E pur si muove

In comments below, Lila provides a link to this account of Bill Nye the Science Guy's visit to a Texas community college.

Who doesn't love the Science Guy? Well, I guess the fundies don't:

The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.

A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.

“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.

This is what Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, meant when he warned of "creationism ... reducing the doctrine of creation."

This sad, angry woman has somehow been convinced that it is impossible to believe in God without also believing in an illiterately literal reading of Genesis 1:16. She's painted herself into a corner in which she must reject not only evolution, but the existence of the dark side of the moon. She is forced to regard Neil Armstrong as the pawn of Satan.

This is the inevitable conclusion of the brittle faith she has been taught. It is impossible, she has been told, to believe in God without also accepting this unworkably literal reading of every phrase in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Thus, if the moon simply reflects the light of the sun and does not itself project light, she believes, then there is no God. And that means, she has been taught, that life is random, meaningless, nasty, brutish and short.

That's part of the fundamentalist "worldview" -- to use one of their favorite words -- that only these two options exist. Option No. 1: Total and unquestioning belief in the God of the fundies' literalist text. Option No. 2: Nihilism.

Her three young children are being taught this binary worldview. What will become of them? I've seen this story play out before, dozens of times. The only way to preserve the fragile faith they are being taught is to keep it sheltered from the world, like John Travolta in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble -- they have to be sent to fundie school, or to be home-schooled, until they are old enough to attend Bob Jones University. In the meantime they must be kept away from Bill Nye, and the Discovery channel, and NASA.gov. They can't even be allowed to watch The Boy in the Plastic Bubble lest they begin to ask dangerous questions about Buzz Aldrin.

Some few of these kids will somehow manage to maintain this soap-bubble faith all the way through to adulthood. They'll marry within the bubble and teach this fundamentalism to another generation of children. But those cases are the exceptions. Reality is too hard and pointy a place for soap bubbles to survive very long and most of these kids will end up being forced by reality to reject Option No. 1. Unsurprisingly, they tend to turn to what they have been taught is their only alternative.

A friend of mine attended an unaccredited fundamentalist elementary school out near Williamsport, Pa., where children were taught a variety of young-earth creationism. The teachers there weren't clever enough to embrace the "Omphalos hypothesis," (the last-Thursdayism I heard from my own middle school science teacher), so they had to reject any apparent facts that implied the universe had existed for more than 6,000 years. Thus, I kid you not, children at this school were taught that the stars were tiny lights in the heavens, none further than 6,000 light-years away. Their soap-bubble faith required them to assert that the universe was roughly 1/2,500,000th its actual size.

My friend soon escaped that place for an accredited school in the reality-based community, but she kept in touch with some of her old classmates from the soap-bubble school. They became drop-outs, drunks and druggies. Why? Because at some point they had seen a lunar eclipse, or they had learned that the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away. And they had been taught that if the moon itself is not a "light," or if the universe were older than 6,000 years, then there's no reason to become anything other than a drop-out, a drunk and a druggie.

Comments

[John H.]

I went to one of those schools.

I think I came through it okay because I had been a voracious student of science from before high school. Soon after I left, I began to realize that most of what I had been taught was bunk. I actually suspected some of it at the time, I realize now, but had denied it to myself.

The result? I'm an athiest now. The result of teaching brittle religion is that, when it shatters, it all does.

[dsp]

It's about time that, like Archbishop Williams, Christians speak out and say that God did not create us to be idiots, and that so-called Creationism is an irreligious misunderstanding and misuse of the Bible. Recognize the wonderful gifts of awareness, curiosity and understanding. God did not create the world in six days. Period. Get over it.

[Carl]

I agree with your entry, having experience the soap bubble myself. One nitpick:

Don't use "reality based" as an antonym of "faith based!"

In the New York Times Magazine article in which the term was coined, reality based was contrasted with the post-modern view that as an empire, America's administrators are able to *create their own reality*. Thus, those who stuck to the facts on the ground, like journalists, would never be able to understand the workings of a system that creates facts based on its actions.

Anyhow, other than that, keep up the good work.

[Duane]

Great post, Fred. I wanted to add that regardless if the "bubble boy" actually became a drunk or doctor, acid head or astronaut, if he was to reject the fundie faith he would be viewed the same: as a rejector of God, bound for hell. This would be accompanied by constant psychological manipulation and a host of other casual insults. (I saw Mrs. Templeton in the market. She says she loves you and is praying for you.)

