For me, modern cosmology and biology do not destroy Christianity--they push it toward a deeper, more cosmic, more relational and a less literal understanding of creation, humanity and the universe.
That's what I would have said if I could have found the words.
Recognising that reconciling cosmology and biology forces a less literal form of Christianity is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about in starting this thread. I think it goes further than that - it definitely poses questions about the meaning of "and will return in glory to judge the living and the dead" for example which aren't limited to fundamentalism, being part of the more universal creed.
For the reasons I gave in my OP. A cosmic eschaton in a human timescale in a geocentric universe which exists on human timescales looks very different to one in a non-geocentric (indeed centreless) universe which has existed for millions of times longer than humanity and contains trillions of suns and billions of earth like life compatible planets.
At the very least it makes us ask whether the eschaton affects earth only, humanity only, or the entire universe. If it's universal it also makes one ask why God entirely hides behind natural processes in creating and sustaining the universe but acts entirely supernaturally in ending it.
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
For the reasons I gave in my OP. A cosmic eschaton in a human timescale in a geocentric universe which exists on human timescales looks very different to one in a non-geocentric (indeed centreless) universe which has existed for millions of times longer than humanity and contains trillions of suns and billions of earth like life compatible planets.
So are you asking why there isn't an established religion that anticipated modern cosmology and biology enough to avoid contradicting them? I'd say human psychology would have made the establishment of such a religion extremely unlikely.
There may be a context which “ain’t necessarily so” for people without faith. But it’s a famous context from MacBeth, who is feeling deep despair and nihilism.
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow …
But despite having been written centuries earlier, it is a good critique of what Russell described as his foundation of unyielding despair. Living without any hope that life has some purpose must be very difficult. Life has to signify something.
For the reasons I gave in my OP. A cosmic eschaton in a human timescale in a geocentric universe which exists on human timescales looks very different to one in a non-geocentric (indeed centreless) universe which has existed for millions of times longer than humanity and contains trillions of suns and billions of earth like life compatible planets.
So are you asking why there isn't an established religion that anticipated modern cosmology and biology enough to avoid contradicting them? I'd say human psychology would have made the establishment of such a religion extremely unlikely.
That depends on whether religion is invented or revealed. If it's just a human phenomenon than yeah, obviously, but religions claim to be more than that don't they?
I’m reminded of Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained and the argument over qualia. But that’s pretty deep stuff! What are the building blocks of sentience? The hard problem of consciousness.
It’s all interesting stuff. Does it take us much father than “I think therefore I am”?
Maybe a bit? But the intrinsic dilemmas are still in there somewhere!
Do you think a revealed, scientifically accurate religion would have been accepted hundreds or thousands of years ago?
I'll settle for non-contradictory. But if your contention is that it was revealed in a way consistent with the cosmology of two thousand years ago, but not ours, then fine, but that just leads me back to the opening question - how to make that revelation work with the cosmology we do have.
Oh, and please could you try stating your position rather than attacking mine with what look suspiciously like leading rhetorical questions? I often feel under attack just for raising these questions and this sort of response does not help.
The question is not at all trivial and I have very similar objections to traditional Christian doctrine, but I can see now that I approached the discussion poorly. Thanks for pointing that out.
Not that I can see. I'm not sure what sort of "something" you have in mind, but it doesn't look like meaning.
I’m reminded of Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained and the argument over qualia. But that’s pretty deep stuff! What are the building blocks of sentience? The hard problem of consciousness.
It’s all interesting stuff. Does it take us much father than “I think therefore I am”?
Maybe a bit? But the intrinsic dilemmas are still in there somewhere!
I'm afraid I can't see how the issue of consciousness relates to the question of life having purpose.
That depends on whether religion is invented or revealed. If it's just a human phenomenon than yeah, obviously, but religions claim to be more than that don't they?
Can we split the difference with providentially invented? We're not in the position of Islam, that has to deal with the idea that the whole thing was dictated by the Angel Gabriel.
Jeremiah rather implies that inspiration happens when he sees an almond tree and thinks of an untranslatable pun.
That does mean we don't have anything to go on on whether Jesus will come in time or at the end of time or whether it's all a metaphor for something else. I am unable to offer helpful resolutions. In Christian history speculation about the end times has rarely led anywhere helpful. (Although apparently John Napier mostly spent his time on commentaries on Revelation and took time out to invent logarithms. Or discover logarithms, depending on how you look at it.)
Do you think a revealed, scientifically accurate religion would have been accepted hundreds or thousands of years ago?
I'll settle for non-contradictory. But if your contention is that it was revealed in a way consistent with the cosmology of two thousand years ago, but not ours, then fine, but that just leads me back to the opening question - how to make that revelation work with the cosmology we do have.
Personally, I make it work by treating the cosmology as the medium, not the message. The revelation isn’t about the cosmology and isn’t intended to tell me much if anything about the cosmology. If I approach the stories expecting them to tell me about cosmology, then I’m missing the point.
