h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Lucinda: I can only appeal to personal experience. The summit of Mount Vinson is less than 17,000 feet. The average airliner cruises at somewhere near twice that, and I've never seen a convincing curve to the horizon from the window of an airliner. I *have* seen television footage shot through the window of a cruising Concorde, from where the curve is clearly perceptible, but I've never had the opportunity to check that personally. But since, as you point out, anyone with access to a beach has other ways of satisfactorily proving that the earth is not flat, I don't feel I'm missing out.

All of which is a side issue to the fact that it seems religion, in this as in so very many other cases, acts as a very effective blindfold. That someone with the same access to the internet as you can, in 2002, suggest that ships are too far away to see before they cross the horizon speaks volumes for their preparedness to WILFULLY ignore reality in favour of their comforting primitive superstition.

H.

RE: post 303



No man has seen God in his true form, but many have seen God in some form. Otherwise, all who saw Jesus would have died.



"Bear[ing] record" and "bear[ing] witness" refer to two different testimonies, at two different times, in two different contexts.



Audience of the first: the Disciples. Audience of the second: mankind. Sending ahead different from leaving behind.



Don't see the contradition.



The first verse ends with "the third and fourth generation of those who hate me," as in continue to hate. This comes back to the issue of repentance and forgiveness. See reply to Hoovooloo. Ezekiel 18 (the entire chapter) addresses this issue beautifully.



For God to show mercy is not for him to change, since he is the God of mercy.



There are something like 6 words in Hebrew that translate to 'murder' in English. The 'murder' meant by the Commandment, I believe, is premeditated murder. There is also killing in combat (which few call murder), killing in self-defense, crimes of passion, etc. God is just.

RE: post 304



You mean literally, as in Bentham, Mill, etc.? Those two were geniuses and they couldn't make it work. How do you?

RE: post 305

Yes, good point, I have not read the entry. Perhaps with time I can write a response to it.

More later. Sorry about the horizon bit, but did everyone miss the "I think?" Logically, a self-report can't be proven false, as you all tried to do. I'm just saying 'cause I saw some crack about my grasp of logic... All in good fun, I hope?

> "You mean literally, as in Bentham, Mill, etc.? Those two were geniuses and they couldn't make it work. How do you?"

Couldn't make it work? News to me. Do go on.

-Martin

Don't worry about the horizon thing - you were mistaken, it happens.

Now, I think you were telling us why a variety of passages in the Bible appear to assume a flat Earth. Given that your first explanation was flawed, perhaps you'd like to try another?

You have choices...
A) Some parts of the bible are metaphorical, not literal, truth.
B) The world really is flat, and there's a huge scientific conspiracy to show otherwise.
C) The passages that appear to assume a flat earth are being 'misinterpreted'.

Lucinda - you missed out some other possible choices:

D - some parts of the Bible are neither literal nor metaphorical truth, but instead are just good old fashioned mythical garbage made up by ignorant savages and of no more historical significance than tales of Zeus or Odin.
E- since SOME of the Bible is demonstrably tainted with obvious demonstrably falsehood, and ALL of it is, we are informed, the infallibly recorded and divinely inspired word of a god, NONE of it can be trusted (remember, this is the same god who EITHER despite being omniscient thinks that the rabbits HE is supposed to have created chew the cud OR knows they don't but deliberately lies about it to the followers he inspires to write down his words, so as not to sound to them as though *he's* stupid and ignorant.

Summary:
A - some metaphors
B - flat earth/conspiracy
C - lack of clarity/misinterpretation
D - all myth made up by people
E - written by a god that is either (a) ignorant or (b) a liar, and therefore in either case not to be trusted. Blimey, if you can't trust the thing to tell the truth about rabbits (and it was ThEntity who pointed out how very trivial that subject is), what makes you think it's telling the truth about ANYTHING?

H.

ThEntity, who said these words?

1) : Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world.

2) : Consider others as yourself.

3) : If you do not tend to one another then who is there to tend to you? Whoever who would tend me, he should tend the sick.

4) : One who acts on truth is happy, in this world and beyond.

5) : Hatred does not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love; this is an eternal truth... Overcome anger by love, Overcome evil by good. overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth.


Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Some of this discussion relates to the "literal" meaning of Scripture. A few thoughts: Genesis 1 and 2 and other parts of the Hebrew Bible are "cosmologies." From the Greek "cosmos" which means "world," (what we would call the universe) and it also means "order" or "structure." So you see what they were wrestling with. The ancients were trying to explain the fact of order in the world rather than chaos--chaos was a primordial reality for the ancient peoples. They had to explain why everything just didn't fall back into chaos--they lived much closer to raw nature than we do

The Greeks would ask the more formal questions of why anything exists at all rather than nothing. The Hebrews were not interested in abstract questions. The ancient cosmologies took into account the demonstrable facts of order and disorder. The little I understand about quantum mechanics, chaos theory, etc., leads me to believe we are still concerned with the same questions. One aspect of disorder or chaos is the fact of human evil--e.g. the current situation in the Middle East--or its ancient counterparts.

Ancient peoples had an intuition--as all peoples have had--that there must be a force or power or something beyond the observable data of nature. That question still remains--scientific reductionists can evade it, but it pops up again as soon as you admit that there is a mode and manner of thinking beyond the scientific method-which is strictly applicable and appropriately used only in the hard sciences.-but which has become the pattern and the paradigm for all thinking. This greatly diminishes human thought.

At the time the Bible and other ancient cosmolgies were formulated, the ancients put two things together. The power beyond the universe, which they were convinced had to be there and the obvious order in a chaotic situation. The ancient cosmologies deal with the realities that interested them. The Bible is thus similar to and different from the other ancient cosmologies. It uses the same kind of languages and ideas of how the world is structured, etc. (the "firmament" being an example). The Bible differs from the other approaches in that nature is "demythologized," It is all the creation of and completely dependent upon a single God. Nature itself does not have godlike qualities. Only God does.

As to the "literal" meaning of the book of Genesis. The religious/philosophical/cultural meaning can be taken as literal (from the Latin "litera" which means "letters"). We currently make distinctions between literal and other kinds of meanings and these distinctions are not completely accurate.. Any statement about love, for example, can be expressed in a number of different ways. A scientist might be able to do a more scientific analysis of the genetic elements involved in spousal love and an author might be able to write a poem about it. But the full reality exceeds the capacity of either of them to express it adequately in words. Yet, the love statements of both kinds are "literally" true.

When did the conflict between a scientific understanding of nature conflict with what we now call a literal interpretation of the biblical passages? Until the advent of modern science there was no reason to ask the question and there was also a different meaning to the word "literal."

With the advent of science as we know it--the 17th century at the latest--there is a vast ocean of questions to be asked of nature which could never be asked before. The same questions have to be asked of scripture. It is at this point that the so-called "literal" meaning of scripture begins to diverge from the other meanings. There have been people all along, certainly including Augustine in the 4th century, who understood a variety of levels and meaning in scripture. In the 17th century and subsequently vast numbers of religious thinkers have been very comfortable with modern science.

The problem I think is a "reductionism" on both sides. The so-called fundamentalists have adopted essentially a scientific model as being the norm and standard of all language and thought. They apply it to scripture. Those who argue against scripture on scientific grounds do the same thing. They are "scientific fundamentalists." That's why there is such a huge and senseless argument between them. So, I think you'd have to say the whole question of the "literal" meaning of scripture is a 17th-19th century problem that has hung on into the 21st century.

Biblical fundamentalism, though apparently alive and well, has no intellectual credibility as far as I'm concerned, but it does raise some interesting philosophical questions about the narrowness and the adverse impact of scientific reductionism--which is a misuse of the perfectly legitimate scientific method. Fundamentalism doesn't raise the questions well, but it points to a problem that I think will be a major issue in the 21st century--i.e the failure of the so-called "rational thinking" since the 17th century to deal with the full scope of human questions. In this respect I would argue that religion is more rational than much of the scientific fundamentalist reductionism that passes for rationality today.