Frankly, if Bubble Boy wants anything close to a normal life, he must sever the relationship with the fundie community, including parents. Maybe it's this part that causes the substance problems.

[aaron]

sounds a little like borderline personality disorder

[bulbul]

It's about time that, like Archbishop Williams, Christians speak out
Anyone ever heard of a little club called the Catholic Church? As much as I dislike the Vatican, this is one thing they get right.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if those people don't listen to what the biggest Christian denomination has to say and they only rely on their own clergy, ID won't go away that soon.

[paula]

"they have to be sent to fundie school, or to be home-schooled, until they are old enough to attend Bob Jones University."

I had to laugh at that. Our Pastor is a graduate of Bob Jones. Then he went to Harvard Law School (talk about culture shock). He is now the Pastor of one of the largest Metropolitan Community Churches (aka the "gay church") in the Midwest. The moral of the story: There is hope for even the Bob Jones crowd. LOL.

[Toby]

Thus, I kid you not, children at this school were taught that the stars were tiny lights in the heavens, none further than 6,000 light-years away.

That is ridiculous.

Clearly there are stars further away than that. The light from them was created en route to Earth, no further than 6000 light-years away.

[Evan]

Some few of these kids will somehow manage to maintain this soap-bubble faith all the way through to adulthood. They'll marry within the bubble and teach this fundamentalism to another generation of children. But those cases are the exceptions.

Well, then, where do they all come from, Fred? Shouldn't faiths like this dwindle away to nothing in a few generations? Are all the members of those churches recent converts?

[GeoX]

Ha! I'm from Williamsport! Pretty durn rare to see it mentioned anywhere.

[A Texan in Germany]

I'm one of the few kids from my Southern Baptist youth group who took a "middle way". In fact, I literally took the "Via Media"; I've been an Episcopalian since late freshman year of college. The others are even more rabid about it than their parents or are just about complete atheists. We were taught in youth group that accepting evolution as an explanation was tantamount to rejecting our faith, and that refusing to acknowledge it as a legitimate mechanism was praiseworthy. I can remember answering biology test questions, "As taught in this course, blahblahblah, but according to the Bible, blahblahblah." In order to avoid angering students and parents any further, our bio teacher took stuff like that.

/Shudder./

It doesn't shock me that Bill Nye would get this reaction in Waco. I grew up 40 miles south of it.

My fairly conservative (by German standards) German Lutheran boyfriend snickered when he read the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's statements about evolution being contrary to the Word of God. Just about any German high school graduate snickers at a literal reading of the Genesis creation stories.

[JeffL]

'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'

'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

'For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'

- 1984, Part 3, Chapter 3

[Raven's Star]

Oh, how familiar this all sounds...
I had a major religious crisis that began when I was 15, because I was intelligent and took honors science classes and read books and such, and thus could no longer handle the dichotomy between scientific proof and theory and the absolutist idea that the Bible is literally true, there really was a flood that covered the entire earth, God literally made the earth in 6 days, and that there is a literal hell of eternal fire where one will go if one doesn't believe all of these things.
Eventually, of course, I ended up leaving Christianity behind forever. Perhaps if I'd been raised in a less rigid and anti-science/education branch of Christianity, I wouldn't have felt compelled to do this.

[Skyknight]

JeffL: I seem to remember that somewhere around there, O'Brien referred to the state of mind that Ingsoc was trying to create in Oceania as a "shared solipsism". Where solipsism, in this sense, means the belief that only the self is real, I guess shared solipsism means the belief that only the consensus is real.

The fundamentalists would do well to consider that sort of nettle.

{sigh} One thing I don't understand about such unremitting literalism--why do none of its advocates seem willing to grant God a sense of metaphor? (Never mind that I don't understand how a perfect God and eternal punishment and Hell can coexist. A quintillion years, and God's ire STILL isn't even remotely extinguished? Not a terribly nice state for God to get himself stuck in...)

[JeffL]

Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he knew, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind -- surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him.

'I told you, Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,' he added in a different tone. 'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.'

----------------------

Immediately after that last bit. I studied 1984 more than was probably healthy. If you want someone to talk your ears off about dystopia, come to me.