Also for me, especially when we’re talking about the future, I don’t need the details. I don’t worry myself about exactly what the end of things looks like. The writers of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures attempted to describe it using language and images that made sense to their audiences. But at the end of the day, what matters in it all to me isn’t the mechanics or the timelines. It’s that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.
My view is that we aren’t dealing with a textbook, much less a rule book. We’re dealing with stories and poetry, all of which come from specific times, places and cultures, and all of which use the understandings and languages of those times, places and cultures to convey something—something about God, about humanity and about our relation to God and to one another. And we’re dealing with a particular person, who is, I believe, the definitive revelation, through which all the other stories and poetry are best viewed.
The funny thing is that philosophers sometimes seem to use the terms rationalism and empiricism in a way that is different to the one being used here.
Rationalism being the act of extending and using existing knowledge to get to new positions, Empiricism being the act of using experimentation to find things you could not work out on your own. Religion therefore being a form of rationalism, science being empirical.
Do you think a revealed, scientifically accurate religion would have been accepted hundreds or thousands of years ago?
I'll settle for non-contradictory. But if your contention is that it was revealed in a way consistent with the cosmology of two thousand years ago, but not ours, then fine, but that just leads me back to the opening question - how to make that revelation work with the cosmology we do have.
Personally, I make it work by treating the cosmology as the medium, not the message. The revelation isn’t about the cosmology and isn’t intended to tell me much if anything about the cosmology. If I approach the stories expecting them to tell me about cosmology, then I’m missing the point.
Also for me, especially when we’re talking about the future, I don’t need the details. I don’t worry myself about exactly what the end of things looks like. The writers of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures attempted to describe it using language and images that made sense to their audiences. But at the end of the day, what matters in it all to me isn’t the mechanics or the timelines. It’s that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.
My view is that we aren’t dealing with a textbook, much less a rule book. We’re dealing with stories and poetry, all of which come from specific times, places and cultures, and all of which use the understandings and languages of those times, places and cultures to convey something—something about God, about humanity and about our relation to God and to one another. And we’re dealing with a particular person, who is, I believe, the definitive revelation, through which all the other stories and poetry are best viewed.
I don't treat the cosmology as the message. My issue is making sense of the message in the light of a very different cosmology.
What I'm hearing here is "it doesn't bother me much". With respect, this thread is from a viewpoint where it matters very.much, so that sounds dismissive.
These questions don't go away, ever, for me. I need to know what ideas people have.
Do you think a revealed, scientifically accurate religion would have been accepted hundreds or thousands of years ago?
I'll settle for non-contradictory. But if your contention is that it was revealed in a way consistent with the cosmology of two thousand years ago, but not ours, then fine, but that just leads me back to the opening question - how to make that revelation work with the cosmology we do have.
Personally, I make it work by treating the cosmology as the medium, not the message. The revelation isn’t about the cosmology and isn’t intended to tell me much if anything about the cosmology. If I approach the stories expecting them to tell me about cosmology, then I’m missing the point.
Also for me, especially when we’re talking about the future, I don’t need the details. I don’t worry myself about exactly what the end of things looks like. The writers of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures attempted to describe it using language and images that made sense to their audiences. But at the end of the day, what matters in it all to me isn’t the mechanics or the timelines. It’s that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.
My view is that we aren’t dealing with a textbook, much less a rule book. We’re dealing with stories and poetry, all of which come from specific times, places and cultures, and all of which use the understandings and languages of those times, places and cultures to convey something—something about God, about humanity and about our relation to God and to one another. And we’re dealing with a particular person, who is, I believe, the definitive revelation, through which all the other stories and poetry are best viewed.
I don't treat the cosmology as the message. My issue is making sense of the message in the light of a very different cosmology.
What I'm hearing here is "it doesn't bother me much". With respect, this thread is from a viewpoint where it matters very.much, so that sounds dismissive.
These questions don't go away, ever, for me. I need to know what ideas people have.
Are you waiting for someone to give you permission to not-believe because the pieces you have do not match up? If it helps, I give you permission.
Do you think a revealed, scientifically accurate religion would have been accepted hundreds or thousands of years ago?
I'll settle for non-contradictory. But if your contention is that it was revealed in a way consistent with the cosmology of two thousand years ago, but not ours, then fine, but that just leads me back to the opening question - how to make that revelation work with the cosmology we do have.
Personally, I make it work by treating the cosmology as the medium, not the message. The revelation isn’t about the cosmology and isn’t intended to tell me much if anything about the cosmology. If I approach the stories expecting them to tell me about cosmology, then I’m missing the point.
Also for me, especially when we’re talking about the future, I don’t need the details. I don’t worry myself about exactly what the end of things looks like. The writers of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures attempted to describe it using language and images that made sense to their audiences. But at the end of the day, what matters in it all to me isn’t the mechanics or the timelines. It’s that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.
