The fabric of science and faith

a circle is not a sphere

This appears to be a prime example of how people misinterpret scripture. In it, you seem to think a 2D shape of a circle is a 3D globe. It is not. The original writer and the original audience conceived of the earth as flat. They knew you could climb the highest mountain and look around at the circle of the earth at the horizon, but had no idea it was a globe. Tents are pitched on flat ground, and the tent of the heavens was seen as a cover to the flat earth, with the dwelling place of God above it. To change that to say it represents a globe is simply erroneous.
You also misrepresent science. And theology. Regarding heliocentrism specifically, but also a flat earth, it was not so much thescientists saying science proved the Bible wrong, it was the theologians saying the Bible would be proven wrong if the scientists were correct. The scientists were correct, but the Bible is not wrong. The theologians were pushing a Bible that could be proven wrong, much like the YEC movement does today. What a ironic position to take for people who profess that the Bible is the word of God.

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So basically I should only believe the word of God and those humans to whom God has directly told the truth … otherwise the word of most humans is no good?

Are you pretty good at discerning to which humans God has imparted His truth? It seems that we humans are always in the position of having to decide who we can trust without any sure fire way of doing so. You and many others tell me the Bible contains the word of God but even that requires study and no simple naive reading will necessarily gain you the truth. I don’t think any of us should set ourselves up as the dispenser of God’s truth whether we be scientist, theologian or lay person. None of us has the inside track and the person I trust least is the the one that claims he does.

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Science is only limited by what it can empirically prove, but logic takes us beyond that, to infinity in eternity. Only God, only revealed in and through Christ, can take us beyond that, to purpose. And yes, Christ’s power to save knows no limits at all.

This isn’t right (or is, at best, a poorly worded statement).

While individuals can always be found in any era (including our present one) who say the earth is flat, there was no time in any recent era of history where “science” at large taught that the earth was flat. What ‘science’ did teach (or at least - most thinkers insisted on) back in and before Galileo’s time was that the earth is geostationary. And eras that go far enough back to find predominately flat-earth perspective would predate anything resembling what we recognize as widespread scientific thinking. I.e. … they were “pre-scientific” eras as far as modern science is concerned.

So apparently, either God is wrong about this, or there is also the possibility that the voices inside your head might not always be God talking to you.

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I had this reaction too, sort of. Mostly I just don’t think of science as a body which rules over what are or are not the facts. Perhaps what he meant is that sometimes the general consensus can be wrong which is certainly possible. But science is not in the business of deciding what should be taught. Of course most of us would prefer the general consensus be taught where science is concerned.

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Yeah - I wasn’t quibbling with the notion that consensus can be wrong. It just isn’t wrong nearly so often as everybody else is when their opinions are based on cultural opinion, incredulity, a voice in my head, etc. And the more time-honored (time-honed) a consensus has come to be now over the last few centuries when scientific methods have come into their own, the less likely they are to be overturned in revolutionary ways. That happens too, of course; but it takes an Einstein or somebody like that to bring it about. Where as media-mongers who want to pretend they are being “skeptical” by doubting experts and science, turn around and swallow bizarre stuff from their media feeds which can be counted on to be wrong, or at least misleading nearly all the time.

In short, any ‘skeptics’ that can’t accept long-established scientific consensus just because they mistrust any authority other than their own, are straining out gnats, and then swallowing camels. They show that their ‘skepticism’ really isn’t remotely worthy of the label. They are the epitome of gullible.

And I do say this as somebody who has taken (and still takes) my own turns mistrusting establishment things. So I’m not pretending I’m any paragon of skepticism myself. But I work at it. And science welcomes and thrives on informed skepticism.

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All good points. I sure don’t see any reason to mix theology and science. Each has its own methods and application. Neither should intrude on the other.

If anyone doubted that before, our recent experience with this pandemic ought to straighten them out.

