Looking objectively, if story of eternal life is an example (analogy) of
how we perpetuate our species, but we as individuals die and are gone,
is that so bad?
SJ>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.
Perhaps not the "earth" but something was created in 7 days if
Genesis has any validity, true? ...or are these "legend" ?
SJ>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?
Egyptian, Babylonian and many others had beginnings legends? The Bible
is the only source on that subject.
SJ>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?
That is the point, what difference does it really make to claim Bible
allegiance if matters of myth/legend/saga don't provide an acurate
picture of the "after life" ? How valid is this claim of "the only way
to salvation"? and salvation from what?
SJ>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?
SJ>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?
SJ>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)
It is true that to stay mortal we will die. My question focuses more on
are we "at this time" in our evolutionary development at a level which a
God may deem us worthy for the position of a god (immortal life)....or
is this a promise for some future generation only after we have climbed
the evolutionary ladder. The carrot of the Bible is only to head us in
the right direction in hopes that one day our off-spring will have
developed to that level and be offered a position in that realm?
Without it we may destroy ourselves before we get there. ...and if this
is so, would not other books of philosophy that aid in the development
from animal to human being provide an avenue?
WR>>Asking the questions...
SJ>But do you *really* want to hear the answers? :-)
Sure, I can take. (I'm sitting down) LOL
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
<http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/1998/slides_view/Slide_7.html>
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<mailto:sejones@ibm.net>
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
<mailto:Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au>
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Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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