My view is that we aren’t dealing with a textbook, much less a rule book. We’re dealing with stories and poetry, all of which come from specific times, places and cultures, and all of which use the understandings and languages of those times, places and cultures to convey something—something about God, about humanity and about our relation to God and to one another. And we’re dealing with a particular person, who is, I believe, the definitive revelation, through which all the other stories and poetry are best viewed.
I don't treat the cosmology as the message. My issue is making sense of the message in the light of a very different cosmology.
What I'm hearing here is "it doesn't bother me much". With respect, this thread is from a viewpoint where it matters very.much, so that sounds dismissive.
These questions don't go away, ever, for me. I need to know what ideas people have.
Are you waiting for someone to give you permission to not-believe because the pieces you have do not match up? If it helps, I give you permission.
No. It's a genuine question. If Christianity is true, given what we know now in science, how do we handle the bits that seem set in a different cosmology?
Do you think a revealed, scientifically accurate religion would have been accepted hundreds or thousands of years ago?
I'll settle for non-contradictory. But if your contention is that it was revealed in a way consistent with the cosmology of two thousand years ago, but not ours, then fine, but that just leads me back to the opening question - how to make that revelation work with the cosmology we do have.
Personally, I make it work by treating the cosmology as the medium, not the message. The revelation isn’t about the cosmology and isn’t intended to tell me much if anything about the cosmology. If I approach the stories expecting them to tell me about cosmology, then I’m missing the point.
Also for me, especially when we’re talking about the future, I don’t need the details. I don’t worry myself about exactly what the end of things looks like. The writers of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures attempted to describe it using language and images that made sense to their audiences. But at the end of the day, what matters in it all to me isn’t the mechanics or the timelines. It’s that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.
My view is that we aren’t dealing with a textbook, much less a rule book. We’re dealing with stories and poetry, all of which come from specific times, places and cultures, and all of which use the understandings and languages of those times, places and cultures to convey something—something about God, about humanity and about our relation to God and to one another. And we’re dealing with a particular person, who is, I believe, the definitive revelation, through which all the other stories and poetry are best viewed.
I don't treat the cosmology as the message. My issue is making sense of the message in the light of a very different cosmology.
What I'm hearing here is "it doesn't bother me much". With respect, this thread is from a viewpoint where it matters very.much, so that sounds dismissive.
These questions don't go away, ever, for me. I need to know what ideas people have.
I do get that @KarlLB, and I really don’t mean to play it down. It’s one reason I tried to be careful to say I was only relaying my own perspective. I’m sorry if my responsive sounded dismissive, but again I was trying to emphasize I was only speaking for myself and from my own perspective.
What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not true?
It can be true, but not literal. It could be something in which the only way we can comprehend it is in the literary form of myth.
Let me reword the question:
"What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not literal?"
Steve Chalke touches on this in his TheLost Message of Paul but I've can't look it up because I've passed the book on, but I think he thinks 'The Fall' is a kind of moral awakening in early humans.
But I think that just boils down to humans were successful because they had the brain-power to co-exist and cooperate and help each other survive.
So it doesn't really answer the questions I have -which are probably the same as those of @KarlLB and others.
The funny thing is that philosophers sometimes seem to use the terms rationalism and empiricism in a way that is different to the one being used here.
Rationalism being the act of extending and using existing knowledge to get to new positions, Empiricism being the act of using experimentation to find things you could not work out on your own. Religion therefore being a form of rationalism, science being empirical.
In philosophy (specifically epistemology) empiricism is belief that all concepts including logical axioms are acquired by observation whereas rationalism is the belief that at least some concepts or logical axioms are known innately or immediately apprehended by reason without sensory observation.
What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not true?
It can be true, but not literal. It could be something in which the only way we can comprehend it is in the literary form of myth.
Let me reword the question:
"What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not literal?"
Steve Chalke touches on this in his TheLost Message of Paul but I've can't look it up because I've passed the book on, but I think he thinks 'The Fall' is a kind of moral awakening in early humans.
As it happens, I had a conversation with someone yesterday about the parable of the Prodigal Son. The man with whom I was talking happens to be Jewish, and he had just seen a piece of art depicting the parable, which he found very powerful. “It’s a story that just keeps repeating over and over, in generation after generation, family after family,” he said.
To me—and I’m not making any judgment about those who see it differently or don’t see any meaning at all in what is traditionally termed “the Fall”—the story of Adam (“human”) and Eve (“living one”) and “the Fall” is the story of every human, of the human condition. It’s a story that even the best, most virtuous people continue to play out.
Barth said the story of Adam and Eve reveals something about and sums up the history of humanity and God. He said that there never was a “golden age,” and that we all constantly re-enact what happened in Eden, and have done so as long as we’ve been human.
Bonhoeffer, as I understand it, said the story of the Garden of Eden is each individual’s story about choosing between what is right for humanity and what is wrong for humanity.