Unfortunately for you, this forum is not going to become your new platform for teaching, since we do not recognize you as an infallible prophet of God. You are welcome to join discussions as another mere human trying to live justly and righteously in this world God put us in, but you are not welcome to continue preaching at people or promoting your ideas as some sort of mouthpiece of God. Please adjust your posture going forward. Your grace period for getting a feel for what we are about on this forum is up. It’s not going to be the place to disseminate fringey fundamentalist ideas. It’s for discussing science and Christian faith. We are going to start deleting your posts if they are just spewing fundamentalist rhetoric or throwing KJV verses at people. That doesn’t further the conversation or serve the interests of this forum.

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Just because I do not doubt that you hear the voice of God doesn’t mean I or anyone else is going to believe that you are speaking for God. The list of people hearing the voice of God telling them to kill people is a long one (e.g. Stanley Mossburg, Samuel Little, Peter Sutclifffe, Dennis Rader, Deanna Laney). It is connected to why Protestants like myself adhere to a doctrine of Sola Scriptura. We don’t believe God is so foolish as to give such authority into the hands of sinful human beings.

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Amen.  

There is nothing wrong with searching for the truth with what someone has to come to know as the truth, but beware, for some the truth can be devastating. For me the truth is like the sun in the sky, I know where it is today and I know where it will be tomorrow, we should all stay curious.

Can you tell me anywhere in my comment above that i said this was from God? Why are you then assuming this is from God?

You said

i said the exact same thing here:

Humans who studied things of science are called Scientists correct? Even prior to Galileo time. Before the time when the flat earth was under suspect, they all said and taught the Earth was flat, there were no other hypothesis for anything else. It was only until new evidence arrived that the flat Earth KNOWN belief at that time was questioned. Why? Because prior to it being question it was a well KNOWN FACT that Earth was flat.

Even as it was a Well KNOWN FACT that the Sun revolved around the Earth. UNTIL which time that FACT was questioned because of new evidence that arrived.

So tell me, how is what i said wrong?

So what you saying is, True Prophets of God are not welcome at biologos?

As you wish.

As it is written:

Mar_6:11 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Selah.

The “flat earth myth” was popularized in the mid 1800s - mainly by a couple of writers: John Draper and Andrew Dickson White. [If you don’t like looking to wikipedia for information … rest assured there are reputable scholars such as Ronald Numbers or Stephen Jay Gould who have uncovered all this - so this wikipedia article serves just fine to uncover your error.] It turns out to have been nothing more than a largely anti-religious screed from those motivated to discredit the medieval (Catholic) church (and religion generally) as all being anti-science and as having (allegedly) prolonged the so-called “dark-ages”. [Note - this isn’t to deny that there was much indeed that was dark about many past eras - but only to claim that despite having such a target-rich environments for things to criticize, anti-religious authors of the last centuries still managed to get their facts wrong: the flat-earth being one of their big errors.] Not only did people in Columbus’ time know good and well it was round, but the Greeks a thousand years earlier knew it too - and had even (impressively!) calculated its size. Columbus later managed to get the size wrong, but even he and virtually everyone of note of his time at least knew it was round. That had been generally known for a long time by then.

As to whether or not “those who studied things of science are Scientists” - that is a rather loose definition of what “scientist” is taken to mean now - but we need not quibble over that. Even this broad definition of who all should be recognized as scientists cannot rescue your error when you insist that “Scientist[s] use to teach as FACT that the Earth is flat…” There were virtually no scholars of any consequence or any kind (whether ‘scientists’ or not) who insisted that the earth is flat. An exception or two can always be found, of course, - exceptions that prove the rule.

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At least nobody can complain that this forum is dull. We have reincarnated ancient Egyptians, True Prophets, Atomic Biology, you name it.

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Do you think this is productive thing to do?

Not at all apart from giving voice to rational faith, which is a long way away from faith demonstrated by love, of which this site along with the rest of Christianity shows virtually none.

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