I for one, do believe that the Bible had divine intervention or guidance in being somewhat protected from its beginning of authorship with Moses, to its canonization process a couple of millenniums later. It would not have made it through, with mankind's fumbling. It would have fallen into the same category as so many books that have never made it down through history.

The message, however, is very debatable and requires IMO a new discernment. The "old" understanding involving the tenets of Christianity is no longer working. Its not enough for those - like me, who need more.

Spirituality is an alive mechanism. It needs sustenance to keep growing and not by maintaining stagnant information. It relies on new insight which keeps one humble and an understanding that "we don't know it all!"

I have learned to question anything that is cut and dried as Christianity has become. It is not that predictable, nor is God....in my experience.

No belief required for science

this is actually an incorrect statement.

you have to start with a premise--which is a belief, that based on your current data, xyz is true, but you can't prove it yet, so you must use empirical procedure to arrive at a satisfactory answer. problem is, empirical procedure is rife with areas that can be abused, such as:

1) is the scientist believed simply because of who he is in the social order.

2) is the scientist believed because his evidence literally does seem to indicate his premise to those who make such decisions. (local viewer error)

3) is the scientist "believed" because the establishment is using it as a means to hide a deeper meaning or revelation.

etc.

based on their own rigid set of laws, which they use to keep info from being accepted on topics that haven't been released to the public yet or aren't in keeping with the agenda of those who pay the bills, most of what is passed off as "proven" is little more than the original premise.

you really don't want a list of all the "facts" of science that have been proven inaccurate or patently untrue do you?






[edit on 12-10-2008 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
this is actually an incorrect statement.

you have to start with a premise--which is a belief, that based on your current data, xyz is true, but you can't prove it yet, so you must use empirical procedure to arrive at a satisfactory answer. problem is, empirical procedure is rife with areas that can be abused, such as:

1) is the scientist believed simply because of who he is in the social order.

2) is the scientist believed because his evidence literally does indicate his premise.

3) is the scientist "believed" because the establishment is using it as a means to hide a deeper meaning or revelation.

Actually, you start with a hypothesis. Which is typically your best guess about how something works, or why it works the way it does, or what will happen if you do something. It's not a belief that you are right, it is a guess that you set about proving or disproving as the case may be. The scientific method, I think that is what you are talking about anyway, is how scientists (and others for that matter) go about testing the hypothesis.

Scientists aren't just "believed" because of who they are, their studies and experiments are proven true or false and are duplicated by other scientists to see if they get the same result. Things get checked by numerous people before they are called theories.

If the evidence proves the hypothesis true, then yeah it makes sense to say the hypothesis was true. I don't understand the point you are making there.

What deeper meaning and revelation are you talking about? Lost me there too.

based on their own rigid set of laws, which they use to keep info from being accepted on topics that haven't been released to the public yet or aren't in keeping with the agenda of those who pay the bills, most of what is passed off as "proven" is little more than the original premise.

That rigid set of laws, as you call it, is to prevent crack-pots from claiming outlandish things and having the world think it's true. If the original hypothesis is true, why would anyone want to cover it up? If the original hypothesis is false, they keep working until they figure out what is true.

you really don't want a list of all the "facts" of science that have been proven inaccurate or patently untrue do you?

This was covered by my statement:

Science is a set of facts, that change as we learn new information.

That's called admitting you are wrong, something you don't find often when it comes to religious beliefs. In my book, admitting you had something wrong and that the facts weren't quite straight before is much better than saying "No, this is right. I don't care what you say. It's right cause it's in this book."

Yes science has been wrong about things, but we learn new things every day. Some that show a previous theory was wrong, or maybe even just slightly off, and some further prove previous theories. What is wrong with new information?

I don't have to believe in gravity for it to affect me. I don't have to believe that water is wet, for it to be true. I don't have to believe that if I fall while walking a tight rope that there will be a net to catch me, for there to be one.

With religion, Christianity for example since that was the topic of this thread, I have to believe in God to be saved. I have to believe Jesus is my savior to go to heaven. Etc. etc. etc.

Now a list of religious beliefs that have been proven inaccurate or patently untrue, that would be something I'd like to take a gander at. Point being, scientists can, and do, say they were wrong about something. They don't have to believe the hypothesis is true for it to be true. They don't just claim they are right because they believe they are right and everyone accepts it without question, which is something that happens frequently in religion.

The scientific method, I think that is what you are talking about anyway, is how scientists (and others for that matter) go about testing the hypothesis.

which starts with a belief.

empirical process is nothing more than a testing cycle agreed upon by a group of people, who may or may not, want the results to be seen as evidence.

i'm sorry but scientific process is run by people and as you have already pointed out (as did jesus, btw), people have issues.

let me give you an example:

carbon dating (and other methods of dating). when a new dig is undertaken, a sample of the area in question is dated. based on the ages already established for the various geological strata, the items found in the dig must be the visual correct age for the layer they are found in or they are considered contamination and thrown away (unless it's a valuable artifact, in which case they just label its placement as a mystery and ignore that part of the discovery). the reason given for doing this is, they can't afford to date every item found in a dig. whether an item is dated or thrown away is left entirely up to the people at the dig site.

so let's say they found a soda can in a strata that was 9000 years old. they would assume it's contamination and throw it away. i'm not kidding. this is the actual process they use, they are that sure of their theories and hypotheses.




(Edit to add the phrase: "and other methods of dating")

[edit on 12-10-2008 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
which starts with a belief.

No, it starts with an assumption. Not the same thing as a belief.

empirical process is nothing more than a testing cycle agreed upon by a group of people, who may or may not, want the results to be seen as evidence.