RE: posts 327, 328

I would take choice C for a new car... Did I get it right? Seriously though, in the case of the flat earth issue, as I understand it, the Bible was written according to the way the writers saw and understood things. There's a word for the idea I'm getting at, and the only word I can think of is nomenclature. This might as well be it, because the idea is that writings, thought, etc. come from a system of beliefs and ideas, a worldview. For the writers of the Bible and their contemporary readers, the earth was flat. That belief was integrated into their nomenclature, and therefore the Bible says that the earth is flat. Does this make the Bible false? I don't think so. Apparantly that makes me deluded, as Hoovooloo has pointed out a number of times. However, I think the fact that I am taking into account the context of the verse that says that the earth is flat makes me less deluded, since I can then see beyond that to the message of the Bible.

RE: post 329

1. Don't know.

2. Don't know. Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself, and Paul said to consider others as better than yourselves.

3. Don't know.

4. Don't know.

5. Don't know.

RE: post 330

This strikes me as a very mature view, which I heartily like.

I posted a definition of the word literal some way back in a response to Hoovooloo, which I think may have been somewhat overlooked. The simple way of explaining what is meant by a "literal reading" of the Bible is to read it the true way. That may seem to allow for subjectivism, but the fact is that it is God who determined what the truth is, and he will judge who has read it right, I suppose. I have been arguing for what I believe is the literal reading of the Bible, i.e. the true reading. I can do that because I have seen my way of reading it confirmed, by many others and by experience. If, as some estimates go, 2/3 of the world (those that claim to be Christians) is deluded about the Bible, than God will judge.

> "as I understand it, the Bible was written according to the way the writers saw and understood things"

Except for the various bits in Revelation, for example, which was written several centuries after the 6BC date when it was generally accepted that the earth was round. So, either the writer of Revelation was over 600 years behind current scientific thinking, or there's something else going on here.

--

So, basically you're saying that there is *one* accurate interpretation of the Bible, which one can come to by the grace of God, and this interpretation is true?

-Martin

Re: Post 330

"Ancient peoples had an intuition--as all peoples have had--that there must be a force or power or something beyond the observable data of nature. That question still remains--scientific reductionists can evade it, but it pops up again as soon as you admit that there is a mode and manner of thinking beyond the scientific method-which is strictly applicable and appropriately used only in the hard sciences.-but which has become the pattern and the paradigm for all thinking. This greatly diminishes human thought."

This is a very simplistic and narrow-minded interpretation of the scientific method. Taken at its most limited extent, scientific method is just hypothesis testing, and that isn't even appropriate for a wide range of hard-science questions, let alone more complex ones. Indeed, the scientific method can be badly applied (just as religious thought can be badly applied), but even the soft sciences can be approached with suitable methods. Scientific method is a tool for establishing rationality in thought, there is no concept so 'soft' that it evades rationality. There are some concepts that do not yield 'answers', but the scientific method when properly applied is well aware of its limitations. It is a means to let your world-view be formed by evidence, not superstition or 'self-evident truths'. It is not a straight-jacket for human thought, but a modular structure that we can support our civilisation with. Far from diminishing human thought, it sets it free.

"At the time the Bible and other ancient cosmolgies were formulated, the ancients put two things together. The power beyond the universe, which they were convinced had to be there and the obvious order in a chaotic situation. ... The Bible differs from the other approaches in that nature is "demythologized," It is all the creation of and completely dependent upon a single God. Nature itself does not have godlike qualities. Only God does."

The religious viewpoint assumes the natural state of the universe is chaos, and looks for some higher power that imposes order. The scientific viewpoint assumes order and looks for rules that make this order look chaotic. If the ancient cosmologies looked for some 'power beyond the universe' that's their look out, but that fact that they looked for it (not that they ever found concrete evidence of it, 'natch) is of little relevance to trying to form an opinion today. And if the Bible differs only in separating this 'power' from the world then what happens to God if you take the (quite reasonable) viewpoint that there doesn't have to be such a 'power' for the universe to function? Again, you seem to be assuming the existence of God (under a different name) and using that to try and prove God exists.

"The religious/philosophical/cultural meaning can be taken as literal (from the Latin "litera" which means "letters"). We currently make distinctions between literal and other kinds of meanings and these distinctions are not completely accurate.. Any statement about love, for example, can be expressed in a number of different ways. A scientist might be able to do a more scientific analysis of the genetic elements involved in spousal love and an author might be able to write a poem about it. But the full reality exceeds the capacity of either of them to express it adequately in words. Yet, the love statements of both kinds are "literally" true."

