Sorry, you are absolutely correct. I misunderstood. My apologies.flip wrote:No no no. We just had this discussion not long ago and I made it very clear I do not believe that creation was done in 6 literal days and nowhere in this thread do I say that.
flip wrote:the way this thread has simply become another in the ongoing debates into the interpretation of scripture.
I think it's an interesting topic, but as I said before, not important at all. And hijacking Foil's thread. That's why I'm not going to answer flip's points unless someone is interested enough to open a new thread. It's fun, but it just doesn't matter and it's not on topic.Duper wrote:does it all really matter? I mean REALLY???
Here I will have to disagree. I LEARN things in these discussions, and I have changed my mind on issued because of things I learned here.flip wrote:It is pointless because no one here is gonna agree on anything. Not even the simplest of things.
The diverged thread had become specifically whether the Bible makes any statement on the existence of life on other planets. Kinda hard to address that without referring to scripture.SilverFJ wrote:Addressing Kil, and anyone else using the Bible to justify their platform on this issue--it's not going to get the point across to someone who doesn't believe in it.
The "Life on other planets" was way off topic, but even ON topic, the discussion is about how the bigness of the universe affects our view of God, and that is going to involve scripture.
But I agree with you in principle. When the discussion is "What does the Bible say about X", scripture is appropriate no matter who your audience is. But there are many discussions where throwing Bible texts at people who don't believe in the authority of scripture is not productive.
Which would actually work just fine.SilverFJ wrote:It would be like if I started quoting Origin of the Species to try and make a point to you.
Absolutely true!Bettina wrote:but right now the basic laws of physics for our universe states that an infinite amount of energy is needed to accelerate to the speed of light.
Aha! Back on topic!!!! (Thank you Bettina!)Bettina wrote:With the estimated 78 billion-trillion stars in the observable universe and the sheer number of planets that have a high probability for life to evolve, makes this uncomprehendable vastness of the universe highly incompatible with the bible that I read.
Allow me to quote from C. S. Lewis book, Miracles. The context is dealing with the idea that they could believe in Miracles in the "olden days" because they thought the Universe was small.
He goes on to point out that we should EXPECT a large universe from the very nature of space. And this if that large universe had been empty, we would have used THAT as an argument against God. "Miracles" is well worth the read.C. S. Lewis wrote:The immensity of the universe is not a recent discovery. More than seventeen hundred years ago Ptolemy taught that in relation to the distance of the fixed stars, the whole Earth must be regarded as a point with no magnitude. His astronomical system was universally accepted in the Dark and Middle Ages. The insignificance of Earth was as much a commonplace to Boethius, King Alfred, Dante, and Chaucer as it is to Mr. H. G. Wells or Professor Haldane. Statements to the contrary in modern books are due to ignorance.
The real question is why the spatial insignificance of Earth, after being asserted by Christian Philosophers, sung by Christian poets, and commented on by Christian moralists for some fifteen centuries, without the slightest suspicion that it conflicted with
their theology, should suddenly in quite modern times have been set up as a stock argument against Christianity and enjoyed, in that capacity, a brilliant career.
...
If from the vastness of the universe and the smallness of Earth we diagnose that Christianity is false we ought to have a clear idea of the sort of universe we should have expected if it were true. But have we?
The point is that even the Hebrews understood that the universe was big compared to us. When the psalmist wrote "What is man that thou art mindful of him", he KNEW that we were small. This is not a point in conflict with religion.
Clearly they did not understand the nature of the universe as well as we do. The Hebrews believed the sky was water. Knowledge grows, and I don't see that as a problem.Bettina wrote:The bible script makes clear...at least to me... that the authors perspective of the universe was strictly two dimensional so when they used words like "stars", and "the heavens", it was simply their view of the night sky. It's really sad when so many people try to read more into the bible than they should and giving it unending interpretations to try to keep up with reality just cheapens it.