http://web.archive.org/web/201005111...icle574768.ece

This is quite confusing!!



Of anyone to say this,YOU WOULDNT THINK A CHURCH WOULD!!

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

What is confusing is the contortions the Church is making to justify the truth of the religion as a whole.

No need to worry, though. Just belief the bits the Church tells you to and disregard the rest.

What tosh!

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

With all due respect parts of the bible are well over 2 thousand years old. They didn't have the scientific knowledge that we now have and therefore didn't have the ability to explain all that they came up against.this means that they weren't necessarily making things up but they just didn't have the means to explain what they saw in any real meaningful way.

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

This is grade-A, some-bloke-down-the-pub-said, nonsense. Beginning with your somewhat odd use of the term “the Church,” as if there’s a single, Pullmanesque Magisterium lurking on every street corner ensuring correct thought. You have heard of the Reformation, I assume? It was a pretty big deal in a lot of places, including the island you live on.

I’ve engaged enthusiastically with religion threads on this board for many years and I can tell you, the arguments we debated in CF’s early days were of a far higher quality than this.

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

From a reformed perspective we would talk about biblical inerrancy as being the Bible is true in everything that it claims to be true. And while it is true that it is not and doesn't claim to be a scientific record that doesn't mean that what it reports is not true. Yes there are accounts in there that are illustrative but there are also miraculous events that (I believe) are historical. There are also prophetic/apocalyptic writings that are still to be fulfilled.



It has been repeatedly shown that it is historically correct and that the content we have today is as close to the autographs (originals) as makes no difference.


Further the article quoted is from 2005.

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For all prophesies in Revelation to come true Babylon the great or false religion must fall ;)

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

All very true, but from a reformed perspective we have a problem when senior evangelicals in America go round producing stuff like the Chicago Confession. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on board with probably 99% of it but their choice of language is difficult to say the least. Scripture’s testimony about itself is that it is God-inspired. That is not quite the same thing as asserting that the Holy Spirit is the Divine Author of scripture, as the Chicago Confession does. Inspiration and authorship are different stages in the production of any material and scripture - which we believe to be inerrant in all matters of faith and conduct - chooses to identify God with the former and humans with the latter. It doesn’t do to mix them up.

I could go on at length but essay-scale posts are rarely helpful.

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Maybe it's time for a new bible:erm:

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it is time for Armageddon the world we live in is wicked and I for one would greet the horsemen with a glad heart

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

The world has always been wicked, it's just that advances in communication mean we are exposed to more of it than we see locally.

But yeah, bring on the horses :)

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In this day and age it would have to be the four E scooterists of the apocalypse

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Horses are actually carbon neutral, so it’s all good :tu:

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E scooters don't crap all over the road and you can switch them off when you're not riding them.

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No, but they subject everyone else to crap driving skills and are frequently left dumped in the street when Charlie chav has finished with them.

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

That link is over 11 years old. Hardly current news. What have the Catholic Church said on the matter recently?

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

I doubt they’ve said much different, and nor would they. The Bible isn’t a science textbook and doesn’t set out to be. Furthermore, it treats history in the way those who wrote it treated history, which shouldn’t be surprising. Bronze Age warrior kings understood the world in quite different ways than we do. That doesn’t mean that Christians shouldn’t claim the Bible is inerrant, but it does mean they shouldn’t try to make it say things it never intended to say.

For example - certain sections of the book of Joshua claim the Israelites swept through Canaan and utterly destroyed the tribes already living there. Then later on in Joshua and on into the later history, in the book of Judges, it’s clear there are actually plenty of other tribes still in the land. If Joshua was a history textbook you would have to conclude it was pretty useless. But that isn’t what it is. It contains historical detail, for sure, but actually its usefulness lies in the way it discusses the relationships between God and people, and God’s unfolding relationship with humanity. In the middle of all that, its authors express themselves in ways absolutely consistent with the Bronze Age culture in which they lived. If you’re a warrior chieftain of that period, you always claim to ‘utterly destroy’ your enemies from the face of the earth. It would look odd if you didn’t. To return to the point I made earlier, this is why it’s important to maintain the distinction between inspiration (which belongs to God) and authorship (which belongs to people inspired by God). Attempting to emphasise the Bible’s divine inspiration by ascribing authorship to God creates all sorts of problems, because if you do that you suddenly have no means of understanding the extremely human, culturally-rooted ways in which the Bible speaks.

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But the bible does say the Earth is suspended in nothing

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Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

If they're anything like cows they're far from carbon neutral, they're literally dumpers, Greta will be furious with them :)

That is recent for then... :)

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Indeed.

