Bingowings said:
RicOlie_2 said:
Bingowings said:
RicOlie_2 said:
Science is not a doctrine, and I am glad you recognize that, because some think it is. What I mean by "satisfactory" is that science has provided an explanation for the universe's origins, but the origins aren't truly explained. Belief in a creator furthers the explanation greatly. I don't mean it is necessary, but I am giving reasons why people, not necessarily myself, hold religious beliefs.
Belief in a creator might further an explanation of the universe greatly but belief in the Biblical creator furthering our current explanation of the universe???
I fail to see how talking snakes and sinful scrumping have anything to do with the already shaky branches of string theory, for example. I also fail to see how the whore of Babylon and the fiery pit have any bearing on the entropic heat death hypothesis.
Indeed I fail to see how it explains anything other than the mindset of a bronze age people hoping to maintain some sense of order out of the chaos of living a desert beset by the dangers of nature and rival communities.
Applying that God to that situation makes perfect sense.
A) I did not specify the Judeo-Christian God.
B) Why would I have to read the Bible for an explanation? Since the Biblical creation story is allegorical/symbolical, that would seem kind of silly.
So Bronze age people and talking dragons don't have any bearing on the matter.
What I mean is that a primary mover of some kind seems necessary to initiate things like the Big Bang. Specifically a mover who is by his/her/its very nature omniscient, omnipotent, and existing not as a thing but rather just "being" if that makes any sense (I find it a difficult concept to explain).
A) You are a Catholic so belief in other Gods is naughty.
B) You are a Catholic and the tradition of Catholic doctrine stems from a literal interpretation of the allegorical/symbolic literature most people call The Bible.
Indeed people have been burned to death for suggesting it was anything more than the literal truth.
You have moved on in some respects (that doesn't mean you can't move back) but as a religious organisation and a political entity the Catholic church does lobby world leaders, corporate big-wigs, dictators, voters etc on ideas which stem from reading the text and coming to a set of conclusions that have a basis in bronze age ideas about what a God of the middle east expected of those people to do then.
From what I understand from content written on these threads there are people who use these boards that believe Adam was a man and not a metaphor and that Samson really did live and wasn't Heracles by another name.
Ergo my answer.
There may be some variant of the prime-mover hypothesis which helps to explain the increasing holes in the current scientifically accepted model of the origin of this universe but it's not the Biblical Literalist one, that much I can reveal.
Is it reasonable to criticise Christianity for the doings of religious organisations when the Christian scriptures themselves predict that these groups and their leaders will become terribly corrupt? Isn't that too easy?
"Christianity" is the One Will of the Trinity. This Will is revealed through Inspired Scripture or designed nature.
Of course Scripture that was intended to help a Bronze Age people cope with the conditions of the time would present material relevant to those people.
Anyway, The Trinity, if it exists, is omniscient with respect to THIS Universe. It may be "omnipotent" with respect to our "reality". You have the power to stomp on the toes of any passerby. You are an omnipotent lord over the toes of the unsuspecting. There are higher authorities who restrain you.