[PK]

From one link to another:

In the audience receiving Gosse's book there was a large, middle-of-the-road group that clung to the position there was no really serious breach between Genesis and geology in the first place. "And even if the opinion of the moment seems to suggest a little misunderstanding," their position might go, "were not both science and Genesis vehicles of Truth. and was not Truth ultimately unitary and consistent with itself and thus would not the apparent disagreements ultimately resolve themselves when the right time came?" It was a position that emphasized the modesty of human knowledge and the danger of too much pride in the emergence of science. To this slightly unctuous camp Gosse doubtlessly appeared to be a hand-wringer and a bit of a hysteric.

This is the camp I'm in.

The problem I have with the Catholic Church's "interpret Scripture in the light of science" policy is that it does so selectively. Science also tells us that water doesn't change into wine, and that dead people don't come back to life, so why does the CC believe in Jesus' miracles?

Admittedly, it's no less logical to believe that God could have created the world in six days than to believe that Christ rose from the dead. However, that point alone doesn't necessarily justify a simplistically literal reading of the Genesis creation account.

If someone tells you that the Bible must never be interpreted metaphorically, politely ask them to implement Mark 9:47. Be extra helpful by handing them a spoon.

[wintermute]

Better still, Mark 16:17-18. With this reference they can even prove that they're Real True Christians with simple household cleaning products.

[mg_65]

De-lurking to ask: when did this happen? I was born in 1965 and raised Episcopalian, and I knew lots of devout Catholics and Protestants, and we were taught specifically that the Bible is to be read as metaphor, story, and parable. And then when I went to Fordham (Jesuits) we were taught to notice the contradictions in the Bible, such as the two different accounts of creation in Genesis, Jonah vs. Leviticus, and so forth.

So... when did it become normal for people to be taught Bible inerrancy or literalism or whatever it's called? Has this been going on a long time, or is it just now getting press, or what?

[mg_65]

JeffL, in fourth grade I wrote and presented a passionate book report on 1984. This did not endear me to my teacher or the other students. It's been downhill ever since.

[Andrew Smith]

Excellent post, Fred.

Forty-six years ago, I had graduated from college and was headed for seminary in the fall. My wife and I were just married, and we were living with her parents for the summer. I landed a job with the Reading Railroad as an "extra crossing watchman," which meant I was the substitute. For most of the summer, I was assigned to a crossing which was being completely rebuilt, which meant there was no traffic to watch for, and anyway, the gates were automatic. It was a union featherbed job.

One of the men on the crew discovered I was going to seminary, and he tried to convince me that the Bible was the inerrant word of God. I asked him whether Judas hanged himself or bought a field with the blood money, fell down, his guts fell out, and he died. The reply:

"If I were to question one word of the Bible, I would have to throw the whole thing out."

Now I see the dichotomy he lived with. As do so many biblical literalists. For them, there truly is no third option.

[Monte Asbury]

Another unfortunate element of the binary fundamentalist worldview - sometimes aggravated by simplistic anti-creationist arguments - is that "Evolution" is a complete set of deductions, none of which are still under examination.

Thus, creationists stumble onto things like the Second Law of Thermodynamics with an "Aha!" convinced they are the only ones who notice the problem posed by a universe in entropy that produces better-adapted organisms. But I recently read of a famous scientist who chose a career in physics because of that puzzle.

There is so much to learn. In the end, I suspect we will find that dogmatists of any stripe limited the ability of our cultures to discover both faith and science. Humility - the awareness that we really don't know much - still goes a long way!

[cjmr's husband]

PK, the Catholic church has a long history of not investigating miracles too closely.

But as for Biblical miracles, the basic mindset is that Science can predict how things happen, and scientific law can dictate what should happen, but an omnipotent God can do whatever He wants anyway.

Including carrying around packets of powdered grape juice.

[Ahruman]

Just a wee nitpick: a 6000-year-old universe, with speed-of-light constraints, is about (6 × 10^3)/(1.37 × 10^10) ≈ 1/(1.2 × 10^19) times the correct size, not a mere 1/(2.5 × 10^6). :-)

[bulbul]

PK: I was about to act like a jerk (again), but thankfully, cjmr's husband already answered your question, so I can refer you to his post.

Skyknight: Never mind that I don't understand how a perfect God and eternal punishment and Hell can coexist
I don't mean any disrespect, Skyknight, but why don't you try to find out what some Christians are saying on the subject?

[Nate]

I need to point out that the woman at Nye's lecture may have left for a different reason. As a former fundamentalist, I would have walked out because I thought he was saying things that are meant to sow doubt. I would not disagree with what he said, but with why he said it. Dissent isn't tolerated when you already know the truth.