Viewed that way, “the Fall” isn’t a moment in history. It’s an ongoing reality, told in the form of myth, for all humanity throughout history.
What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not true?
It can be true, but not literal. It could be something in which the only way we can comprehend it is in the literary form of myth.
Let me reword the question:
"What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not literal?"
Steve Chalke touches on this in his TheLost Message of Paul but I've can't look it up because I've passed the book on, but I think he thinks 'The Fall' is a kind of moral awakening in early humans.
As it happens, I had a conversation with someone yesterday about the parable of the Prodigal Son. The man with whom I was talking happens to be Jewish, and he had just seen a piece of art depicting the parable, which he found very powerful. “It’s a story that just keeps repeating over and over, in generation after generation, family after family,” he said.
To me—and I’m not making any judgment about those who see it differently or don’t see any meaning at all in what is traditionally termed “the Fall”—the story of Adam (“human”) and Eve (“living one”) and “the Fall” is the story of every human, of the human condition. It’s a story that even the best, most virtuous people continue to play out.
Barth said the story of Adam and Eve reveals something about and sums up the history of humanity and God. He said that there never was a “golden age,” and that we all constantly re-enact what happened in Eden, and have done so as long as we’ve been human.
Bonhoeffer, as I understand it, said the story of the Garden of Eden is each individual’s story about choosing between what is right for humanity and what is wrong for humanity.
Viewed that way, “the Fall” isn’t a moment in history. It’s an ongoing reality, told in the form of myth, for all humanity throughout history.
What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not true?
It can be true, but not literal. It could be something in which the only way we can comprehend it is in the literary form of myth.
Let me reword the question:
"What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not literal?"
Steve Chalke touches on this in his TheLost Message of Paul but I've can't look it up because I've passed the book on, but I think he thinks 'The Fall' is a kind of moral awakening in early humans.
As it happens, I had a conversation with someone yesterday about the parable of the Prodigal Son. The man with whom I was talking happens to be Jewish, and he had just seen a piece of art depicting the parable, which he found very powerful. “It’s a story that just keeps repeating over and over, in generation after generation, family after family,” he said.
To me—and I’m not making any judgment about those who see it differently or don’t see any meaning at all in what is traditionally termed “the Fall”—the story of Adam (“human”) and Eve (“living one”) and “the Fall” is the story of every human, of the human condition. It’s a story that even the best, most virtuous people continue to play out.
Barth said the story of Adam and Eve reveals something about and sums up the history of humanity and God. He said that there never was a “golden age,” and that we all constantly re-enact what happened in Eden, and have done so as long as we’ve been human.
Bonhoeffer, as I understand it, said the story of the Garden of Eden is each individual’s story about choosing between what is right for humanity and what is wrong for humanity.
Viewed that way, “the Fall” isn’t a moment in history. It’s an ongoing reality, told in the form of myth, for all humanity throughout history.
What do you then make of Gen 3:16-19?
That our decisions have consequences, not just for us but for those around us and those who come after us. That our failure to trust God and our rebellion against God ultimately leads away from what Jesus would call “abundant life.”
@KarlLB I probably sound glib at times but that doesn't mean I'm dismissing or disparaging what you are saying.
Thing is, I don't have the scientific vocabulary to engage with these questions other than in a broad brush way.
I do know sciency people who seem to 'reconcile' these things and have had some discussions on these themes. Not sure I can help, but I'm not dismissive ...
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
Reading back on the replies, I think this expresses well my skepticism. The whole of everything is massive. In one sense, I would be unsurprised if there was some kind of higher being behind it all. But either way I do not see that it makes a whole lot of difference.
The part that makes no sense to me is that this projected being somehow holding everything together is also interested in humanity, and not only that, is interested in individual humans.
And then, we are asked to believe, that the deity projected in a convoluted way by one societal group of humanity is uniquely representative of this deity that created all things.
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
Reading back on the replies, I think this expresses well my skepticism. The whole of everything is massive. In one sense, I would be unsurprised if there was some kind of higher being behind it all. But either way I do not see that it makes a whole lot of difference.
The part that makes no sense to me is that this projected being somehow holding everything together is also interested in humanity, and not only that, is interested in individual humans.
And then, we are asked to believe, that the deity projected in a convoluted way by one societal group of humanity is uniquely representative of this deity that created all things.
I do not buy it at all.
This is, I'm afraid,moving into epiphanies territory. I didn't 'buy it at all' until God showed him (or her)self to me . Just let me say I had the Pentecost experience recorded in Acts. That story became real to me.
As a rational scientist, I believe the universe, or universes, are teeming with life. How could they not be? And everywhere is our dear God. To quote: 'In him I live and breathe and have my being'.
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
Reading back on the replies, I think this expresses well my skepticism. The whole of everything is massive. In one sense, I would be unsurprised if there was some kind of higher being behind it all. But either way I do not see that it makes a whole lot of difference.
