originally posted by Wes
No, I don't debate the value of a moral lesson, it's just that morals are superfluous to the applicability of the book and its presumptions. I would however state that moral lessons are well, a dime a dozen.
I agree completely that intangibles are of great value.
I submit that morals (and their value) are
not superfluous to the applicability of a book that emphasize
morality above all else. Especially if those morals are closely if not inextricably connected with another "intangible",
vis a vis God.
You don't need supernatural bullshit to understand love and morality or to be as wise as is possible. Scientific inquiry is the only fair means to test theories. Otherwise people will believe anything won't they Jenyar? Hehe. Regardless, I never proposed scientific inquiry for moral endeavors, etc. I have no religion and no god Jenyar, yet I'm perfectly capable of understanding the things you think you can only understand through god. It's ridiculous really. I loved it when posed "love" as some great mystery in a prior post. Hehe, it will always be a mystery if you think the only way to gain knowledge of it is divination. If I'm not mistaken, you painted it into a picture than could never be understood. I beg to differ. I think I understand exactly what love is. (but that's a different conversation maybe? at least a different post. I discussed it in detail in a thread called Love and Hate, but am too lazy to look up the link)
I do not suggest that you need God to understand or practise morality (in fact I think I made that explicit in one of my posts). I am saying that if you live in a house that is evidently not yours, you should pay homage to the owner.
So love is not a mystery to you? I'll make a point of looking for your post. In the meantime, I'll assume you are capable of making anybody fall in love with you once you've explained and proven it to them. Must be useful. To use my light example again: you might know all the mechanics and qualities of light, even all its manifestations, but can you create it or control it by knowledge alone? Morality is likewise a tool. A tool for exploiting (if that's the word) love.
On this side of "valid", you have the inner working, the science - on the other side of its validity, you have its reality, its
metaphysics, its "soul". Let's just say I know enough about love to know that no definition you could give it would stop your wife from having an affair, for instance.
*sigh* sure, Jenyar. Hehe... but uh.. you just said you couldn't comprehend it, then tried to put something (god) in there where you just said you couldn't comprehend it. Hell I can do that to but what good does it do me? Ah, I see, it could be useful as a tool for me to promote my presumption to myself. Excellent. Don't you understand that that is exactly how brainwashing works? That is exactly how a cult gets members.
The "but you said He lives in the realm of incomprehensibility" trick doesn't work on me, wes. Everything you said, and everything I said points to a frontier where what we know (and can know) ends, and where I what I will call "mystery" begins. When undiscovered truth lies in the realm of the unknown, it doesn't mean the truth (or parts of it) we
do have are not valid or does not exist.
You say the universe has a boundary (currently at 15 billion years). If God was temporal, your objection that I put Him where knowledge end, would be valid. But I don't. I don't propose that God is an extention of any scientific knowledge we have or could ever have. He does not fill any "gaps", and certainly not mine. I try to understand things at least as much as you do, I'm sure. Remember it is
your belief that God is unknowable, not mine.
Inifinity is a mathematical tool. Finity is a word you just made up. Jenyar, this may shock you: I believe god could be real. However, I believe that "god" as you refer to it as in the abrahamic god or the god of 'scripture' is about as valid as that space-ship that was hiding behind shoemaker-levy 9.
No, I'm not at all challenging anything the bible says. I'm writing the entire thing off as entirely irrelevant. I couldn't tell you for sure if that's what Hawking was doing. My guess is that he did the same thing I did.
Hence your lack of knowledge about the Abrahamic God, is my guess. Even if you did read it, you're obviously prejudiced about it. The Bible is a history of a people's experiences with one God, ever since experience could be coherently recorded. It is not
complete knowledge, it is not politically correct knowledge, but if you throw sand over clear glass, you
can discern some kind of shape.
Science does the same thing. What I meant with "scientific gathering of knowledge" is this: Science is also a history - a meticulously recorded and tested history, but history nontheless. Some "facts" have been replaced by others, some were only refined - but they still pointed to the same reality. It is measured, weighed and classified grains of sand thrown on our physical world. But if intelligence and imagination were not necessary, there would be no brilliant scientists or even conflicting theories - only
dedicated scientists and
incomplete theories. There is a strong human factor involved. Science measures our progress on a path that is very real and confirmed beneath our feet, but we cannot see beyond the horizon with the same certainty.
At one stage, that path travels into the unknown. You will agree with me: it does not make the path we are standing on any less credible or certain, even if it is a little rough and uneven.
The history recorded in the Bible is no different. It is the history of relationships, decisions, events, warnings, emotions, moralities, religions, beliefs, art... with one important consideration: God. There is still the human factor, but the reality uncovered is no less real for it. In fact, because people and relationships are inegral to the study, it is made that much more relevant. The Bible presents an eternal present, with only a vaguely projected future. But we can see the path for what it is with very little uncertainty, based on the ground that has been covered. Which is where we come to you mind-boggling statements:
I don't care what the greeks said. We have stacked a world of understanding and information on top of their groundbreaking innovations.
How is history relevant in this context?
How can you know where you are going if you do not learn from the past? You might question it or not, accept it or not. But that you reject the history of Jewish thought and accept the history of the Greeks without any apparent reason other than preference is disturbing. You might
prefer logic above record because of your experiene with it, but that denies that humanity had other ways of recording experience before logic was invented. I share your bias against anything that does not adhere to the logical structures of rational thought or scientific analysis, but I do not let it extend to the integrity of
people.
If I take the morality taught and even
enforced throughout scripture, and superimpose it on the authors (whoever they might are might not have been), I get a certain picture. It is a picture I have seen in miniature - like a fractal - experienced and corroborated within my own life and have compared with the experiences and conclusions of others (along with information and understanding "stacked upon" our predescessors). Where they were wrong we can see it now, and where they made sense we have used it in our thought. So it has been since the time of Jesus. The Jews have gone through a similar process. Islam only started fairly recently, and although for entirely different reasons they do the same as you: they question or reject the foundations from which their way of life developed. It's a bit like skipping the proof and jumping to the conclusion.
Just to make sure you understand me clearly. I do think God is His entirety and in His mystery is unknowable. But even some mysteries become clear. Parts become known. We search and explore and expand our thought. But I don't reject the reality of that knowledge, because the origin and future is blurred by the mists of time and the veil of obscurity. You don't question that the Greeks were onto something, or the historicity of Plato, because you can attest to the validity and effects of their thought.
And we have much less record for Homer, Sophocles, Aristotle, Caesar, Aristophanus, Socrates (who was among other things a Christian historian), Philo or Plato (through whom we get most of Socrates' ideas), than we have for Jesus. (
Manuscript reliability)