As a former fundie apologist, I can respond to several other posts.

Andrew Smith: Judas "fell down" after he hung himself. There is no contradiction.

Fred: The Universe is only 6,000 years old but its "apparent age" is much greater. If you don't like that answer, I can always claim, "God works in mysterious ways that we aren't meant to understand." There is no contradiction.

mg_65: There are two accounts of creation, but one should be taken literally while the other is not literal. (See how easy it is when you can pick your interpretations?) It is all true, mind you, but some parts are metaphorical. There is no contradiciton.

At least that's what I was taught before I began to question fundamentalism.

[Victoria]

I don't know the author of this quote, but the best (and shortest) explanation I've heard on the seeming contradictions in the Bible is this: "All the stories are true, and some of them actually happened." This might help explain how Catholics can refer to the Bible as unerring in matters of faith, but not the final word on science or historical events. In my opinion this would include the miracles of Jesus--I think it's more important *why* he did them, and why his followers chose to remember and record them, than the actual mechanics of how he did it. In Catholic lingo, Jesus is looked to as "the model of the moral life," not an early forerunner to today's scientists.

[Erick Oppeen]

And these creationist types vote, and swing considerable electoral weight.

I wish I'd never left Taiwan.

[bulbul]

the seeming contradictions in the Bible
This discussion started with PK problem with the way the Catholic Church explains miracles. I believe (as in "I think", not "it is a part of my faith") that contradictions in the Bible text are a different issue.

As for the miracles, well, they are exactly what the words says: miracles. Deviations. Unnatural phenomena. God has created (or rather, is creating) the universe, He sets the rules. Does the word omnipotent ring a bell?
Besides, science does not and maybe cannot explain everything. And let's not forget that there are such things as Mysteries.

I think it's more important *why* he did them
Exactly. But we (the Catholics) still believe that he actually did turn water into wine and raised Lazarus from the dead.

This whole subjects reminds me of a passage the volume 12 of Left Behind. Jesus has returned and speaks to the assembled True Believers (tm) adressing every person in his/her own language. One of the protagonists (Chaim, I think)pauses to wonder how this is possible. At that point, my brain froze and when I recovered I actually yelled "He is God, you dumbfuck! He can do ANYTHING!!!"

[Andrew Smith]

Nate: in order for there to be "no contradiction," you have to go outside the text. My favorite line is, "The rope broke." But that introduces something that is nowhere in the biblical account. You can't have it both ways. You can't argue biblical inerrancy and then add something to the text.

Is there error between the two versions of what happened to Judas? No. There are two different traditions. Matthew, who wrote for the Jerusalem community paints the picture of Judas feeling remorse, trying to give back the money, throwing it on the floor, "and he went and hanged himself." Luke, who also wrote Acts, protrays Judas as a no-goodnik who profits from Jesus' betrayal and buys property, on which he dies while plowing it. Luke's audience was the Jewish and Greek converts in Asia (now Turkey), and the image of Judas as a scheming thief fit their image of Jews in Judea before the destruction of the Temple.

The point is that both versions are true, in terms of Mythos. The same is true of the two creation accounts. They were the oral tradition of two different groups within the emerging Israel (probably the two societies that became Judah and Israel). The whole of Genesis 1-5 is mythos, not Logos. As such, both can be true at the same time, although the inconsistencies force fundamentalists to ingnore, or gloss over, the second account.

As a (nameless) Cathoilic Priest said, "Everything in the Bible is true, and some of it actually happened."

[ringsabre]

If there's a way out for those caught in the "only two options" trap, it's the Internet, with sites like this, offering the chance to share with like-minded "wounded warriors." It is possibly the best chance they've got. I mean, it's not like people go around personally broadcasting that they are an unconfident, struggling, fear-ridden ex-fundie!

Pre-Internet was hard for me. Very hard. I felt totally alone. But not anymore.

[Skyknight]

Bulbul: {quiet chuckle} I'm well aware of the omnibenevolence binds (and Lewis's way of getting around them). I was speaking, rather, of how fundamentalists tend to think of perdition as being an element of God's wrath. How does a perfect being manage to get itself stuck in a state of unending rage (which would be anything except perfect)?

({sigh} Mental note to self: be more specific next time)

[Skyknight]

Andrew Smith: He discards one word, he must discard the whole thing?

