The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

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The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

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Post by Diogenes »

The proposition for debate is that when one takes the tales of Genesis literally, one becomes intellectually disabled, at least temporarily. Taking Genesis literally requires one to reject biology (which includes evolution) and other sciences in favor of 'magic.' Geology and radiometric dating have to be rejected since the Earth formed only about 6000 years ago, during the same week the Earth was made (in a single day).

Much of the debate in the topic of Science and Religion consists of theists who insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis rejecting basic science. Most of the resulting debates are not worth engaging in.
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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #801

Post by otseng »

Diogenes wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 7:57 pm OR can Oliver and other believers make the case they can infer the existence of their god, or the God from what we can observe?
Of course I can and I've already done that in the 60+ pages on cosmology in How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?. And no, I'm not going to rehash those arguments here.

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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

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Post by JoeyKnothead »

otseng wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 6:22 am ..
So, "inference" is not an objective method to determine if something is natural.
...
Or supernatural.
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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #803

Post by otseng »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 6:47 am
otseng wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 6:22 am ..
So, "inference" is not an objective method to determine if something is natural.
...
Or supernatural.
Yes. All it means is something exists, it could be either natural or supernatural.

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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #804

Post by Diogenes »

otseng wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 6:26 am
Diogenes wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 7:57 pm OR can Oliver and other believers make the case they can infer the existence of their god, or the God from what we can observe?
Of course I can and I've already done that in the 60+ pages on cosmology in How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?. And no, I'm not going to rehash those arguments here.
If you lined up all the silly arguments in the world, the cosmological 'proof' of God (and the related arguments) would be at the head of the list. And no, I'm not going to rehash all the reasons it's not convincing. Suffice it to say there is no reason to demand a first cause or prime mover and no reason to label 'God' as such a fiction, particularly since the god of choice is always that of the believer. Refuting the cosmological argument is so easy a caveman can do it.
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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #805

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to otseng in post #800]
Of course it is a candidate to be natural, but it is likewise a candidate to be supernatural. So, "inference" is not an objective method to determine if something is natural.
Agree ... and I did not make a claim that all things inferred are natural. My main argument is against the idea that cosmology uses non-natural explanations. I would place proposed objects, mechanisms, etc. into the category of hypotheses that cannot yet be claimed to be either natural or non-natural. There is a long history of these things turning out to be natural (or discarded entirely as new evidence comes to light), while the number turning out to be non-natural (supernatural), remains a goose egg as far as I am aware. But that is were science and philosophy, religion, etc. part ways ... someone convinced they have a genuine relationship with the god they believe in is as sure it exists as they are sure of anything, and faith takes over from observational, hard science. My mother was the most perfect example of this that I ever knew.
That something doesn't even need to be postulated. Like I mentioned before, it could be the assumptions of cosmology are incorrect. Only if the assumptions of modern cosmology are true would things like dark energy and dark matter need to be introduced.
Sure ... I think that is true for any area of science and the postulation of dark matter is typical of how attempts to explain an observation are started. It was only when cosmology had advanced enough to make even rough models of galaxies, and computers became powerful enough to run the models, that someone noticed a big problem. There wasn't enough mass in all the visible stars to account for the gravity needed to hold the system together, and planets, moons, etc. are negligible compared to stars (eg. the sun represents about 99.86% of the mass of our own solar system).

As the models became more accurate this problem didn't go away, and there's no reason to believe that gravity would behave radically different in another galaxy than it does in our own which we can make more precise obvervations of/in. So while it is certainly possible that there is some fundamental error in present cosmology, until that can be shown the normal approach is to use the current "best" knowledge as the basis for trying to explain new observations. Dark matter is an idea for how to explain the "missing" mass, and if the explanation turns out to be some cosmological error that eliminates the need for extra mass then the dark matter idea will disappear as it is no longer useful.
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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #806

Post by otseng »

DrNoGods wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 4:08 pm Agree ... and I did not make a claim that all things inferred are natural.
Yes. I think we both agree inference makes no determination if its natural or supernatural.
My main argument is against the idea that cosmology uses non-natural explanations.
As mentioned, we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

This will be my final argument...

Other universes and other dimensions do not fit in the definition of natural as "something we can identify, observe, measure".

Since it is impossible to "identify, observe, measure" other universes and other dimensions, they are not natural.
DrNoGods wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 6:49 pm
How can one do an observation and experimentation to demonstrate other universes exist? Or even strings exist?
No idea... but I don't believe that allows us to claim that other universes, or tiny vibrating subatomic sized "strings", don't exist or can't exist simply because we don't have the technology or ideas to solve the problem now.
We have to go by our current understanding, rather than appeal to the future. It is actually a faith claim that one day we will have the technology to identify, observe, or measure other universes and other dimensions.

If it is claimed other universes and other dimensions are natural, then I can likewise claim heaven is in another universe or another dimension, so heaven is also natural.