Faith based on Bible writers’ apparent knowledge of science beyond their natural ability is no faith at all. Perhaps some of them had divine insight into the mechanics of the universe, perhaps they didn’t. It really doesn’t matter.

The Bible is interested, above everything else, in asserting that the God who made the world desires to be in relationship with the people he made to care for it, but went rogue. The developing means of entering into such a relationship are set out in a series of covenants between God and, at first, one family, then later, a whole nation and now, the entire world. The present covenant is the one in which people disciple themselves to the way of Jesus. Such people are called Christians and the collective noun for them is the Church.

The only really important questions are whether the God described by the Bible writers is trustworthy and true, and whether the way of life taught by Jesus and made possible by his life, death and resurrection, works as a means of bringing people into relationship with God and to a new life in what Jesus called the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’. My confession is that God is trustworthy and true, and that the way of Jesus is too. Whether we can use the Bible to do science and history, in the way those things are understood by the modern mind, is an interesting topic to me, but it’s a side issue and not the source of my faith.

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Which is correct, there's not much out there between us and other planets . . or galaxies :D

Well thats why I didnt post it on the news base.....

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

I wasn’t even attempting to have a theological discussion, Chris. I was simply pointing out that the Church (and you know I was referring to the Catholic Church) was making decisions on what and what not to believe.

I find that astounding. Many people of faith read the Bible and believe every word of it. So do some clergy, who paw over every word in various passages as if each word has great significance, despite being (badly) translated several times.

How can people claim the Bible or indeed the Koran are ‘peaceful’ in intent when they contain some pretty violent instructions for the faithful?

I’m sorry, I don’t believe a word of it and I think the decline in the number of believers, with people these days having greater knowledge and able to think for themselves, says it all.

Sorry - that’s not a theological thesis, and it was not supposed to be.

The central message is, however, if we don’t know what is true and what is not true (except what we determine ourselves what is and isn’t true) then what is the point of it? We might as well read stuff on social media. Not as articulate, of course, but the same mishmash of truths and untruths.

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

There’s a ton of stuff here, any of which could result in a very long response. I’ll try to be brief.

1. Decisions on what to believe: there is a creed to which all Christian denominations subscribe* and have done so since the matter was finally resolved in the 4th century AD. A lot of what you interpret as the Catholic church’s attempt to continue developing belief is actually an attempt to bring faith based convictions to bear on modern ethical issues. To a greater or lesser extent all churches do this, but the Roman Catholic Church remains the single largest denomination and is also the most centrally controlled of them all, so it tends to stand out. Despite this there’s quite a lot of variation in how Catholic moral teaching is actually received and acted on (or not) in the various parts of the Roman church around the world. Even the Pope doesn’t pretend he can rule the conscience of every individual, though many of his predecessors may have tried.

2. This is your some-bloke-down-the-pub moment. Can you please explain how you came to the conclusion that the Bible has been “(badly) translated several times”? I’m not even sure what that means, but if you’re suggesting that present English versions don’t properly convey the meaning of the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, could you give some examples of where it’s gone wrong, and what it should say instead?

3. ‘Peaceful intent’ - well that’s quite a segue from your earlier comments. Can you explain what it is you’re summarising about other people’s claims when you use the phrase ‘peaceful intent’? While I’m waiting, please let me assure you that nobody is trying to hide or minimise what are generally known amongst theologians as ‘texts of violence’. They’re the subject of much debate and writing. I can talk on that subject if you like, although with the caveat that short, forum-friendly posts on the subject can’t really do it justice and risk sounding glib. That’s not my intention.

4. I disagree, profoundly, with your claim that people have rejected the Bible because they can ‘think for themselves’ - Christianity is growing in South Korea, for example, from a standing start to almost 30% of the population over the last century. It’s not a country known for lack of intelligence. A South Korean probably built your phone, or failing that, at least one other piece of high-tech kit in your house. It also continues to grow in many other places, notably in Africa and also in China, although much of that is underground as the State continues to try to suppress and control religion. Being engaged in Christian ministry I frequently talk with people about faith issues. I find that the vast majority of people in this country have a spirituality of some sort, expressed in a variety of understated ways (and often only overtly at times of great distress, such as the death of a loved one). There has been an atomisation of belief in this country and organised religion has suffered along with a great many other things perceived as being traditional. What tends to cause occasional reverses in that situation is when people are confronted with their own frailty and mortality. Most churches of my acquaintance have new adherents as a result of the last 18 months of covid. Up until this point, people have been comfortable, they have been given plenty of other things to fill their attention - the latest iPhone, social media, you name it - and progressively throughout the latter 20th and early 21st centuries people who would have gone to church out of family habit have ceased to do so. Those of us engaged in evangelism accept this as a challenge but are not dismayed. All that has really happened is that those of religious habit have lost the habit. Those of enduring faith are still on board. It’s easier to do this work when you know who is working with you, and who you need to reach out to.