The part that makes no sense to me is that this projected being somehow holding everything together is also interested in humanity, and not only that, is interested in individual humans.
And then, we are asked to believe, that the deity projected in a convoluted way by one societal group of humanity is uniquely representative of this deity that created all things.
I do not buy it at all.
This is, I'm afraid,moving into epiphanies territory. I didn't 'buy it at all' until God showed him (or her)self to me . Just let me say I had the Pentecost experience recorded in Acts. That story became real to me.
As a rational scientist, I believe the universe, or universes, are teeming with life. How could they not be? And everywhere is our dear God. To quote: 'In him I live and breathe and have my being'.
Your reported experience is just that. Whether or not there is teeming life in the universes is a subject of science fiction not fact and as such is basically a non-testable and non-falsifiable thought experiment
I'm afraid I can't see how the issue of consciousness relates to the question of life having purpose.
My apologies. I was being obscure. I think I may be feeling my way towards a different thread. The stimulus was a line from Crosby Stills and Nash
You who are on the road
Must have a code
You try to live by
There’s a clash of codes going on in this thread. I think the different ways we look at conscious thought has something to do with it. But my post jumped the gun on that idea.
It might be better if I try to come up with a separate thread on clashes of codes. And remain silent until I do!
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
Reading back on the replies, I think this expresses well my skepticism. The whole of everything is massive. In one sense, I would be unsurprised if there was some kind of higher being behind it all. But either way I do not see that it makes a whole lot of difference.
The part that makes no sense to me is that this projected being somehow holding everything together is also interested in humanity, and not only that, is interested in individual humans.
And then, we are asked to believe, that the deity projected in a convoluted way by one societal group of humanity is uniquely representative of this deity that created all things.
I do not buy it at all.
This is, I'm afraid,moving into epiphanies territory. I didn't 'buy it at all' until God showed him (or her)self to me . Just let me say I had the Pentecost experience recorded in Acts. That story became real to me.
As a rational scientist, I believe the universe, or universes, are teeming with life. How could they not be? And everywhere is our dear God. To quote: 'In him I live and breathe and have my being'.
Also if your faith is based on experience, in at least one sense you are an empiricist rather than a rationalist. Which is an interesting further twist on the difference between rationality and empiricism.
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
Reading back on the replies, I think this expresses well my skepticism. The whole of everything is massive. In one sense, I would be unsurprised if there was some kind of higher being behind it all. But either way I do not see that it makes a whole lot of difference.
The part that makes no sense to me is that this projected being somehow holding everything together is also interested in humanity, and not only that, is interested in individual humans.
And then, we are asked to believe, that the deity projected in a convoluted way by one societal group of humanity is uniquely representative of this deity that created all things.
I do not buy it at all.
This is, I'm afraid,moving into epiphanies territory. I didn't 'buy it at all' until God showed him (or her)self to me . Just let me say I had the Pentecost experience recorded in Acts. That story became real to me.
As a rational scientist, I believe the universe, or universes, are teeming with life. How could they not be? And everywhere is our dear God. To quote: 'In him I live and breathe and have my being'.
You might then have some insight into how this is for those of us who have had no such experience or revelation. It's a wonder we contemplate the possibility at all.
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
Reading back on the replies, I think this expresses well my skepticism. The whole of everything is massive. In one sense, I would be unsurprised if there was some kind of higher being behind it all. But either way I do not see that it makes a whole lot of difference.
The part that makes no sense to me is that this projected being somehow holding everything together is also interested in humanity, and not only that, is interested in individual humans.
And then, we are asked to believe, that the deity projected in a convoluted way by one societal group of humanity is uniquely representative of this deity that created all things.
I do not buy it at all.
This is, I'm afraid,moving into epiphanies territory. I didn't 'buy it at all' until God showed him (or her)self to me . Just let me say I had the Pentecost experience recorded in Acts. That story became real to me.
As a rational scientist, I believe the universe, or universes, are teeming with life. How could they not be? And everywhere is our dear God. To quote: 'In him I live and breathe and have my being'.
Your reported experience is just that. Whether or not there is teeming life in the universes is a subject of science fiction not fact and as such is basically a non-testable and non-falsifiable thought experiment
But we find life in what we thought were the most unlikely places, or habitats, on earth. Shall we have a wager about life on Mars (before it is b*gg*red by Musk?)
In my philosophy training I was told to be very suspicious of the word 'just'.
My thoughts (and yours) are, after all just the moving of electrons and the firing of neurons.
PS: I was very rational in my assesment of my own, and my students, experiments!
Ronald Knox the RC apologist claimed that he'd never had a 'religious experience' in his life.
'Jews ask for a sign and Greeks seek wisdom ...'
I could get very pious-sounding and say that the Truth is in Jesus who is himself the Truth.
So we don't 'need' to mither ourselves about empiricism or rationalisation or ...
Which would be a cop-out.
My brother-in-law told me about some research that suggested that some people are more genetically prone to religious belief than others. I'm not sure how that works.
