Humor in Science and Theology

Mervin_Bitikofer · August 15, 2021, 12:06am

That’s dark, Phil. Had to stare for a bit before I caught on. Reminds me of the “Trolley scenes” in “The Good Place”.

SkovandOfMitaze · August 15, 2021, 12:32pm

Thought this was a bit amusing. The guy is more of an friend of an acquaintance but me and the other guy had been talking about better ways to interpret theology. Despite being some form of Catholicism in Slovakia it seems they are heavily influenced by YEC including the others I met through him. Anyways his friend , that I don’t really know, has been going on about how he feels god putting it on his heart to snow me the truth and that evolution is a lie and ect… somehow the discussion got around to the giant sea serpents like Levithan from the Bible and while praying he said he came across a secular link to that creature and knows god wants him to share it to me. He said that he even had a dream of how ferocious this animal is. He wanted me to see how giant it was and that even the picture shows it.

For a second I was thinking, that’s really cool and yeah it’s big but I’m not sure how that is supposed to change anything I believe. Then I realized pretty quickly in like a second that it was most likely really small and that yellow line is the size snd larger picture is not to scale. So I went to the page and it outright says it’s a small snake with hind legs.

So I asked him if he was just joking or if he was aware of the creatures size. That it’s small. So he checked and came back and seriously said he was misunderstanding the groaning of the spirit and that this is evidence for the snake in the garden and that it used its body to wrap around the tree and it’s feet to hand a fruit to Eve. He’s not even joking. He’s dead serious that he believes this lol.

I was just like…… what about the vision of the giant snake……

Dale · August 15, 2021, 7:09pm

That indirectly reminds me of the YEC (after I had said that truth comes from the reality of the data in nature and the reality of the data in the Bible, and if there’s an apparent conflict, our interpretation of one or the other or both is flawed) who wanted chapter and verse where the Bible said that truth comes from reality.

beaglelady · August 15, 2021, 7:20pm

Dale · August 15, 2021, 7:33pm

That’s pretty funny – the older we get, the funnier it is. Both of my parents did, and both my wife and myself have (barring any terribly mutilating accident or necessary autopsy, in which cases the Anatomical Board doesn’t want them).

Dale · August 15, 2021, 9:57pm

This has theological implications, if you’re familiar with the epistles attributed to Paul (it does anyway, even if you’re not ):

Complaining is not allowed in our household. (We do have discussions, though, about whether something is a complaint or a statement of fact. “My marshmallow is charcoal.” Some people like their marshmallows burnt to a crisp, so if one of them said it, it would just be a statement of fact or approval.)

When my younger son was in elementary school, maybe the third grade, he came to get me and took me to his bedroom. He had a clamp-on articulating draftsman’s type desk lamp fastened to his bed, and to keep it from shining through the doorway into his mother’s face where she was reading in the next room of our little house, after he had pushed it aside to get out of his bed to make a pit stop, instead of turning it off, he put it down on the bed, not realizing the consequences.

So when he got me to his room and showed me where the incandescent bulb had melted through the sheet, the mattress cover and into the foam mattress, he said, “Dad, this stinks!!” He was quite aware that it was a statement of fact and that it was not a complaint. We had a good laugh and we were thankful that there had been no more serious consequences.