Incidentally, I just got a degree in Theology at a mainstream British university. A first, as it happens. The academic standards of research and presentation are every bit as rigorous in Theology as they are in English, History or Geography. I trust you don’t have a problem with me assuring you I am quite capable of thinking for myself.

5. Truth … a very good point, and one I’ll pick up with you again later if you want. As you rightly point out, it can be difficult to fully agree with anyone on the nature of absolute truth. Many people claim absolute truth doesn’t exist, or is unattainable. I say that’s a bit of a side issue: I worship a God who is eternal and therefore beyond my ability ever to fully know, so I’m comfortable with the idea I will never really know or understand the absolute truth. However I do contend that it is possible to follow a way of life as taught by Jesus, and to find that the results of doing so are faithful to his promises. I can’t assert, or empirically prove, the absolute truth of these things, but I can and do confess that I have found what Jesus said to be true and trustworthy, and I live my life by it and am happy to commend it as the best, in fact the only truly fulfilling way to live.

Sorry, much longer than I intended.

*Actually the Eastern Orthodox churches disagree with one word on one line but it’s a bit esoteric and needn’t bother us here. The substance of it is undisputed.

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Thank you for your explanation of these matters, Chris, much appreciated. Sorry if I came on a bit strong, but these issues have been annoying me for years.

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So now you're a first class Bible basher :banghead: hope you have comfy sandals;)

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Very. Please however let me assure you I only wear them on holiday, and never with socks.

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I thought of you as more of a Bible caresser...

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

well, it’s all on the iPad these days so I’m basically a Bible scroller. So new, it’s old … :D

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

I wear sandals as long as I can and never with socks. Still wearing them today.


Nice reply earlier though. I have to work out how to do an essay on Jer 31:31-40 now and then one on our union with Christ and the atonement.

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

With any old testament prophet, remember always that what they wrote meant something to them and to their contemporary hearers and was written into a specific point in history and so addressed things from a certain angle and with certain assumptions.

It also meant often quite specific things to the Jews of the 1st century AD - by no means all of them accepted that these things were fulfilled in Jesus. In some ways, it’s helpful to see the late 1st century as the beginning of the split between Rabbinic and Messianic Judaism, with the Messianic stream becoming what we now call Christianity.

A decent exegesis of any Old Testament text will always adequately deal with its historical and cultural background, acknowledge any textual difficulties, and consider how the text was received and used in the generations that first held it as well as by the church, both in its earliest days as well as down to today.

A temptation with any of the principal messianic texts of the OT is to treat it purely as a means of illustrating something Jesus said or did. Important as it is to do that, really getting to grips with the text requires a broader approach. Have fun!

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

I am a Christian but I do not believe in the Trinity or Hell. All the prophecies proclaim there is only one God and only one true religion. That means, if our faith is correct that a lot of people are worshipping the wrong God or at the very least the wrong religion.

Also where in the bible does it say it is ok to worship idols ever? Yet some will wear a cross or sit in front of a cross or statue of Mary.

I also find it laughable when a so called Christian goes to war saying it is in God's name when Christ made it perfectly clear that was not acceptable Matt 5:44

There are a lot of things in orthadox Christianity that are not mentioned in the bible and the Catholics have more than any others

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

With respect to you as a person of faith and conviction, if you don’t acknowledge the basic belief about divine nature in the creed (God’s three-in-one-ness, usually called ‘Trinity’) then you’re not a Christian. You can’t follow Christ if you actively deny who he is.

You’re a Jehovah’s Witness, a Unitarian, a Mormon or other similar sect, but you’re not a Christian. This is a very basic, foundational credal principle that has distinguished who is, from who is not, from the very beginning. (Please feel free to argue that the Trinity was invented in the 4th century and I’ll explain how you’re wrong). ;)

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

your very bible disproves it

Before John the Baptist baptised Christ he had no idea who he was. The dove came down and anointed Christ with holy spirit and he then knew who he was. Then he went into the wilderness to be tested and Prayed to God ( Something Jesus did a lot, remember the garden before his arrest?)
So at this point if the Trinity is true God sent himself down and anointed himself and then went off to pray to himself.

Why did Jesus pray if he was praying to himself?? and why would he ask himself to forgive those who were taking his life?