If these things are true then I wouldn't expect everything to be clean cut with us all having revelations on the one hand or rationalising ourselves into a faith position on the other.
All scientific knowledge is expanding - and sometimes undergoes complete change with new discoveries.
Today's Cosmology may be wrong - could it even be as wrong as when the ancient religions began?
But, if we are going to consider God or a 'higher power' we need to start with something. I start with Jesus because it was the way I grew up. My DIL starts with meditation and yoga, because she finds it really helps her. I honestly don't think it matters, so long as we are not selfishly looking inwards and only to ourselves.
The belief in God or a higher power helps us to look outwards, to begin to care for our surroundings and other people.
I hope that doesn't sound preachy. I'm actually feeling a bit low today and in need some of that myself!
Going to church always helps me look outwards from myself. I never agree with every word they say, but that's OK.
Oh it could undergo some massive changes but I don't forsee the earth going back to the centre of the universe or its age changing back to thousands of years. The frontier areas are now things like dark energy and this beauty:
"The most disappointing and mismatched prediction in cosmology is the cosmological constant problem, frequently called the "worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics". When physicists use quantum field theory to calculate the vacuum energy density of empty space, their predicted value misses the actual observed amount of dark energy by roughly 120 orders of magnitude" (Wikipedia)
So yeah, there's lots we don't know and lots of areas where some of the theoretical underpinning isn't right. But there's a lot we do know and is most unlikely to be overturned.
Only if he messed up when designing the universe and forgot to add something to make it expand so had to step in and do it manually.
One possibility (AIUI; IANAP) is that it is an artefact of an incomplete theory of gravity and not a thing. That would be a pain as my TTRPG uses it as part of its FTL solution.
I'm afraid I can't see how the issue of consciousness relates to the question of life having purpose.
My apologies. I was being obscure. I think I may be feeling my way towards a different thread. The stimulus was a line from Crosby Stills and Nash
You who are on the road
Must have a code
You try to live by
There’s a clash of codes going on in this thread. I think the different ways we look at conscious thought has something to do with it. But my post jumped the gun on that idea.
On the road (of life, presumably), it is possible just to walk.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
Although the sentient life that is our species is doing our best to knock that number down, through putting quite a lot of time and effort into looking at more and more of it. How much of creation do you think we (as a species) will have seen by the time we're done?
… It's a genuine question. If Christianity is true, given what we know now in science, how do we handle the bits that seem set in a different cosmology?
I like this question.
As you're asking for creative thinking, I think our imagination can get us some of the way. And I think imagination plays a significant role in the acquisition of knowledge. Returning to an earlier point, I'm pretty sure we all started learning how to think by listening to stories, before we started learning how to think scientifically.
Yes, the development of consciousness, and the attendant guilt, which highlights the self. I guess that the cat isn't guilty about killing the mouse. Others may disagree!
Given what we know about consciousness, I don’t see how the universe can not be conscious. If it is conscious, it meets most definitions of a God - is everything, contains everything, creates everything, is all times and all places etc.
Returning to an earlier point, I'm pretty sure we all started learning how to think by listening to stories, before we started learning how to think scientifically.
Yes.
The Bible is a collection of stories, some more far fetched than others. But all speaking truth (imo).
Given what we know about consciousness, I don’t see how the universe can not be conscious. If it is conscious, it meets most definitions of a God - is everything, contains everything, creates everything, is all times and all places etc.
I can see how the universe can be considered to be 'God' -but the universe has to be conscious? You're going to have to explain that a bit!
consciousness as ultimate reality, the fullness of the deepest level of all existence, the singular fundamental existent. It is the theory of consciousness that takes consciousness to its maximum meaning.
consciousness as ultimate reality, the fullness of the deepest level of all existence, the singular fundamental existent. It is the theory of consciousness that takes consciousness to its maximum meaning.
A huge area, ranging from Bishop Berkeley to Zen, where experience is taken by some as the only thing present. It has many cunning twists, as you would expect, since we can't find anything outside experience.
Comments
Recognising that reconciling cosmology and biology forces a less literal form of Christianity is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about in starting this thread. I think it goes further than that - it definitely poses questions about the meaning of "and will return in glory to judge the living and the dead" for example which aren't limited to fundamentalism, being part of the more universal creed.
For the reasons I gave in my OP. A cosmic eschaton in a human timescale in a geocentric universe which exists on human timescales looks very different to one in a non-geocentric (indeed centreless) universe which has existed for millions of times longer than humanity and contains trillions of suns and billions of earth like life compatible planets.
At the very least it makes us ask whether the eschaton affects earth only, humanity only, or the entire universe. If it's universal it also makes one ask why God entirely hides behind natural processes in creating and sustaining the universe but acts entirely supernaturally in ending it.
It’s a reasonable question. For which there are no definitive answers.
As a matter of scale and probability it seems more than likely that there are other sentient beings out there. We just haven’t met any yet.