So basically, the thinks the Bible can only ever be properly understood in its gestalt state.

So where did THAT leave Jews and Christians who lived before the penning of Titus, Apocalypse, Jude, etc.? Is there a reason why God left them out in the cold?

[ringsabre]

Skyknight (cool name),
And for that matter, it's only fairly recently in human history that there has been 1, widespread literacy, and 2, the printing press. Contemporary fundies act like you not only have to lug a leather-bound Bible everywhere you go, but you should also have much of it memorized. So, similar question: where does that leave many centuries worth of Christians who only heard snippets read once a week in church?

[Duane]

The creationist explanation we heard for the earth being so old yet only being 6000 years old was that God created it old. (all growed up, like Adam.)

[Bugmaster]

Bulbul: I think Nate's post perfectly illustrates my previous point about metaphors in the Bible.

[robert p]

One case of severe doublethink is Andrew Snelling, qualified geologist and young-earther. His work has been slammed here, here, here, and at my blog.

I ended a somewhat acrimonious creation/evo discussion with these words (mostly plagiarised from talkorigins.org):

I find it ironic that you think I have missed the point! I have made a titanic effort to repeatedly address your "points", only to hear a recurring mantra-like response of "worldviews", "assumptions" "interpretation". I was once a young-earther too. I've heard it all before.

If you really study scientific materials, you will learn that evolution is indeed as much a fact as gravity, and it is not a philosophy. Philosophies are not constructed from physical evidence and experimentation, but science is!

You have to provide hard evidence as to why evolution is not true... not that you just can't believe it. Creationists have yet to provide ANY evidence that disproves evolution. I have provided several rebuttals to creationist's ridiculous claims. You also have to come up with a viable, scientific alternative to evolution. Creationists have been unable to do so... all they can do is quote scripture. I'm looking for science here.

Are you aware that not everyone is Christian, or belongs to your particular sect of Christianity? If your goal is to "undo the damage" done by evolution, and to convince people that the bible is not a myth, you have not even begun to start. How is looking at scientific evidence "in the light of the bible" different from looking at it in any other light? Are you suggesting that the conclusions should be influenced by biblical faith? Shame on you. Facts are facts, regardless of your beliefs.

[bulbul]

Skyknight: I stand corrected :o)
Bugmaster: I was wondering when you were going to show up :o) And only the Judas story qualifies. As I said previously, the number 6000 for the age of the universe does not appear anywhere in the Bible.
Rather, Andrew's post illustrates my points about Bible authorship and textual criticism. Except that I would disagree with his characterization of both Judas' stories as "true". I agree that the story has been spun in a different direction by Matthew and Luke depending on their respective audiences (btw, notice how Matthew adds the reference to Isaiah). But one, or possibly both of them, did get it wrong. The parables are "true in terms of Mythos", just as, say, the flood is "true in term of Mythos". But there really was a Judas, he really was an apostle and he really met an onfortunate end. Just how exactly that happened, we will never know.
The Bible is a collection of various texts and as such, it is indeed full of contradictions. I do believe the Bible is divinely inspired etc. But unlike some people, I don't think this means that I should believe that it's perfect.

As a philologist, I never liked that "Everything in the Bible is true, and some of it actually happened" mantra. It takes the easy way out of all the problems a Bible scholar will face. And it sounds too much like doublethink to me.

[Axiomatic]

Well, bulbul, I see it as a question of whether you really believe Jesus walks around with a huge sword hanging out of his mouth instead of a tongue. And if so, I wonder what kind of a sword it is (does Jesus have a Hattori Hanzo sword???) and how he managed to preach to people with it.

[Bugmaster]

Yeah, what Axiomatic said. So, if the Bible is "indeed full of contradictions", that leaves you standing on quicksand. You can always go to extra-Biblical sources (which are still "divinely inspired") to try and resolve the contradictions, and to establish which parts of the Bible are metaphors (like that sword-tongue thing). But the problem is that all these texts contradict each other, too, and they are also full of metaphors. So, eventually, you either have to hit some other sources (such as science or history), in order to resolve all these textual problems. So, you have to implicitly place a higher degree of trust on these sources than you do on the Bible itself.

Sure, the Bible may be divinely inspired, but if you can't trust the transcription, that doesn't matter.

The only other alternatives are literal fundamentalism (the 6000 years old Earth being one consequence of that), or doublethink, or faith.