And then if you look at Genesis 3:15 right at the point of initial sin God makes it clear that there is a 3rd party who will make it all right.

We could argue this all day but Chris who are you to judge if I am a Christian or not? it is certainly not very Christian of you to judge my faith as less than yours. Only God can do that

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I could repost an essay on this from my 3rd year trinity module, but it wouldn’t advance the argument much. Your governing organisation (I suspect it’s the Watchtower, from the way you express yourself, but feel free to correct me) issues standard answers for all of these things and in my experience it’s difficult to get a JW to go off script and engage with the arguments without simply reverting to reciting the stock responses, as you have done here.

As for who am I to judge - well it’s very easy actually. Religions aren’t the only organisations that have a set of foundational principles members are meant to be in agreement with. Political parties and other secular campaigning organisations do. Understanding who agrees with the basic principles and who doesn’t is all part of the thing. It isn’t controversial.

If you don’t accept who Christ is, you are not a Christian. That’s just how it is. Relax, though - the Watchtower says I’m not a Christian, because I don’t take my teaching from them. I can live with that. ;)

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

So can I :) hopefully forever and then I will find you and we can discuss who was right or not :)

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It has pretty much always been the Catholic position that the Bible should not be taken literally, especially when studied by lay people. It was a central point in the protestant reformation.

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That’s a pretty broad statement, and I’m not sure it accurately reflects Roman Catholic teaching. I’m pretty sure that when the Bible reports Jesus’ teaching his disciples to “love your neighbour as yourself” the Roman Catholic Church teaches that is absolutely to be taken literally (though with due regard for what the Greek word rendered “love” actually means - agapāo is not erotic or romantic in this sense). Protestant churches certainly do.

I think perhaps you’re referring to passages dealing with the most ancient ages of the world - ante-diluvian history, and whether it actually is history or to be taken as figurative.

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Do you not see the irony though? The largest most dominant Christian religion in the world is one that was formed by the very people who nailed Jesus up and then decided to become Christian because they saw the way the world was changing so thought they best get some control. Then indoctrinating some of their Pagan festivals and beliefs, Merry Saturnalia in a couple of months :) . I am sure you with your theocratic back ground know all this though

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Christianising pagan practices stands in the very best tradition of Paul. When he visited Athens he observed a pagan shrine dedicated “to an unknown god.” When he later engaged with some of the city’s Epicurean and Stoic philosophers he told them “what you are unknowingly worshipping, this I am declaring to you.” - even your organisation’s highly questionable version of the text admits that (and is what I’ve quoted here - it’s Acts 17:23, New World Translation, 2013 edition). For good measure he rams his point home by quoting Aratus, a Stoic philosopher (verse 28).

The case for a direct link between Saturnalia and Christmas is not quite as strong as some like to claim, but it makes no difference whether it is directly connected or not. Christmas is clearly closely associated with midwinter and therefore sits on top of a whole load of European pagan midwinter observances. My response to that would be: so what? God made the seasons and the moon by which we mark their passing (Psalm 104:19, my paraphrase). If other religions appropriate aspects of creation for their own purposes I see no barrier should I wish to use them turn attention back to God.

Final point, Christianity was very much a minority religion and widely persecuted at the time of Constantine’s profession of faith in Christ and the Christianising of Rome did not go smoothly during his lifetime. There is absolutely no sense in which Constantine was going with the flow; on the contrary he risked a lot by associating himself with Christians, including open revolt, and perhaps for that reason he didn’t submit to baptism until he was practically on his death bed, more than 20 years later. The continuing issuance of coinage in the empire for several years after his conversion, depicting pagan deities is powerful evidence of this - coinage ought to have been under tight control of the emperor, and the existence of pagan coins with Constantine’s head on the obverse and pagan gods on the reverse certainly doesn’t back the idea that the empire was ripe for conversion, which would have to have been the case had the world been changing in the way your organisation has told you.

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Did you mean ‘theocratic" or ‘theological"?

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Depends on if he is Catholic or not hahaha

---------- Post added at 20:53 ---------- Previous post was at 20:44 ----------

My point is you refuse to recognise my Christianity yet whether Catholic or Protestant are either following a religion that in all of its history have breached the teaching of the Christ and lets face it the Catholics have an incredibly brutal history (Spanish inquisition etc) or firstly developed by a King who wanted his cake and eat it (well oats anyway)

I am a Jehovah's Witness and as such preach the word of God continually in my neighbourhood something that Christ asked of his followers and told them to continue doing. After all for the end to come the word has to be preached everywhere. I do not vote I have no national allegiance but instead put my faith in the Kingdom we all pray for in the model Prayer laid out by the Christ who I according to you am not really worshipping. And at least we use one of the versions of Gods name the name your bible has likely removed 2000+ times

Have a good look at exactly what our organisation does for its brothers and sisters around the world and trust what ever organisation you are with will have its own issues and agendas

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Your organisation is just one of a plethora of Unitarian sects that were spawned in the 19th century (a great many of them in the USA, which to this day is particularly good at producing end-of-the-world cults). As one of the better organised and funded ones, the Watchtower Society happens to have outlived most of the rest. But it’s still just another 19th century millennialist sect.

