Thread: how to read the bible.

i found this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ta_Marina.jpeg

its a seamap from 1537.
its filled with seamonsters and inaccuracies, but its not too far off from reality.
you can identify the major localities pretty decently.
the bible is just like this seamap.
take those giant ship-sinking seamonsters with huge grains of salt, and look for things that seems more plausible. be very critical of everything.

I would definitely have to say with either your eyes or your fingers if it is a Braille Bible. I really do not see this posting as much more than a malicious attack on Christianity. To read any philosophy requires "a grain of salt".

Originally Posted by biggofwi

I would definitely have to say with either your eyes or your fingers if it is a Braille Bible.

Hmmm... are there Braille computer screens?

Originally Posted by biggofwi

I really do not see this posting as much more than a malicious attack on Christianity.

I don't. Maybe it is an attack on a certain type of Christianity that is opposed to science. In which case I will cheer the attack on. ...as much as I can appreciate where that sort of Christianity came from and what motivates it, I still don't have a whole lot of tolerance for it. All this anti-science and anti-religious crap seems like a whole lot of willful ignorance to me.

Originally Posted by biggofwi

To read any philosophy requires "a grain of salt".

To read some of the earlier works of science seems to require a little of this seasoning too. Hmmm.... maybe that goes for a lot of the modern works of science as well.

MAYBE the point is that you WHATEVER you read, you will tend to find what you are looking for. If you are looking for something of value then that is what you will find, but if you are looking for excuses to mock and ridicule then you can find that too.

Maybe you should jump on the braille screen idea. Considering I was talking about a paper book. I'm sure you'd make millions there.

An attack on any religion or ideology in my opinion is a waste of time and effort. Life is too short and pointless to hate and it is also too short to tell an atheist that he reads to much into something that he doesn't believe in. So unless I'm mistaken you are doubly wasting your time.

I saw that posting as a troller's comment and nothing more

Originally Posted by biggofwi

An attack on any religion or ideology in my opinion is a waste of time and effort.

I don't agree. I think it is a neccessity to stand up to some ideologies. Tolerance has its logical limits in intolerance, and to tolerate intolerance is just passive intolerance.

The question is where to draw the line and I think that comes down to what kind of society we want to live in, because every society has to enforce something on its citizens. Do we want to live in a theocracy/"ideocracy" that does not tolerate any devation from a state religion/philosophy? If we want to live in a free society then the ideals we have to put first are those of tolerance and religious liberty. But that means that there are going to be religions and ideologies which are compatable with those ideals and there are going to be those which are not.

An extreme example would be the many ancient religions that practiced human sacrifice. Clearly these are not going to be compatable with a free society. Religion in a free society must at least justify itself to the degree that its practices to not do any harm that can be objectively established by scientific studies.

A much more difficult example are the rather large fundamentalist organizations in the United States and Canada that have become so entrenched in anti-scientific rhetoric that they have established their own universities promoting creationism as a legitimate work of science. Since people are free to believe as they choose, it is difficult to establish that these are harmful to individuals. But I think it can be argued that they do represent a threat to our existence as a free society -- a level of threat that is on par with that of having an active communist party in our country.

Originally Posted by biggofwi

Life is too short and pointless to hate and it is also too short to tell an atheist that he reads to much into something that he doesn't believe in. So unless I'm mistaken you are doubly wasting your time.

But I must tell you that as a Christian myself, I am having a little difficulty in seeing whether the hate involved is his or yours.

I would also like you to observe that dejawolf is the senior member and we have been aquainted with him a lot longer. I see trolling as a pretty specific type of activity -- namely following someone around to carry out a vendetta against them. That is not something that can describe the opening post of a thread.

Originally Posted by biggofwi

Maybe you should jump on the braille screen idea. Considering I was talking about a paper book. I'm sure you'd make millions there.

An attack on any religion or ideology in my opinion is a waste of time and effort. Life is too short and pointless to hate and it is also too short to tell an atheist that he reads to much into something that he doesn't believe in. So unless I'm mistaken you are doubly wasting your time.

I saw that posting as a troller's comment and nothing more

It was from last year and no one bothered to respond until you. So I ask: who's more the troll? The troll, or the troll that follows him?

I didn't look at the date of the posting. Usually things on the second page of forums are more recent than a year.

My definition of trolling must be very different than yours. considering I'm not following him around to make him angry I am not trolling by your definition either.