Of course not. The post I was responding to said that God’s existence can’t be demonstrated, not isn’t currently demonstrated.
If the story had happened it would be a good demonstration. And also a counter to those who claim that God can’t show himself because it would somehow eliminate our free will in believing or not in him. Clearly didn’t do that in the story. Or in the case of Satan.
The problem isn’t that they are myths, but that they are self-contradictory myths.
If fictional stories were literally true, I would be more worried about Ragnarok and Cthulhu.
Note that in the story of Exodus the Hebrews were worshipping the sacred bull of El/Yahweh, and Moses did not like that, which tells one all one needs to know about the intended meaning of the story. Speculating about “if the story had happened…” is Not Even Wrong.
Sure, if God appeared to us and proclaimed His existence, that would settle the argument, but that line of argument presumes God actually exists.
In the absence of direct Revelation, do you have a suggestion for some sort of scientific experiment we could perform that would distinguish whether we live in a universe with or without God?
That might be a relevant point to someone who believes in the literal scientific truth of that Bible story.
To someone who doesn’t, it’s irrelevant.
The two topics are hopelessly disparate, and trying to combine them is absurd to the extreme. “Let there be light, and there was light” isn’t science because science is about “how” and religion is about “who” (if anyone). The former is comprised of laws, theories, and hypotheses that are fact driven, and the latter is based on spiritual feelings, beliefs, and faith.
I have no problem resolving the two because I have no problem keeping them separate. Yes, I believe the life force is the product of a Creator but, in my mind, that has nothing to do with our scientific endeavor to understand it all.
The people (none here) who go on about the reason for divine hiddeness is that it would destroy our free will do believe it happened. We’re doing literary criticism here, after all. You analyze whether a story hangs together in terms of the story. I don’t think it is very useful to respond to a debate about Han shooting first with “it never happened.”
Sure. If I ask God to write something in the stars, and they shift suddenly to spell it out, confirmed by earth-based telescopes and space telescopes, I’d be pretty convinced. There is obviously the possibility of mass hallucination and that we live in a simulation, but that’s true for anything. Also, it is commonly said that any god worth being called God would know what would convince us and be able to do it.
True. I think those who try to find naturalistic explanations for things like the parting of the Red Sea are wasting their time, since the first thing you need to do is to demonstrate the story happened.
The only people who seem to care about this issue are those who think the Bible is correct. If you don’t and still believe in God and parts of it, you have to show how you distinguish the true parts from the false parts. The obvious answer is finding extra-Biblical evidence. When you do that, most of the story falls apart.
A good example of that is the Adam and Eve story. Since that is clearly not true, if you are a Christian you have to explain original sin if no one made the bad choice. No original sin, either no need for Jesus or Jesus is just saving us from how he and/or God put into us.
In Hebrew School I learned this as a just-so story, so it being mythical was no problem.
To tie this back to the thread topic, what I’m saying is that applying science to the Bible story may knock out some stuff that isn’t important, but may also knock out stuff that is vital. Fundamentalists get this, which is why they deny science. I’m at a loss to understand how moderates deal with it. I became an atheist the very second I discovered that Moses did not write the Bible. That’s how I dealt with it.
Shouldn’t that be “…distinguish whether we live in a universe with or without any god?”?
The Bible is stuffed to the gills with checkable “facts”. There is history, biology, chemistry etc. in the Bible, and it constantly makes factual claims that are checked and refuted all the time.
And sometimes those facts are checked and verified.
Sometimes?
For a supposed “Word Of God”, sometimes is pathetic. “Science is for factual truth, The Bible is for spiritual truth” would be a lot easier to buy if spiritual leaders stayed in their own lane but, for the vast majority, they don’t.
Well, I dont assume the Bible is the Word of God, do you? I assume it was myth (the early parts, pre-King David), then Legend, then religious instruction and also history. The actual history in the Bible, during the times of Omri, Jehu and later actually matches up pretty good with known Archaeological Discoveries, allowing for normal bragging and exaggeration that was common in other ancient areas writings. It is during the time of Myth that all the weird miracles and stuff happens.
And sure, some of the Kings, etc had legends written about them that were exaggerated or false- but same with George Washington.
We know there was a King David, but other than the simple fact of his existence, we know nothing other than is in the Bible- Legends?
What biblical chemistry have you found personally enlightening?
I know I don’t own the thread But it certainly didn’t start off that way. It had nothing to do with literary criticism, and not really much to do with the Bible specifically.
But if you asked God to do that and nothing happened, would you really think God was less likely to exist than you had thought before you tried the experiment?
If God was God, they would know what it would take. Period.
The Bible is a book of Myth, Legends, religious instruction and history. Not chemistry. I didnt get much chemistry from reading Shakespeare or Darwin, either.
I thought the chemistry claim was odd too.
Well, there’s qaneh bosem (Exodus 30:23).
What a curious argument! In my opinion, the existence of God seems much more plausible than the idea that God especially cares what we do or believe! It’s trivially obvious that a God who wants us to know for sure that He exists does not exist.
Certainly not an omnipotent and omniscient god.
The god of a particular hillside about to be bulldozed? Maybe they just can’t pull it off; at least, to anybody who can stop the bulldozers.