I’m glad you look after your own in the Watchtower, but as Jesus said, even evil people know how to give good gifts to their own children. Looking after your own doesn’t really prove anything.

I’m really not going to get into Watchtower propaganda about church history and Bible translation - you don’t really own the research yourself because they don’t allow you to do any beyond the material they approve of, so to be honest there’s no basis for an open discussion here. Suffice it to say that I’ll never ask you to own, or defend, any Watchtower behaviour except that which you say you approve of. And I’ll never feel obliged to defend anything in church history except that which I find to be in accordance with Scripture. I suspect that gives me a rather easier task than you, because the Watchtower does still seem to think it is inerrant, whereas even the Roman Catholic Church (of which I am not a member) tries not to press that line too hard these days.

Incidentally, I’m a minister of a Baptist church. Baptists are the oldest non-conformist denomination in the UK (the conformist denominations being the official ones, namely the Church of England, which is episcopal in government, and the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian). Individual Baptist churches are independent of one another, though we tend to work together through national or regional associations.

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Well at least you have faith which in these days is a rare thing and imo one of the main reasons the world is in the mess it is in. We both pray for the same kingdom the same God and a similar future so that is something

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All very true and very appropriate. We can't read Messianic into every bit of every prophet, same with allegory and so forth. We must read scripture in context both historically, culturally and in keeping with other texts. Yet that doesn't mean that texts can't have a then and also a not yet reading that is applicable.


Essentially exegesis should seek to bridge the "author's idea in his context" to the "author's idea in our context". Lots of good tips in our lecture notes and some good texts that I've been reading but can't remember. One biggie is that our interpretation can't mean something that the author didn't mean in his context.

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You do know the Spanish Inquisition was far less likely to order torture or execution than the secular courts of the time don't you?

Bit ike the freemasons :)

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

No idea how the Freemasons operate. But JW operate on a 100% voluntary donation basis We build and maintain our own Kingdom Halls our donations supports our brothers and sister around the world who are in need. We supply free of charge literature to anyone who wants it and unfortunately in a number of countries in the world we are persecuted and imprisoned for our beliefs. Our brothers were also persecuted during WWII by the Nazis and imprisoned in concentration camps.

If that is how the Freemasons operate then ok

I guess like the Freemasons though I can turn up to any Kingdom hall in the world and be treated like a brother and I personally have 150+ people in the local congregation I can trust absolutely

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Were no female JWs imprisoned, or is "brother" a generic term for JW's?

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

And there you have the problem, as with most/all monotheistic religions, the need to evangelise. The late, great Christopher Hitchens could not have put it better:

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Yes they were. I have put brothers and sisters elsewhere it was simply just an error

---------- Post added at 18:03 ---------- Previous post was at 17:57 ----------

As I said I am a Christian even though that has been disputed and as such I follow the teachings of Christ. Christ instructed his disciples to spread the word, the bible says the kingdom must be preached to all corners of the world and then the end will come. We spread a message of hope and love. Yes it is most often rejected and we face hostility for doing it but the ministry is the most important thing a Christian can do. We have 8 million publishers world wide and we all go on the ministry in one way or another. I can count my time on this thread as minstry and when I get replies and respond it could be considered a return visit

Being a Jehovah's Witness is not easy, the way the world is is against and trust me I make plenty of mistakes

I did not blindly decide one day to become a witness and I was not born into a family of witnesses. I searched and researched and from what I could see the Witnesses try their best to live a life close to Christs principles and that is why I become a Witness

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Again much like the freemasons, up to 200000 murdered and all their property confiscated

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is there a point?

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Not a massive one, just a lighthearted comparison that took a dark turn as things usually do when the holocaust is brought into a discussion

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I do not dispute your conviction to proselytise, rather the moral aspect of attempting to impose your world view on other individuals. Just because a book written 2000 years ago demands you do this, does not make it appropriate or ethical.

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We do not try to impose anything we come round with information of a better way of living and a hope for the future. It is up to the individual if they want to listen. You will see/hear a far more aggressive and insulting approach from the atheist. How horrid we are to come out and offer you a hope of everlasting life on paradise Earth and a future of love and kindness with no pain or suffering.

