How can the scientific individual believe God exists when Bible claims surrounding the notion of salvation are unscientific?

Exactly right. The Hebrew scribes learned their trade from copying Babylonian myths. They knew them up, down and sideways. Judah’s scribes wrote early Genesis as a polemic against Babylonian mythology and culture. It’s not historic in any way, shape or form.

Why do you think all scientists are atheists? You believe in a conspiracy theory of science against Christianity. That’s seriously bad thinking.

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So how do you decide when it is appropriate?

:sunglasses:

I would take that as a dumb question.

Impossible to answer.

Richard

Your question exposes the limitation of words and the meaning of words across different frames of thought. The question centers around the word ‘exist’ in the scientific frame of thought. If someone could isolate their thought to purely ‘scientific thinking’, then God would not ‘exist’ by definition of the word. God is a perspective of the mind toward an understanding of events in life, rather than a scientifically existent entity. Most people can’t isolate their thinking in such a way. Everyone has a dimension of thought that is referred to as belief. It is the way by which we resolve to understand how things happen without any human input or known pattern of design. Belief is a powerful tool that is useful to inspire actions or to satisfy insecurities. America has a leader who believes he is perfect and never does anything wrong. He is supported by both believers and non-believers in the existence of God. That should be evidence for the range of thinking that can occur in the spectrum of human thought. It may provide an answer to your question.

While I completely understand the sentiment of your statement, I’ve never really bought into it. It’s a bit like saying you could never take more than two steps without dribbling if you isolated your thoughts to purely basketball thinking. Science is an activity that you can choose to participate in or not, just like basketball. Science has rules, just like basketball. However, there is nothing in science that says it contains some overarching philosophy to live your life by.

Where I think the sentiment comes from is the utility of the scientific method. It turns out to be a really good way of filtering out a lot of human bias. However, science only works when you have something objective to work with.

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Mybe not on a conscious level but if you have a scientific world view it affects how you view the world, naturally. There is need for empirical data, something to observe, or quantify, or understand. Faith demands that these things are relegated. Relegated, not ignored completely.

The problem we seem to have is that you (et al) cannot see that within science any other “philosophy” is valid

Richard

“Even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

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I’m not sure that “relegated” fits here; it’s a transitive verb that wants an object, e.g. “relegated to the support staff”.

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It’s neither a dumb question nor impossible to answer. The scientific method is appropriate for scientific questions – determining cause-effect using math, measurement, and experiment. It’s obviously not appropriate to a whole host of questions.

I used to worry about “scientism,” which is the idea that science is the answer to all our questions. As Wittgenstein pointed out, science has nothing to say about love, beauty, art, music, or how best to govern ourselves. Unfortunately, as it turns out, I should’ve been worried about the rise of anti-science, especially among my former tribe of evangelicals. We’re seeing the tragic results of that played out in real time now.

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Relegated to cognitive dissonance?

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I think the prevalence of the first gave rise or at least a major impetus to the second.

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The first was present in the latter half of the 19th century. Dostoevsky wrote Notes from the Underground in 1864 to refute determinism. I think you could make a case that scientism was prevalent among the educated class in the first half of the 20th century, which was what Wittgenstein was reacting against, but the tide turned in America with Reagan, the Moral Majority, and the start of the Culture War.

So basically yes.

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Actually it does rely exactly on that very theme…the bible starts with exactly that …so i dont know how you manage to ignore the very first part of it and make such a statement?

Are you in the habit of only watching the last half of movies?

Read exodus 20 8:11

The Sabbath commandment is to remind us that…
we were created along with the earth in 7 days

Revelation 14.12 says…
The patience of the saints, here are those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus.

What happens between the above events is a narrative of exsctly how:

  1. sin has ruined this world and all life on it
  2. Christ dies for that sin in order to provide an avenue for redemption for us
  3. A description of restoration/re creation of everything which sin corrupted and ruined.

Id suggest yours is seriously bad reading…i said “Darwinian …” meaning those individuals science is atheist!

Grammar isn’t your strong suit. You have it backwards. “Atheistic men” is the subject of the clause; they did something, which was come up with “Darwinian” theory. Regardless, you’re directly equating Darwinian with Atheism, as if biological evolution was a giant scientific, atheistic conspiracy to undermine faith in God and Christianity. That’s conspiracy theory at it’s finest.