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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #807

Post by Clownboat »

otseng wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 7:18 am We have to go by our current understanding, rather than appeal to the future. It is actually a faith claim that one day we will have the technology to identify, observe, or measure other universes and other dimensions.
Faith is a religious thing often foisted on to others. The above, at least to me is a probability claim, as no faith needed.

Science makes advancements that garner new information and our technology continues to advance. It is probable that this will continue and that more and more unknowns will become explained unless there is some mechanism that will stop this continued advancement. I would be open to being informed of such a mechanism if there exists one. If there isn't, what is probable to happen remains probable by definition.
If it is claimed other universes and other dimensions are natural, then I can likewise claim heaven is in another universe or another dimension, so heaven is also natural.
Claims mean little without something behind them. For example, the claim of there being dark matter would be virtually useless if we had no observations to suggest such a thing. This would be to enter the realm of faith.

For example:
- This thing here is real and you can believe in it if you are able to employ enough faith. Notice that faith here is a thing that can be lost.
- Dark matter might just be real and here are the observations that we have that led us to propose this idea of dark matter. It's probable that our technology will continue to advance and provide more and more observations to suggest that the idea of dark matter is acurate or not. There is no faith to be lost here as we are simply following where the evidence leads one way or the other. There is also no emotional baggage (hell threats or missing out on a heaven for example) if our future technology proves dark matter to be inacurrate or not.

To consider this as faith is to ignore the differences. Faith is something to abhore IMO and is a mechanism that should be avoided at all costs. The world works on probabilities.

Probability is simply how likely something is to happen. Probabilities can be measured and even shown to equal zero and if that is done, the idea being proposed needs to be abandoned or amended.
Faith is to claim how something happened or that something is. Onced convinced, amending faith beliefs becomes ever so difficult (especially when scary ideas like a hell are attached to it). Therefore, avoid faith as a mechanism for arriving at claims.

Am I wrong about faith? Is working off of faith superior to working from probabilities? Could employing faith even be considered as debilitating? :-k
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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #808

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to otseng in post #806]
This will be my final argument...

Other universes and other dimensions do not fit in the definition of natural as "something we can identify, observe, measure".

Since it is impossible to "identify, observe, measure" other universes and other dimensions, they are not natural.
OK ... I'll throw in a final rebuttal as well. My point is that although we may not be able to explain something today, in 2023, this does not mean that is isn't natural or won't be shown to be natural eventually (or discarded as a failed hypothesis). Dark matter may very well turn out to be a real, natural thing and we simply have not been able to identify what that is yet. Same for other universes and other dimensions. We can't close the book on these potentially existing as natural objects just because we can't identify, observe or measure them today.
We have to go by our current understanding, rather than appeal to the future. It is actually a faith claim that one day we will have the technology to identify, observe, or measure other universes and other dimensions.
I agree with Clownboat that it isn't faith to think science has a nonzero probability for solving problems that are currently unsolved ... at least not in the same way religious faith works. Science has a many centuries long track record of doing exactly this, with many ideas and hypotheses of the past being criticized initially, then as technology improved they were shown to be valid. If science had no such track record, then I agree it would be pure faith. But that isn't the case at all.
If it is claimed other universes and other dimensions are natural, then I can likewise claim heaven is in another universe or another dimension, so heaven is also natural.
Sure ... and both will remain conjecture until they are shown to actually exist as natural things. I'm not sure how you'd go about showing that heaven exists as a natural thing any more than another universe, but a big difference between them is that one is purely imagined by men from a philosophical/religious standpoint, while the other results from interpretation (however wild and unlikely it may be to us now) of some kind of mathematical model related to physics we don't yet understand.
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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #809

Post by brunumb »

DrNoGods wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 5:01 pm My point is that although we may not be able to explain something today, in 2023, this does not mean that is isn't natural or won't be shown to be natural eventually (or discarded as a failed hypothesis). Dark matter may very well turn out to be a real, natural thing and we simply have not been able to identify what that is yet.
Precisely. The electrical properties of electrons and protons allowed them to be discovered fairly early in the history of atomic theory. The neutron, on the other hand, has no charge and is unaffected by electric and magnetic fields. So, although we could not use those tools to find it, we knew that something else was contained in the atom because the total mass could not be accounted for by protons and electrons alone. When we developed better tools the neutron was subsequently discovered. I believe the same will probably happen with regard to dark matter and dark energy.
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Re: The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

Post #810

Post by otseng »

Clownboat wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 11:55 am
otseng wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 7:18 am We have to go by our current understanding, rather than appeal to the future. It is actually a faith claim that one day we will have the technology to identify, observe, or measure other universes and other dimensions.
Faith is a religious thing often foisted on to others. The above, at least to me is a probability claim, as no faith needed.
Faith does not have to be a religious thing. It can be irreligious as well.

See following definitions:

"firm belief in something for which there is no proof"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

"belief that is not based on proof"
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/faith

"a high degree of trust or confidence in something or someone"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dic ... lish/faith

Do you have any evidence that one day we will have the technology to identify, observe, or measure other universes and other dimensions?

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