discussion with a fundamentalist
Posted on: April 22, 2008 - 10:57pm
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discussion with a fundamentalist
I don't know if this should go in the science or the biblical errancy forum. so please put it where it should be
So I had a discussion with a fundamentalist Christian tonight. A few claims that he had that I didn't know how to answer because I am not that familiar with a) the Bible b) the Hebrew language:
- The Bible explains/ talks about the water cycle
- The word used for circle in most English Bibles actually is from the Hebrew for , I think, spheriod
- The Bible actually says that the sun is the center of the solar system
Also if anyone knows about the Bible code, am I right in saying that I can take any book and do the exact same thing??
Also, if anyone is wondering what other claims/arguments I heard :
- The firmament was a water canopy, and their is a lot of evidence for a water canopy
- Pascals wager (multiple times)
- you have as much faith argument
- tons of bogus, typical, creationist claims in relation to evolution
- science in academia is not real world science ( what ever that means)
This was after a lecture refuting Expelled's claim about darwin leading to Nazism ,by hector avalos
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I moved it to Biblical Errancy since the question seems to revolve around the Hebrew translations and you are much more likely to find answers to that in here. Um, but not from me.
I love how fundies want to trash science out of one side of their mouths then practically jizz in their pants the minute they spy something in the Bible that appears to agree with something that scientists have discovered. Fundamentalist theism is nothing more or less than the exercise of intellectual dishonesty.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
In fact he said that The bible code was evidence that the Bible was a scientific book
sorry i'm late to the party. i was a religion major in college with a lot of focus on judaism. i had a brilliant professor who was jewish (reform), feminist, spent time in israel, and knew about 15 languages, including all the semitics (hebrew--ancient and modern, aramaic, arabic, not to mention yiddish). under her i took an introductory hebrew course, a hebrew bible course, and a jewish studies course. because of her i still study judaism, mostly because of all the religions i think it tends to be the least self-conscious, the least defensive, and the most intellectual.
anyhow, this all a long way of saying he's definitely wrong about "spheroid." i recall my professor drawing a big diagram of the hebrew conception of the universe: it was a circular disc surmounted by a heavenly "tent." i would like to point out that most jews, unlike fucked-up christian fundies, have no problem believing in the scientific conception of the universe and agreeing that the hebrew bible's conception is totally different. that's just not the point for them.
i'm sure your fundie friend heard this from his pastor who heard it from another pastor who heard it from another pastor who heard it from some bullshit josh mcdowell tape. i've seen it a million times.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
The Bible doesn't explain the water cycle, though some sort of water cycle is mentioned, but not described in any significant detail, in Ecclesiastes 1.7, where it says, "All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow." That doesn't hint toward supernatural or divine knowledge at all because even without scientific knowledge one could reach the same conclusion in just a few minutes. Watch: if the sea does not diminish, the water remains; if the sea does not swell, no water is added; if water is not added or removed, the water must be simply move about; if the water is simply moving about and the stream flows into the sea then the sea must, in some way or another, supply water to the streams; ergo, there's a water cycle. You could write Ecclesiastes 1.7 using that simple line of reasoning. As I said, that verse doesn't hint toward supernatural or divine knowledge at all.
Is this about Isaiah 40.22 where it says, "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in"? If so, the word used for circle is chuwg and it means circle, cycle, compass, or circuit. Never does it mean sphere, spheroid, globe, globule, or ball. The person you were talking to is trying to equivocate the word chuwg and the word duwr (translated as "ball" in Isaiah 22.18). If chuwg in Isaiah 40.22 meant sphere or spheroid then that is how the thousands and thousands of Bible translators would have translated it in the various Bible translations. Isaiah 40.22 meant circle as a 2D shape.
It should be noted, however, that the verse does not offer support for the flat-Earth view. If you had argued that, you were mistaken. (I'm not saying the Bible doesn't teach a flat-Earth, just that this particular verse does not.) The verse seems to be using "the circle of the earth" as a metaphor for the horizon and thus the firmament. Job 37.18 says the firmament is as hard as a cast metal mirror and Isaiah 40.22 says that God sits above it.
http://www.godvsthebible.com/node/9#earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaLRHJgU1B4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2xyS6KW3Ac
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZQYynZcbH4
Stultior stulto fuisti, qui tabellis crederes!
It means that your friend, like many people, doesn't understand what science actually is. I find this to be particularly bad with highly religious types. Many people confuse invention and technology as science. Although, these things often come from or coincide with science, I would not stricktly refer to that as science. I would define science to be, studying a subject by way of the scientific method.
In case you don't know the outline for the scientific method is this:
1. Observe
2. Form a hypothesis
3. Make a prediction
4. Test
If your test fails then go back to 1 or 2 and start again. Even if the hypothesis passes the test, often times one would make another prediction and test that prediction as well.
Applying this method to gain knowledge in a specific field is science. There is no 'real world science' or 'fake world science', just science.
I'd just like to second that thought. Whatever the misunderstanding happens to be, it's still very clearly a misunderstanding.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence