This piece of stupidity was particularly entertaining:
COLLINS: By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.
Let’s see.
The concept of existence pretty much encompasses the phenomenon, the appearance – that which appears - which possesses a temporal character, being the manifestation of flux in juxtaposition to temporality in general, and due to this temporal character also possesses a spatial possibility/potential.
When we say something exists we are referring to a temporal appearance, that which can be perceived and which moves and acts and so has a spatial character as being the projection of this movement as a Becoming.
Saying that this hypothetical, imagined Being exists “outside space and time” is like saying something exists by not existing.
It is an argument based on selective reasoning and imprecise definitions.
Here the definition of ‘existence’ is left unsaid, thusly making it possible to use this line of irrational, self-contradicting argument.
Here’s the copout:
COLLINS: There are sincere believers who interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in a very literal way that is inconsistent, frankly, with our knowledge of the universe's age or of how living organisms are related to each other. St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang.
Here, this religious fanatical mind uses the very ambiguity and allegorical methods of the Bible to support the Bible itself.
The Bible, pretty much used the methods of the Delphic Oracles when they made their decrees and predictions.
They used poetic, metaphorical and allegorical symbolisms to pretend that they were saying something when they were saying nothing at all.
The events that followed were then analyzed in reference to these Delphic decrees and the human mind found ways of connecting them.
It’s the same tactics fortune tellers use to manipulate the imbeciles that rely on them to alleviate their life’s uncertainty.
The language used, like a Nostradamean foretelling, is so ambiguous that it leaves the door open to a multitude of interpretations.
The trickery lies in allowing a book, written by questionable human characters, a long, long time ago, and referring to hypothetical events of a previous period, open to any interpretation and flexible enough, in a world of changing human perspectives and knowledge levels, so as to remain relevant.
Any scientific breakthrough or intellectual insight is followed by a biblical scramble to adjust the interpretation of the text with the advancement.
This is often called biblical studies where allegorical superstition, mixed in with historical accounts, are interpreted to fit into the current human understanding of existence.
It’s a trick.