I don't think quibbling about the meaning of literal is particularly pertinent. Unless otherwise stated we should use the standard dictionary definition.

Science doesn't disbar thinking about a subject in different ways. From quantum mechanics through fuzzy logic to Bayesian statitics, its common practice. The 'full reality' certainly can't be expressed in words, but can be thought of in scientific terms.

The point is that any 'literal' reading of the Bible has to take it at face value. Once you start considering metaphor, cultural dependency and possible inaccuracy the reading is no longer 'literal', by definition.

"When did the conflict between a scientific understanding of nature conflict with what we now call a literal interpretation of the biblical passages?"

Galileo voiced the belief that the world was round. Church authorities condemned him. Any conflict was entirely on the part of the religious authorities. Etc etc. It is quite possible to reconcile scientific thought with religious beliefs, providing you actually accept that some beliefs you hold may prove to be inaccurate. Science is about turning your observations of the universe into a world-view. Closed-minded religion holds certain 'truths' inviolable, and often displays spectacular lack of judgement in choosing the truths.

For example: if you throw a rock in Christian fundamentalist circles, you will hit someone who decries homosexuality as 'immoral' and 'unnatural'. You could point out that homosexual relationships can happiy flourish, and that homosexuals are no more immoral than heterosexuals. You can point to the hundreds of species that practise homosexuality. And the fundmaentalist will disregard this evidence because the world in his own head in 'truer' than the world around him. This isn't just absurd, it's bordering on the mentally ill.

"The problem I think is a "reductionism" on both sides. The so-called fundamentalists have adopted essentially a scientific model as being the norm and standard of all language and thought."

The fundamentalists haven't adopted a scientific viewpoint. They do not incorporate new evidence into their beliefs. They have adopted a closed-minded attitude, and you can indeed level that accusation at some of their opponents. They are not a product of 'scientific thought' because plainly most believers before 'science' would have had a literal reading of the Bible. It was perfectly adequate for their dialy lives, and there was no evidence to the contrary readily available. If they knew fomr their own experiences that it was in error, then they could quite happily accept it as metaphor. Scholars of the scriptures might well have taken a metaphorical viewpoint due to diligent study. The modern day fundamentalists have abandoned this approach, adopting a seige mentality that imagines some great satanic conspiracy.

"Biblical fundamentalism, though apparently alive and well, has no intellectual credibility as far as I'm concerned"

Huzzah!

"Fundamentalism doesn't raise the questions well, but it points to a problem that I think will be a major issue in the 21st century--i.e the failure of the so-called "rational thinking" since the 17th century to deal with the full scope of human questions."

Science has come a long way since the 17th century. Certainly, the methods used then would make a poor showing today, but scientific method has broadened and matured. What you call 'rational thinking' isn't actually rational, and more to the point isn't actually employed
by scientists. Sicen has not failed to deal with the full scope of human questions. There are some subjects that are currently too complex to approach in a meaningful way. There are some subjects that will never provide useable evidence. There are more subjects that simply haven't been looked at yet. Science has succeeding in furnishing answers to a great many questions from the sociological to the physical. Metaphysics belongs to that class of problems that do not profide any evidence to work with, but scientific thought (in terms of consistency and rationality) can still be applied to it. You will get widely different answers, but they will be better answers than if you didn't approach the problem rationally.

Religion is the search for answers. Science is the search for ignorance, in order to turn it into answers. The two are not incompatible.

I am posting this over the internet. I was raised using 'scientific' theories about how children learn and develop. My life has been saved obn several occasions by modern medicine. My studies of statistics and computing have given me an underdstanding of how complicated behaviour can arise from simple systems. Scientific thought was allowed me to formulate by own beliefs, and I am the better for it. That is not failure.

I find it quite amusing that in another thread I had to defended the sicentific method from a group of atheists. Now I'm defending it here.

ThEntity- could you please answer post 312, since I'm dying to know.

The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.

F88036?thread=180864&skip=3

H.

'lo...?