We can't even get a group of people to completely agree on what is meant by any given passage in the Bible, or on exactly how any given situation happened. How exactly do you think they managed to find a group of people who would all agree to hide anything and none of them let the truth slip? Where is your proof that scientists do not want the truth of something to get out?

i'm sorry but scientific process is run by people and as you have already pointed out (as did jesus, btw), people have issues.

Which is why hypothesis' are tested by more than one person or group of people. They are checked and rechecked and rechecked by multiple scientists before a theory is accepted.

let me give you an example:

carbon dating. when a new dig is undertaken, a sample of the area in question is dated. based on the ages already established for the various geological strata, the items found in the dig must be the visual correct age for the layer they are found in or they are considered contamination and thrown away (unless it's a valuable artifact, in which case they just label its placement as a mystery and ignore that part of the discovery). the reason given for doing this is, they can't afford to date every item found in a dig.

so let's say they found a soda can in a strata that was 9000 years old. they would assume it's contamination and throw it away. i'm not kidding. this is the actual process they use, they are that sure of their theories and hypotheses.

And if you did find a soda can in strata that was 9000 years old, would you not think it was contamination? Or would you think that people way back then had soda can's and we just haven't found the manufacturing plant they made them in yet?

Makes sense to me if you find something in a particular layer of rock and can't explain why it's there that you say "Gee, I don't know why this was here. Maybe it's contamination of the dig site. Or maybe someone from this time period found this from a previous time period. Or maybe someone from a more recent time period found it and buried it here for safekeeping and never came back to get it." Makes a lot more sense than saying "Hmm, I'm just going to pretend that it was supposed to be here and everyone will believe me." Or saying "Hmm, I'll just pretend it wasn't here at all."

And if you did find a soda can in strata that was 9000 years old, would you not think it was contamination? Or would you think that people way back then had soda can's and we just haven't found the manufacturing plant they made them in yet?

i wouldn't assume anything, if i'm following REAL empirical procedure, i would test it to find out its age, to determine IF it should be thrown away as contamination. they claim they can't afford to do that. if they can't afford to, they have no business being there, insisting they are telling us the truth, when they don't have all the data.

another issue:

back when the enlightenment period first started, german higher criticism decided all of ancient history was a lie or at the very least, a metaphor (except the bible, but don't worry, that was eventually on the chopping block as well). they did this based on the incorrect "belief" that the ancient greeks couldn't write and it snowballed from there. when it was discovered the ancient greeks could write, it was too late to fix it. by then (some 40 years later), various important professors and authors, had written lengthy books on the subject and even developed it further by stating that since the ancient greeks couldn't write, any ancient history supported by those texts, were also without contemporary support. they established new history texts based on this incorrect data and never recanted the original and incorrect premise which started it all. today, we think our ancestors were a bunch of loons, and the majority of the cause of that is due to this one pivotal moment in human history.

and they did all that without the benefit of archaeology, which hadn't been created yet.


[edit on 12-10-2008 by undo]

(addendum: i need to clarify that margaret murray beleived it was not built by seti I. the mainstream archaeologists of her time, ignored her evidence, and as a result, today, they are still teaching people that the osirieon was built by seti i.

Originally posted by undo
so you agree with me? that they were working with a set of beliefs, not facts, and that they established doctrine (of various kinds: the doctrine of mainstream history, the doctrine of mainstream archaeology (oh i gotta tell you about this one) and so on) and teach it out of their holy books (science texts), which may or may not contain the truth but which is frequently and fervently called the truth by its proponents and those who use it as a political tool. what part of that sounds any different from religion? (none of it does).

Do I agree that they weren't working from a scientific view? Yes. Do I agree they were working from their beliefs? Yes. Does this prove your point when I was under the impression we were talking about the current scientific community? No.

I would hardly call scientific theories, or even a set of them "doctrine". That's a bit of a reach. Calling ever-changing science texts "holy books" is also a stretch of the imagination. That is why it is called science and not religion, it changes constantly as new theories are proved and new information is learned. It is not a set of beliefs that never has more than a minor change every few decades at the most. People don't pray to the gods of science. They don't gather in a building once a week to worship science. They don't believe everything that comes from a book and declare that this book is the only book that is completely correct and is divinely inspired and all other similar books are wrong. The only type of people I have ever heard or seen fervently stick by what comes from a book and leave no room for new facts to disprove old ones is the religious ones.

Science searches for evidence to prove the theory. Religion uses blind faith because there is no evidence. There is no blind faith in science.

ah but they aren't ever changing. what you see now, is the result of various theories and beliefs from what came before. for example, the belief that seti I built the osirieon still goes on today, because of a belief that was in itself wrong, back in 1909, which was wrong because an earlier theory based on insufficient data from before that, all hovering around the initial start of the historical landslide simply stated as "The ancient greeks couldn't write."

Originally posted by undo
ah but they aren't ever changing. what you see now, is the result of various theories and beliefs from what came before. for example, the belief that seti I built the osirieon still goes on today, because of a belief that was in itself wrong, back in 1909, which was wrong because an earlier theory based on insufficient data from before that, all hovering around the initial start of the historical landslide simply stated as "The ancient greeks couldn't write."

And how did we arrive at the current theories? By proving the old ones false, or slightly off the mark. What is that again? Oh yeah, change. You said it yourself, Seti I building the Osirieon was a belief, not a scientific theory. And today it is a what? Belief, not scientific theory. Based on what? The belief ancient greeks couldn't write. Which is once again a belief.

Now if you have nothing further to prove your point aside from pointing to the same example and even saying yourself it was/is a belief, a belief I might add that apparently isn't that wide spread since you seem to know it's wrong, I will be moving on. No sense beating a dead horse, which this discussion obviously is since you've drug me in a circle.

........

,,,,,,,,,

for the record, archaeology
is a field of scientific study.

and nice chatting with ya.