On Mon, 6 Jul 1998 22:19:26 -0400, Rivers, Will wrote:
[...]
WR>Could the real question be??
>If the claims, that the Bible states, the earth was created in 7 days
>when (or if) in fact it was not...how can the belief in the "yet
>unseen" portions of the Bible, that we are asked to believe on faith,
>be accepted?
The Bible doesn't state that "the earth was created in 7 days",
at least in the sense of 24-hour days.
WR>We try to explain around science or we just ignore it until
>it knocks us in the head, yet more evidence are discovered that the
>world has been around a long, long time with man playing a long
>historical role.
In fact prior to the 1920's the Bible was the only book that stated
that the universe had a beginning. Prior to that it was thought by
everyone, including scientists, that the universe was infinite and
eternal.
WR>Could the belief in the Bible be one "of many" paths to our
>God? If we throw out or explain away Bible myth, to boil the Bible
>down to "Love thy God, Love thy neighbor" then is it not any
>different than many noble philosophies throughout history leading
>man to a higher form of development with an awareness of a
>supreme being?
One can of course do that, but it is no longer the Bible one is
believing in. The Bible itself claims that Jesus is the only way of
salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).
WR>How much of the Bible can be considered divinely inspired and
>how much is myth?
There is no necessary contradiction between the Bible being divinely
inspired and part of it being myth. Myth is just another literary genre
and the Bible itself claims that "In the past God spoke...through the
prophets at many times and in various ways" (Hebrews 1:1).
Having said that, there would be few scholars these days who would
claim that the Bible contains any myths. For example, in Genesis 1-
11, most scholars would use the terms "legend" or "saga" rather than
"myth":
"When we look at the Bible, it is clear that it is not radically mythical.
The influence of myth is there in the Old Testament. The stories of
creation and fall, of flood and the tower of Babel, are there in pagan
texts and are worked over in Genesis from the angle of Israel's
knowledge of God, but the framework is no longer mythical...What
we find of this sort are "broken myths," allusions to ancient myths but
now translated into different terms. They occur now as symbols of
the realm of transcendence and no longer as events and literal
references...The category of legend would explain them all. Barth has
suggested that we speak of "saga" in these cases, a kind of writing
that is neither myth nor exact description but a storylike expansion of
God's intervention in history..." (Pinnock C.H., "The Scripture
Principle," 1985, pp123-124)
WR>How much of the story of an after life is myth or wishful
>thinking?
Again, "myth" and "wishful thinking" are not necessarily synonymns.
Even though the Bible uses symbolic language to describe the "after
life" that does not mean that is not real.
WR> Is God's plan for eternal life really the perpetuation and
>continued improvement of our species?
Now that *does* sound like "wishful thinking"! The fact is that "our
species" cannot be "eternal." Eventually the whole universe will cool
down and all forms of life will become extinct. Then it will be as if
"our species" never existed, as Bertrand Russell points out:
"Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning,
is the world which Science presents for our belief...That Man is the
product of causes which had no prevision of the end hey were
achieving; that his origin, his growth, his slopes and fears, his loves
and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of
atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling,
can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours
of: the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday
brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast
death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's
achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a
universe in ruins-all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet
so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to
stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm
foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth
be safely built." (Russell B., "A Free Man's Worship," 1949, reprint,
pp47-48)
WR>>Asking the questions...
But do you *really* want to hear the answers? :-)
Steve
"Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented."
--- Dr. William Provine, Professor of History and Biology, Cornell University.
http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/1998/slides_view/Slide_7.html
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3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
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Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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