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I think you are resorting to deflection too easily. What atheists do or do not do is orthogonal to the matter being discussed. One neither validates or excuses the other.

I assume then you do not teach your children about your world view but rather wait until they are adults and so old enough to form an opinion? I would be interested to know your answer .. but I suspect I know it already.

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I’ll jump in here …

this is a really old, and very, very silly argument, which presupposes that to teach children a faith is to teach them a world view, whereas not to do so is to not teach them a world view.

The truth is that every parent imparts a world view to their children. Those who think they are not doing so, simply because they’re not bringing their children up in a religious faith, are being naive at best, and duplicitous at worst. Children always learn a world view from their parents. In the case you have outlined, that world view includes the rather patronising idea that only adults can form worthwhile opinions or hold deep convictions.

Families sharing faith convictions (or even atheistic ones) is absolutely natural and actually, totally unavoidable, unless you were to propose state intervention (in which case, who on earth would decide what’s appropriate for children to be told about the world, relationships, and ethics? And on what basis would they make those decisions?).

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

well you suspect wrong.

My daughter was born in 96 and my ex wife cheated on me and left in 98. I had a break down and was inactive as Witness until 7 years ago when I returned. My daughter is 25 and asks me questions. I do not preach to any of my none witness friends but do discuss it when they ask me questions which they do.

---------- Post added at 22:58 ---------- Previous post was at 22:57 ----------

Yeah I agree with this totally.

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Good to know. I assume that this is the standard approach with the JW church then?

---------- Post added at 10:07 ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 ----------

Sounds like a self-validating argument. You fail, however, to cover the case where parents attempt to not impose a specific world view (to the best of their ability) and encourage awareness and discussion of many. You also, deliberately, conflate an anti-faith atheist parent imprinting their view with a faith parent doing the same, they do not cancel each other out and does not validate the process.

I understand you have to validate your parenting choices because your faith demands it but that does not make it appropriate in a wider, societal context. The way I see it is that all individuals have the right to determine their own journey in life and not have one imprinted on them during their formative years. There is nothing patronising about the proposition that children can be conditioned during their early years. To imply that young children have the ability to process cogent argument and debate complex issues and so determine their own choices is a weak argument.

Of course, we have centuries of historical precedence to backup & reinforce your position but history does show us that change is possible. I also think that raising this point for discussion & debate does not merit your pejorative response.

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A major difference between a humanistic/naturalist/atheistic world view and a "religious" one is that of consequences.



In the former following or not following doesn't really matter but the latter will usually have an eternal perspective. If you believe that following your world view will lead to an eternity of punishment or better that following it will lead to an eternity of blessing then you are going to do the best you can to bring up your children in a way that will encourage the choice of eternal blessing. But children as they grow will make their own minds up. My son is growing in his faith but my daughter has moved away (sad).

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

I have to disagree - I would rather my children (hah, now 30 and 34) did things because they helped others (and themselves) in this life, rather than for a reward in the next* - anything else is a bonus (imho).

I have no issues with anyone's beliefs, except where it impinges on others negatively.

*other afterlifes/continuations of existence may be available, please refer to manufacturers' user guides...

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

The whole idea of hell and eternal punishment is one of the things that led me away from an orthodox religion. I always believed there was more to life and that there was something out there more than this. Never accepted science as I always questioned beyond their constructs.

I believe that Yahweh/Jehovah is a righteous God and he would not damn man to eternal suffering and I also believe that Satan will not be rewarded with an eternity. I believe that Satan and those who follow him will simply end their existence leaving those who follow Christ will be rewarded with everlasting life on Earth. And all of us who pray using the format of the model prayer pray for that

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

If God made man in His own image . . was He gender confused too?

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No, She wasn’t…

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

If this is the case then the answer must be yes because the man God made in his image was Adam...

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Certainly wasn't an engineer :)

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how can you possibley say that? you only have to look at the Earth and the stars to see miracles every day

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Ardi or Lucy might disagree... ;)

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If they're not named in the bible they didn't exist;)

---------- Post added at 14:41 ---------- Previous post was at 14:38 ----------

That's just the results of gas dust gravity and time, i was referring to the bad design of the human body no engineer had a hand in that, it's less reliable than a lada.

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

And where did the gas dust and gravity come from? the big bang? and what was there before that? oh another universe that contracted till the mass was so great it exploded creating our universe. Oh and what was there before that ad infinitum.

