there is a conspiracy for you.
The entropy thing is simple to explain. The earth is an open system, not a closed system. The sun provides plenty of energy that is available to do work.
Personal attacks and name calling, wow i wouldn’t have expected that from such an intellectual group but don’t feel bad it’s something that happens often when someone opposes evolution in discussions like this. Were you having the “back into the corner” reaction. Anyway, your link made for interesting reading and im sure you can come up with 100 more just as i can like this one for example.
http://www.crbiblechapel.org/CreationEvolution.htm
What personal attacks were made against you? What names were you called?
Maybe wrenchead thinks I called him a name, by referring to him as “wrenchy.” All I can say is that I (and many others on SDMB) often shorten or abbreviate other’s user names as a matter of convenience (such as calling Polycarp "Poly, " or elucidator “lucy.” I certainly did not intend my truncation of wrenchead’s nick to be mocking or disrespectful.
If you took it that way, wrenchead, I apologize.
Having said that, your 2nd law argument simply doesn’t hold water. It shows an incomplete grasp of what the law is. The thesis in your link is riddled with flaws from top to bottom and, believe me, we can dismantle it point by point if you so desire. Somehow I have a feeling that you don’t want a real debate. If you do, I promise, you will be treated with respect. Each point can be addressed on its factual merits backed up with objective cites. Not all links are equal. Talkorigins presents only independently verifiable facts, not opinions. If you’re going to keep posting creationist links, they’re going to get destroyed on their merits, but post away if you must.
And welcome to SDMB.