(You will note that I am sceptical of accounts that we have that such encounters have already occurred).
Should they turn up any dialogue we might have re eternal beliefs would be interesting! Unless of course they were like the Independence Day aliens, for whom the rruth was that they wanted us to die. Not much chance of dialogue there.
Sentience does not imply sympathy. Of which we have evidence all around us. That might be a problem affecting other sentient alien species for all we know.
In a way, a universe in which we are the only life, or the only sentient life, or the only sentient empathic life, would raise even more questions. A creation that sentient life will never see 99.999999% of just seems so bizarre.
So are you asking why there isn't an established religion that anticipated modern cosmology and biology enough to avoid contradicting them? I'd say human psychology would have made the establishment of such a religion extremely unlikely.
That depends on whether religion is invented or revealed. If it's just a human phenomenon than yeah, obviously, but religions claim to be more than that don't they?
Wouldn’t that be a “something”?
I’m reminded of Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained and the argument over qualia. But that’s pretty deep stuff! What are the building blocks of sentience? The hard problem of consciousness.
It’s all interesting stuff. Does it take us much father than “I think therefore I am”?
Maybe a bit? But the intrinsic dilemmas are still in there somewhere!
I'll settle for non-contradictory. But if your contention is that it was revealed in a way consistent with the cosmology of two thousand years ago, but not ours, then fine, but that just leads me back to the opening question - how to make that revelation work with the cosmology we do have.
Oh, and please could you try stating your position rather than attacking mine with what look suspiciously like leading rhetorical questions? I often feel under attack just for raising these questions and this sort of response does not help.
Thanks. It looked very much like dismissive questioning where the original question is subtly redefined so as to make it appear trivial.
I'm afraid I can't see how the issue of consciousness relates to the question of life having purpose.
Jeremiah rather implies that inspiration happens when he sees an almond tree and thinks of an untranslatable pun.
That does mean we don't have anything to go on on whether Jesus will come in time or at the end of time or whether it's all a metaphor for something else. I am unable to offer helpful resolutions. In Christian history speculation about the end times has rarely led anywhere helpful. (Although apparently John Napier mostly spent his time on commentaries on Revelation and took time out to invent logarithms. Or discover logarithms, depending on how you look at it.)
Also for me, especially when we’re talking about the future, I don’t need the details. I don’t worry myself about exactly what the end of things looks like. The writers of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures attempted to describe it using language and images that made sense to their audiences. But at the end of the day, what matters in it all to me isn’t the mechanics or the timelines. It’s that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.
My view is that we aren’t dealing with a textbook, much less a rule book. We’re dealing with stories and poetry, all of which come from specific times, places and cultures, and all of which use the understandings and languages of those times, places and cultures to convey something—something about God, about humanity and about our relation to God and to one another. And we’re dealing with a particular person, who is, I believe, the definitive revelation, through which all the other stories and poetry are best viewed.
Rationalism being the act of extending and using existing knowledge to get to new positions, Empiricism being the act of using experimentation to find things you could not work out on your own. Religion therefore being a form of rationalism, science being empirical.
I don't treat the cosmology as the message. My issue is making sense of the message in the light of a very different cosmology.
What I'm hearing here is "it doesn't bother me much". With respect, this thread is from a viewpoint where it matters very.much, so that sounds dismissive.
These questions don't go away, ever, for me. I need to know what ideas people have.
Are you waiting for someone to give you permission to not-believe because the pieces you have do not match up? If it helps, I give you permission.
No. It's a genuine question. If Christianity is true, given what we know now in science, how do we handle the bits that seem set in a different cosmology?
It can be true, but not literal. It could be something in which the only way we can comprehend it is in the literary form of myth.
Let me reword the question:
"What form does "the fall" have since the Adam and Eve story is not literal?"
Steve Chalke touches on this in his TheLost Message of Paul but I've can't look it up because I've passed the book on, but I think he thinks 'The Fall' is a kind of moral awakening in early humans.
But I think that just boils down to humans were successful because they had the brain-power to co-exist and cooperate and help each other survive.
So it doesn't really answer the questions I have -which are probably the same as those of @KarlLB and others.
To me—and I’m not making any judgment about those who see it differently or don’t see any meaning at all in what is traditionally termed “the Fall”—the story of Adam (“human”) and Eve (“living one”) and “the Fall” is the story of every human, of the human condition. It’s a story that even the best, most virtuous people continue to play out.
Barth said the story of Adam and Eve reveals something about and sums up the history of humanity and God. He said that there never was a “golden age,” and that we all constantly re-enact what happened in Eden, and have done so as long as we’ve been human.
Bonhoeffer, as I understand it, said the story of the Garden of Eden is each individual’s story about choosing between what is right for humanity and what is wrong for humanity.
Viewed that way, “the Fall” isn’t a moment in history. It’s an ongoing reality, told in the form of myth, for all humanity throughout history.