Richard is right. Christianity relies upon Christ, not a 7-day creation. No one is saved by strictly obeying the 10 Commandments or observing the correct (Saturday) Sabbath.

How does Christianity rely on a literal 7-day creation? Saying the whole religion stands or falls on a literal 7 days has caused a whole generation of young people to lose faith when they grow up and learn that’s a literal lie. What you’re doing is the opposite of evangelism. I wish there was a word for that.

Read Deut. 5:12-15

12 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

In that passage, the justification for the Sabbath was to remember their own slavery, and to give everyone – animals, servants, even foreigners – rest on the Sabbath. So which takes precedence? Seven-day creation, or redemption from slavery?

This is a wild exaggeration and reading between the lines. “Sin” isn’t mentioned until Genesis 4. Sin didn’t ruin the natural world. That’s propaganda. Human sin didn’t cause the first natural death of animals, plants, algae or anything else. The world is old. Death and extinction happened for billions of years before we appeared.

“Sin” applies only to morally mature humans, and the narrative in Gen. 2-3 tells how we (symbolized by “the woman”) became morally mature and declared our independence from God, just as an adolescent prematurely declares their independence from their parents. The story explains why we are estranged from God, which is why we need a Redeemer. There’s no need to insist on a literal interpretation of the 7-day creation or Adam & Eve. Christ is a necessary priest/mediator even on a metaphorical interpretation.

Checkmate! haha

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That cannot be supported from scripture – it’s a “tradition of men” that stems from Augustine’s messed-up view of original sin.
According to the Psalmist, Creation is good even now.

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Absolutely.

Many learn it’s a lie when they study ancient Hebrew literature.

“Devangelism”?

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Perhaps you would like to take the time to itemise when the scinetific methodology applies and when it doesn’t Excluding the flippant

That is called a truism.

How we choose. What factors we include in that choice. What we understand as “data”, Whether that data has to be tangible within our senses. That is part of the scientific method Taste is a sense, whether it is in the mouth or our ears.
In many ways we can/t control what we like or dislike, but we use that information to make decisions, logically (or not?) The scientific method is entrenched in logic, so how do you decide when to throw logic out of the window? I do not think I can give you n answer!
Some people can’t do it at all, which is the whole point of this discussion

Richard

Queen takes rook.

This assumes that God insists everyone follows, obeys and worships him and punished (condemns) anyone who dares not to.

It is a view of God. It may be the predominant biblical view of God, but it is still a view, and in my opinion a primitive one

The heed for salvation relies on God needing and excuse not to condemn or judge. Why does God need anything?

Surely, with the passion of Christ God has chosen not to!

Is that not the message of the Gospel?

But, us humans need more We have to do something, even if it is only believe"

Richard

Only if you insist on it.

In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

That is what matters.

And God blessed the seventh day and made it Holy.

That is what matters.

All the rest is padding! The 6 days to create is context for the sabbath.

Why does God do two things on two days? it makes no sense. The rhytm of the text is

And God did this, then there was evening, and then there was morning the nth day. But on day 3 and day 6 God does two things. Why?

Because it is based on an eight day creation!

Genesis 1 is about two things

God created everything. Nothing was created by itself except proginy. That was set in motion., but the sun, the moons, the stars, they were created, They have no influence of their own (Astrology)

And God created the sabbath. An enforced day of rest. For God’s sake? (So we can worship Him) or man’s (so he can rest!)
What did Jesus say?
(I should not have to tell you)

It is not about ignoring Genesis 1, it is about understanding what Genesis 1 teaches. The Bible does not teach science!

(Please note, I used Scripture to prove my point, not science. Jesus knew what the sabbath was about,)

And as for all you cross refence referals… How do you think the people of Biblical times would react to a prophet who said
Well actually the world is billions of yeas old and humans developed from apes
Yeah, they are really going to accept that, just like you do not.

You are living in the bronze age, not the 21st century. Madness is not due to demon possession, Leprosy not a sign of sin, nor is it incurable by humans, Neither is lameness or blindness. caused by sin. And death is a part of the circle of life.

We do not have to buy into all the mythology and beliefs of preindustrial society. Or perhaps you think a radio is a man trapped inside a box., and a light bulb is magic.

Richard

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