The very existence of anything is a miracle

And as for the human body? really ? yes it breaks down and ages but that in my faith is a result of sin. If you look at the cells and how everything does work in the body then you are witnessing another miracle. Life in itself is a miracle whether you believe in creation or pure chance in a chemical reaction

---------- Post added at 14:54 ---------- Previous post was at 14:51 ----------

I will ask them in the Kingdom I pray for

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

And that’s the joy of Science - they keep trying to find out.

They don’t pretend to know all the answers, but try to fit the (scientific) Theories to the available evidence, and when new evidence becomes available, modify the Theories.

For instance

https://www.space.com/what-came-before-big-bang.html

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Mmm, pity, I always thought the big bang corresponded quite well with let their be light

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Where did the light come from?

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

yeah the bang bounce theory. But none of it works with infinity, does it? there is theories on infinity but it is totally beyond the human grasp

If science is right then for there to be matter there must always have been matter but one can always ask where did it come from as without a starting point we cannot understand it.

When my faith is challenged I simply meditate on infinity and that gives my faith back to me

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Maybe light was there all the time, and the 'big bang' blew away the dark that was hiding it?

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My Father is a physicist and he said to me that we understand the laws of physics pretty well here but as for the laws for the rest of the universe we really have no idea

---------- Post added at 15:46 ---------- Previous post was at 15:44 ----------

But science will have you think time began with the big bang. Yes, it is a human construct but forever in all directions space and time is pretty hard to fathom isn't it

A scientist can always question my faith and I can always question theirs with a "where did that come from"

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A question that i have is who or what created god.

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With the bang, obvs

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

What if and just suspend your disbelief for a second that there is a single creator of everything. A being that is infinite.

Yes your question is valid and also infinite and unanswerable unless there is something or someone capable of being the start point

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If I fail to account for your favoured scenario, it’s because in my experience, that scenario simply doesn’t exist - even in cases where parents think that’s what they’re doing.

Children always, always, absorb their parents’ ethical framework and worldview, even if parents actively avoid discussion of it, because children observe it in action every moment of every day, from birth. You simply cannot bring up a child without inculcating in that child your own view of human dignity, care for the environment and some sense of how you arrive at your value judgments.

I have made no distinction between active and passive atheism in the home because it makes no practical difference. You bring up your children with a certain ethical framework, whether or not at the same time you give them a critique of alternative ethical frameworks, regardless of whether those alternatives are based in religious faith. If you don’t recognise that you are doing this, you are doing your children a disservice.

Children are not simply miniature adults. They are immature, in the truest sense of the term, and their very nature requires they are taught, ideally by example as much as instruction, how to make sense of the world around them and how to relate to it, what their responsibilities are in it and what wider society owes them. Insisting on their ‘right to determine their own journey in their formative years’ sounds terribly progressive but is actual nuts, and a recipe only for poorly grounded young people who have been left to infer what’s right and wrong with minimal guidance. There’s a term for that: it’s “chaotic home environment” and its consequences are seldom good.

Children actively seek guidance about how to make sense of the world. It is a given in Western culture (and many others) that it is the parents’ responsibility to do this, with varying levels of support from extended family to and wider community, in accordance with family and cultural tradition - unless something has gone wrong and the child is in manifest danger. Only then does the State intervene. You offer your proposed alternative as seemingly morally superior, but it isn’t.

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And that's the difference between science and faith - science wants to know the answer to the question, and faith asks you to not to be concerned about the answer, just to suspend your disbelief.

Which is why I never ask anyone to justify their faith - belief is enough for them, and I don't have an issue with that, but when they try to impose their beliefs on others, my viewpoint changes (about the person/group, not the faith).

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see there is that word impose again.

Do you think science does not "impose" its beliefs on the religious? it does it a damn site more and with a damn site more force than a guy knocking on your door offering you a smile and a magazine

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Never had a scientist knock on my door, but i did receive a letter from the JW's last weekend something about covid- selfish people and the end of the word,can't find it now so must be in the bin.

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Pretty sure when you trip over and fall, that’s gravity ‘imposing" on you, not science…

If you mean doctors won’t allow people to harm their children, that’s societal ethics, not science…

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I don’t mind justifying my faith, as long as the one asking me isn’t asking for a scientific thesis. That would be a category error. Faith and science are not the same thing, and one is no more or less valuable than the other. They are simply categorically different, and aim to do different things. Those who devised the scientific method never intended for it to be used to infer answers to questions that could not be tested by that method and they certainly never intended anyone to conclude things that cannot be tested by science are therefore false. They are simply beyond science.