What do you then make of Gen 3:16-19?
Thing is, I don't have the scientific vocabulary to engage with these questions other than in a broad brush way.
I do know sciency people who seem to 'reconcile' these things and have had some discussions on these themes. Not sure I can help, but I'm not dismissive ...
Reading back on the replies, I think this expresses well my skepticism. The whole of everything is massive. In one sense, I would be unsurprised if there was some kind of higher being behind it all. But either way I do not see that it makes a whole lot of difference.
The part that makes no sense to me is that this projected being somehow holding everything together is also interested in humanity, and not only that, is interested in individual humans.
And then, we are asked to believe, that the deity projected in a convoluted way by one societal group of humanity is uniquely representative of this deity that created all things.
I do not buy it at all.
This is, I'm afraid,moving into epiphanies territory. I didn't 'buy it at all' until God showed him (or her)self to me . Just let me say I had the Pentecost experience recorded in Acts. That story became real to me.
As a rational scientist, I believe the universe, or universes, are teeming with life. How could they not be? And everywhere is our dear God. To quote: 'In him I live and breathe and have my being'.
Your reported experience is just that. Whether or not there is teeming life in the universes is a subject of science fiction not fact and as such is basically a non-testable and non-falsifiable thought experiment
My apologies. I was being obscure. I think I may be feeling my way towards a different thread. The stimulus was a line from Crosby Stills and Nash
There’s a clash of codes going on in this thread. I think the different ways we look at conscious thought has something to do with it. But my post jumped the gun on that idea.
It might be better if I try to come up with a separate thread on clashes of codes. And remain silent until I do!
Also if your faith is based on experience, in at least one sense you are an empiricist rather than a rationalist. Which is an interesting further twist on the difference between rationality and empiricism.
You might then have some insight into how this is for those of us who have had no such experience or revelation. It's a wonder we contemplate the possibility at all.
In my philosophy training I was told to be very suspicious of the word 'just'.
My thoughts (and yours) are, after all just the moving of electrons and the firing of neurons.
PS: I was very rational in my assesment of my own, and my students, experiments!
Blessings!
'Jews ask for a sign and Greeks seek wisdom ...'
I could get very pious-sounding and say that the Truth is in Jesus who is himself the Truth.
So we don't 'need' to mither ourselves about empiricism or rationalisation or ...
Which would be a cop-out.
My brother-in-law told me about some research that suggested that some people are more genetically prone to religious belief than others. I'm not sure how that works.
If these things are true then I wouldn't expect everything to be clean cut with us all having revelations on the one hand or rationalising ourselves into a faith position on the other.
All scientific knowledge is expanding - and sometimes undergoes complete change with new discoveries.
Today's Cosmology may be wrong - could it even be as wrong as when the ancient religions began?
But, if we are going to consider God or a 'higher power' we need to start with something. I start with Jesus because it was the way I grew up. My DIL starts with meditation and yoga, because she finds it really helps her. I honestly don't think it matters, so long as we are not selfishly looking inwards and only to ourselves.
The belief in God or a higher power helps us to look outwards, to begin to care for our surroundings and other people.
I hope that doesn't sound preachy. I'm actually feeling a bit low today and in need some of that myself!
Going to church always helps me look outwards from myself. I never agree with every word they say, but that's OK.
"The most disappointing and mismatched prediction in cosmology is the cosmological constant problem, frequently called the "worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics". When physicists use quantum field theory to calculate the vacuum energy density of empty space, their predicted value misses the actual observed amount of dark energy by roughly 120 orders of magnitude" (Wikipedia)
So yeah, there's lots we don't know and lots of areas where some of the theoretical underpinning isn't right. But there's a lot we do know and is most unlikely to be overturned.
Only if he messed up when designing the universe and forgot to add something to make it expand so had to step in and do it manually.
One possibility (AIUI; IANAP) is that it is an artefact of an incomplete theory of gravity and not a thing. That would be a pain as my TTRPG uses it as part of its FTL solution.
Although the sentient life that is our species is doing our best to knock that number down, through putting quite a lot of time and effort into looking at more and more of it. How much of creation do you think we (as a species) will have seen by the time we're done?
I like this question.
As you're asking for creative thinking, I think our imagination can get us some of the way. And I think imagination plays a significant role in the acquisition of knowledge. Returning to an earlier point, I'm pretty sure we all started learning how to think by listening to stories, before we started learning how to think scientifically.
Maybe it's the acquisition of conscious self-awareness (as distinct individuals).
@pease said -
Yes.
The Bible is a collection of stories, some more far fetched than others. But all speaking truth (imo).
I can see how the universe can be considered to be 'God' -but the universe has to be conscious? You're going to have to explain that a bit!
The category of idealisms covers …
A huge area, ranging from Bishop Berkeley to Zen, where experience is taken by some as the only thing present. It has many cunning twists, as you would expect, since we can't find anything outside experience.