(January 27, 2015 at 3:06 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(January 27, 2015 at 2:43 pm)SteveII Wrote: I am sure you have read the NT. Can you find anything to support your claim that Christianity is about money? I think the teachings on greed and self-sacrifice are pretty clear.

Yeah, like I said, it's easier to get people to accept the weird concept of tithing if you first pepper your narrative with a bunch of stuff your audience already wants to hear. Stop thinking in these absurd binaries and actually read what I'm saying: you can't say that the church isn't about money, when such a big part of the process is tithing, why the bible says that not tithing is robbing god, and that it curses you to abstain from it. For all this talk of greed and self sacrifice, your religion then turns around and says "also, pay the preachers ten percent of your money, or god will get so pissed at you that he'll curse you."

It's also why so many religious figures who have so-called visions of the afterlife end up having god conveniently tell them to stress the importance of tithing. The bible might be full of one message, but the church is full of money, just waiting for the tithe-demanders and apologists to take it.

Tithing is an OT concept. I'm sure you will be shocked there are unethical people trying to get rich.

(January 27, 2015 at 3:34 pm)SteveII Wrote: How about this: The Judeo-Christian worldview still fits the framework of facts we have discovered over the last 3000 years.

What facts? The ones you merely see as facts because of your rose colored glasses?

(January 27, 2015 at 3:34 pm)SteveII Wrote: Was it just lucky that those sneaky church fathers built on the God of the Jews?

No, it was intentional. Man who creates new fictional religions always borrows from other, older religions.

(January 27, 2015 at 3:34 pm)SteveII Wrote: While the scientific understanding of the world changed over time, the actual words in the OT/NT have never come down on the wrong side of science.

REAL science has no interest in the bible. Only the pseudoscience known as creationism does.

(January 27, 2015 at 3:34 pm)SteveII Wrote: Of course you are going to bring up creation. Augustine thought

I have no interest in mentioning silly theistitards.

(January 27, 2015 at 3:34 pm)SteveII Wrote: While the scientific understanding of the world changed over time, the actual words in the OT/NT have never come down on the wrong side of science. Of course you are going to bring up creation. Augustine thought that the 6 days of creation were symbolic in 400 AD (way before Darwin). Anticipating that certain passages would be problematic he writes "In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines our position, we too fall with it."

What I find hilarious about this is that you make a strong, declarative statement in the first sentence, and then spend the rest of the paragraph either running away from it at full speed, or altering the actual premises of the first statement in such a way that it's not longer anything near what you're claiming it to be.

You start off by saying the actual words of the bible have never disagreed with science, and then in the very next sentence you start laying the groundwork for some wheedling: "Well, not actually the actual words, um, maybe what certain people after the fact, who had no possible way of knowing the original authorial intent, decided what the words meant?"

You took an entire paragraph to say what it'd take me one sentence (and a whole lot more honesty) to say: "It is possible for me to reinterpret or ignore the words of the bible, such that I can square it with modern science."

Well, so what? If you just get to decide what does and doesn't count as part of the bible, and interpret what does count to mean whatever you want, yeah, I bet it's real trivial to make the bible square with science. But that hardly means that the bible itself matches with science. It just means you're desperate to give your presupposed conclusions an air of rational legitimacy that they have neither earned, nor deserved.

(January 27, 2015 at 3:34 pm)SteveII Wrote: While the scientific understanding of the world changed over time, the actual words in the OT/NT have never come down on the wrong side of science. Of course you are going to bring up creation. Augustine thought that the 6 days of creation were symbolic in 400 AD (way before Darwin). Anticipating that certain passages would be problematic he writes "In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines our position, we too fall with it."

In other words, where the science is unclear, hedge your bets. Where the science is clear, reinterpret things to fit the science. Way to not lose a bet.

(January 27, 2015 at 3:45 pm)SteveII Wrote: Tithing is an OT concept. I'm sure you will be shocked there are unethical people trying to get rich.

Tithing is an OT concept, and Jesus said he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it. Is there any particular reason you're cherrypicking my responses here, or is it just that you're ignoring anything you feel your baseless assertions can't handle?

I'm just waiting for "it's a metaphor".

I would like to know a few Bible claims that are contradicted by scientific facts. Leave out miracles for a second because of God exists (which is kind of the theme of the Bible) then miracles exist and therefore would not be a contradiction.

Nope, Steve, that's not how it works. Even if there is a god, that doesn't lend any more credence to the stories of miracles. Perhaps there is a god...who doesn't perform miracles (and wouldn't that explain quite a bit, lol, eh?). There is no "therefore". You obviously already know that there are many claims contradicted by scientific fact...or else you wouldn't have immediately attempted to excuse one class of them.

Wow. Just wow.
"Show me where the Bible contradicts science, expect for some of the major parts that obviously contradict science"

Special pleading much?

But, anyway, just off the top of my head, how about the numerous people in the Bible that live for 800+ years? Or are you just going to claim that their longevity was a 'miracle' as well, and thus don't count?

You mean "I'd like to know how science contradicts the bible except for the major parts of the bible that it clearly contradicts".