[Beth]

A friend of mine was recently telling me about cargo cults, which sprang up among Pacific Islanders after Westerners had come and gone. The natives had watched as the strangers built landing strips, set up radio towers, waved lights and talked into radios until magically, planes appeared filled with all sorts of wonderful cargo. When the strangers tore down their airfields and left, the cargo stopped coming, much to the dismay of the natives, so they decided to take a crack at it themselves. They built their own towers out of bamboo, carved wooden radios that they talked into and waved torches in front of the landing strips. Amazingly enough, it didn't work.

I think a similar process is happening here. Religious folks have seen scientists come along with their books and calculators and long, complex theories, and bewitch people into believing what they tell them. Governments base policies on their findings, people eat and drink according to their dictums. So the religious folks have come up with their own theories and formulas. They've calculated the precise age of the earth, explained away fossils, and measured the universe. Like the Pacific islanders, they've imitated the form but missed something essential beneath it. Their theories are as complex and complete as the scientists' but they're not based on observable fact. So, like the islanders, they're angry and frustrated that their magic hasn't worked. Their theories aren't taught in schools, made the basis of government programs, or believed by much of anyone outside their own group.

I wonder why people need any of the bible to be literally true. If God created the world and all its inhabitants and saw that it was good, does it matter whether he used clay or evolution? If He so loved the world that he made an inconceivable sacrifice through which all our sins could be forgiven, does it matter if He did it through a man named Jesus who wandered around Judea 2000 years ago?

[Josh]

The talk of miracles brought to mind Hume's argument against the miraculous. For anyone unfamiliar with it, in a nutshell, he says that a miracle is defined as something which violates the natural law. But the natural law is empirically determined so the required evidence to believe a miracle has occured must outweight the evidence for the natural law, hence you should revise the natural law and you can't know if a miracle has occurred since it won't have violated the revised law. I don't know if I buy it entirely but it puts me in mind of a thought I had about Intelligent Design.

ID and all similar arguments require that we believe things in nature show evidence of design, just as do man-made objects. But then generally everything in nature, therefore everything we observe period, is designed. But then we don't know what an undesigned object looks like and we don't have any basis to distinguish designed from undesigned. Then how can there be evidence of design?

A way out would be to say that some natural objects are designed and others aren't or possibly to offer a quantifiable abstract definition of design, but obviously those aren't too appealing for most IDists.

[bulbul]

So, if the Bible is "indeed full of contradictions", that leaves you standing on quicksand.
No it doesn't.

You can always go to extra-Biblical sources
I said it once, I said twice and I will say it again: this emphasis you place on "extra-biblical" is simply stupid. EVERYTHING except for the Bible is extra-biblical, including the language it is written in.
And a lot of times the contradictions can be solved internally.

But the problem is that all these texts contradict each other, too, and they are also full of metaphors.
And how would you know that?

The only other alternatives are literal fundamentalism ..., or doublethink, or faith.
No they are not. And as I have said at least on one previous occassion, I don't understand the word "faith" as you use it. How does "faith" help you to resolve contradictions in the Bible?

[Angelika]

To Beth,

you wrote: 'I wonder why people need any of the bible to be literally true. ... If He so loved the world that he made an inconceivable sacrifice through which all our sins could be forgiven, does it matter if He did it through a man named Jesus who wandered around Judea 2000 years ago?'

Actually, it does matter to me. I have a craving to build my life on something that is true - and not just on a beautiful idea. To know that Jesus did die and literally rose from the death, gives me the assurrance that God indeed loved the world enough so that all our sins could be forgiven and gives me a basis on which to build my life. To consider the same story just a particularly beautiful human invention written to make a nice religious point wouldn't do it for me.

(Personally, I think, the contradictions in the bible make the document more trustworthy: Whenever the same story is told by different people, there comes in some variation - and memory tends to change somewhat over time. Thus the contradictions are a sign that there had been a bunch of people witnessing and passing on the same stuff. I'm much more suspicious about sources that fit perfectly together or happen to have miraculously fallen from heaven in a platinium covered book or revelations received by only one person, which are not backed up by the revelations and experiences other people had, too.)

[jhlipton]

bulbul:
But there really was a Judas, he really was an apostle and he really met an onfortunate end. Just how exactly that happened, we will never know.