If you do ask a person of faith to define faith, you won’t get a definition that sounds anything like suspension of disbelief. Christian faith, at least, is grounded in trust of a being who is personal, and worthy of that trust. At the most basic level, the teaching of Jesus, which exists in its simplest form in what’s often known as the Sermon on the Mount, is worth following because it just works. “Do to others as you would have them do to you”. A whole lot is then built on that, but as a starting point for a way of life, it just works. From that first germ of trustworthiness, faith may grow.

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Theories being taught as fact.

End of the day you cannot prove the big bang happened. You cannot prove life started in a primeval swamp. Science will and does impose its version of reality is correct and mine is not ergo science imposing itself upon me more than I do on it and those who have faith in it

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That's the challenge that excites scientists, just saying god did it cuts no ice.

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You cannot prove he didn't

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I seems you are transposing perceived reality with an objective and verifiable one. You have every right to believe in whatever personal perception you can imagine but trying to impose this on others is the point of contention.

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yet you are imposing your view on them

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Theories being taught as the best explanation that is understood at the time, backed up by observations and experiments.

The evidence gathered shows the high likelihood of the Big Bang having occurred, just like Evolution - again, that’s the difference between science and faith.

I bet you believe in Gravitational Theory (if not, feel free to step out a 3rd floor window)…

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You are basing your argument on the premise that a faith-less (or rather a faith-neutral) upbringing cannot be one based on a moral and ethical framework. You cannot (or do not want to) to accept this is possible. That's fine, that is your right.

You equate a faith-neutral upbringing as "nuts" but as the saying goes "you would say that". I understand your inability to accept the premise since your faith demands you must not but this does not invalidate the argument and more importantly, invalidate the proposition i.e. every person has the right to determine their own world view and not have one imposed upon them.

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No, reality is imposing it’s views on them… ;)

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No, reality is a matter of perception so everyone imposes their own reality on themselves.

You may well be 100% secure in your beliefs in science but you could still be wrong just as easily I could in mine. Neither of us can prove it to the other.

---------- Post added at 18:47 ---------- Previous post was at 18:44 ----------

A faithless or faith neutral person will teach their belief in the fact there is no God same as a person of faith with teach their is one. Both are doing exactly the same thing

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Not trying to,i just have no proof that god exists, but i know science exists,so until i get verifiable proof of god i'll have to go with science.

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I respect that and hope you respect my right to have my faith and express same as you have with science :)

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No, I am not. Quite the opposite in fact. I am basing my argument on the fact that everyone, always, inculcates their children in a moral framework whether it is religious or not and whether they are aware that’s what they’re doing or not. You are “imposing” your world view on your children from the day they are born (an interesting word from someone who repeatedly complains about the pejorative nature of other people’s posts).

Children do not pick up grey shades and moral dilemmas from their parents; they do not pick up lists of alternative ethical approaches; they learn what to *do* based firstly on what they observe their parents doing, and later on questioning their parents for detail.

Claiming that this does not happen is nuts. Claiming you can avoid doing it is nuts. And ultimately, claiming that children should not be brought up with a faith but should only be presented with a series of alternatives from which they might choose in adulthood is nuts, because it completely fails to understand the dynamics and the reality of family life and bringing up children.

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I am not sure your father is up-to-date with the current science. Physicists have plenty of "ideas" about the laws that govern the Universe. Also, time is not a human construct per se, rather a dimension first postulated by empirical observation, then by written theory and latterly by peer reviewed experiments - see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime for more information.

Of course, the kicker is that you can question a scientist and they can then show your their peer reviewed and evidence-based proof whereas, with faith, .. well you know the rest ...

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

Science is the approach in which we understand the reality around us. It is not an alternative viewpoint on how we perceive that reality although it can become so when we reach the parts we do not yet understand, good scientists will make that clear.

As a result, there isn't as much conflict between science and religion as people make out. Science hasn't ruled out God, it hasn't ruled out an afterlife, it hasn't ruled out that there was a creator which started this all. There are only a few things that I can think of that have been ruled out such as the Earth being 6,000 years old. Most of the 'conflict' these days is an American culture war.

But what science can prove is not a matter of 'belief'. If we were to be wiped out only for a new intelligent civilisation to emerge later then the same principles of our world would be discovered again. The laws of physics would remain the same, they would discover we go around the sun, how gravity works, that you can't go faster than the speed of light, that viruses exist even though you cannot see them and so on.

Re: Catholic Church admits Bible is BS
 

I guess you need to believe this fiction but it does not make you right, far from it. "Imposing" as a verb is an accurate description of the practise I am commenting on, nothing pejorative about it at all. I suggest you look up the definition. Calling people "nuts" arguably is though ..