Do we really know any of that? There's this guy from Nazereth who's going around preaching revolution and sedition and not keeping his movements exactly secret. Neither the Roman nor Jewish Governors would have needed a lot of help to find Jesus.

But let's say that an apostle named Judas did betray Christ. The "unfortunate end" makes for a better story, but isn't necessarily true. For all we know, God may have sent a message, "It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it. Go forth and prosper."

Mind you, I'm coming at this who doesn't believe that the Bible is worth much as a history text, but can provide good ethical guidelines.

[Bugmaster]

Bulbul:

I admit that I haven't read all the ancient volumes of forgotten lore in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Sumerian, or what have you. However, given the nature of such documents, I would be shocked -- completely shocked -- if they did not all contradict each other, in the same way that the Bible contradicts the Tanah (sp?), other versions of the Bible, and even itself. You say that "contradictions can be solved internally", but what does that mean ? Whenever someone talks about solving Biblical contradictions, he inevitably ends up picking and choosing quotes at random to fullfill his agenda -- or, using mundane (as opposed to divine) sources, such as science or common sense, to explain away the more nonsensical passages. Either way, you're placing some mundane source (yourself, or science, or common sense) as being above the Bible in authority.

I have to admit that I've never experienced religious faith, but, as far as I can tell, it's this feeling deep inside of you that certain things are true and good. The feeling is profound and undeniable. So, presumably, you can use this deeply personal feeling to guide you through the Bible, illuminating true passages and pointing out the metaphors. I'd be curious to see if any of the other blog readers have used this method first-hand.

[Bugmaster]

Oh, and if contradictions make a story more trustworthy, then our current administration is the pinnacle of truth and trust :-)

[natasha]

"That's part of the fundamentalist "worldview" -- to use one of their favorite words -- that only these two options exist. Option No. 1: Total and unquestioning belief in the God of the fundies' literalist text. Option No. 2: Nihilism.

... And they had been taught that if the moon itself is not a "light," or if the universe were older than 6,000 years, then there's no reason to become anything other than a drop-out, a drunk and a druggie."

Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing that. I've never been able to adequately explain or sum up the utter mess I was when I left my fundy home all those years ago, but that just about does it. Frakkin' a, man. I love my family, but the perfectly normal-seeming bastiches that run their church have no earthly comprehension of the damage they cause.

[ringsabre]

Natasha, You are not alone.

[Devra]

Wow. You people are too smart for me, but I have to say I'm really enthralled by the comments here. The Fundamentalist view of life, faith, society, politics are so foreign to me that I can never quite grasp it.

I grew up as a sometime attender of a Church of Religious Science (aka 'Science of Mind'), due to my overbearing grandmother insistence. For all the issues and dysfunction in my family, the 5 or 6 formative years I spent exposed to this odd precursor to New Age Christianity ensured I would always have a very difficult time accepting the Bible as the unerring direct word of God. Like someone growing up Unitarian, one simply can't be a literalist about a religious book after that. It's metaphor, it's myth, it's embellished oral history, it's psychological warfare - call it what you will, but please don't call it literal Truth.

Thank you, Fred, and all the commenters here - I learn so much coming here & I am always assured to leave here holding more compassion in my heart for those with a different 'worldview'. It must be torture to have a crisis of faith when faced with the merest of doubt or contradiction.

[bulbul]

in the same way that the Bible contradicts the Tanah
You mean Tenakh? THE Tenakh? You know, the books we Christians call the Old Testament?

I admit that I haven't read all the ancient volumes of forgotten lore in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Sumerian, or what have you.
No shit. No offence, but I'd be surprised to learn you have read the Bible at all.
And Ugaritic is the lore most relevant to the Bible.

Either way, you're placing some mundane source (yourself, or science, or common sense) as being above the Bible in authority
Apparently, my arguments of the "Bible is a text and every text must be interpreted" fail to reach you. Let's therefore try something different:
how would you apply the authority of the Bible to the capital punishment?

Whenever someone talks about solving Biblical contradictions, he inevitably ends up picking and choosing quotes at random to fullfill his agenda
You are perfectly right, this is what often happens.
But real exegesis is anything but random.
You know what, this is getting all too theoretical for my taste. Could we try a specific example - say an obvious contradiction?

I have to admit that I've never experienced religious faith, but, as far as I can tell, it's this feeling deep inside of you that certain things are true and good. The feeling is profound and undeniable.
I am sorry, I don't recognize this.