Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Jesus and Adam & Eve are two different ballgames; what are you getting at?
I haven't read the whole debate, but I assume it's "if you belive one highly unlikely story to just be metaphor, why do you take the other highly unlikely story as fact?"
It's like saying the John Henry story was just a myth, because a single man couldn't dig through a mountain with just a hammer and pick, but then believing that Paul Bunyan was really 30 feet tall.
Originally posted by Robtard
Are people really using the asexual reproductive capabilities of certain reptiles and fish as valid proof that Mary was a virgin, seriously?
I'm not saying "Aha, see! Proof positive!"
Based on those occurrences (and considering humans are animals just like komodo dragons), I'm questioning the possibility of a human having a virgin birth.
Jesus and Adam & Eve are two different ballgames; what are you getting at?
you stated in this thread that you believe that some yarns in the bible are true while others are obvious metaphors. You denied that you pick and choose. You said your basis of determining if something is true or a metaphor is if it is scientificly sound. If it isn't scientificly sound, it's an obvious metaphor.
it's the same ballgame. All of those stories (Adam & Eve, Noah's ark,jesus christ, etc.) are all scientificly unsound.
Just admit that you beleive whatever you want to believe with no basis of believing it other than you want to or don't want to. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no need to say, "I believe this is an obvious metaphor because it isn't scientificly sound"........especially when you believe all kinds of other stuff that is equally or moreso scientificly unsound.
everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe. no need to try to rationalize to others, especially with rationalizations that don't hold up.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
In the area of actual scholarly discussion of religious text absolutes are avoided.And?
Thinking is a perfectly valid way to seek divine knowledge.
You must be aware that there is no "the church" anymore. Revision can simply branch off into new versions of the faith.
Depends on the church. Many simply claim that the Bible contains the truth and that they have interpreted it.
A thinking person can see simply from the number of different faiths (in Christianity alone it tops 30,000) that the "truth" is constantly revised and can be open to interpretation. The only thing that really matters is which one you choose.
You're making universal assumptions about thousands of different faiths again.
Completely.
I agree. I simply disagree with the claim that religion cannot be allowed to assess its texts just as a science can go back and look at evidence again.
It can if one assumes that human beings are imperfect.
If you want, we can quibble about things like whether scholarly discussion is a good analogy for real religious belief and whatever.
Like you pointed out, a lot of that was a rant and off topic.
Sure, I guess there are people who are religious that believe what they believe might be wrong... There may be some who accept that we cannot know...
I don't know, its probably just my stance on things, but the idea that the church (I'm using "church" as shorthand for "religious institutions". So ya, THE church doesn't exist, but ya, many churchES do) would change its dogma is akin to it admitting that it was full of crap from the beginning.
If god had particular designs for women, it was wrong for the church to change in the face of feminism, if black people are really lesser individuals, it was wrong for the church to change during the civil rights era.
It just reveals how socially constructed religion is, and, imho, how detached it is from anything remotely resembling divine truth. If that is what a specific denomination or individual wishes to wear on their sleave, far be it from me to say it can't be so.
Originally posted by inimalist
If you want, we can quibble about things like whether scholarly discussion is a good analogy for real religious belief and whatever.Like you pointed out, a lot of that was a rant and off topic.
Sure, I guess there are people who are religious that believe what they believe might be wrong... There may be some who accept that we cannot know...
I don't know, its probably just my stance on things, but the idea that the church (I'm using "church" as shorthand for "religious institutions". So ya, THE church doesn't exist, but ya, many churchES do) would change its dogma is akin to it admitting that it was full of crap from the beginning.
If god had particular designs for women, it was wrong for the church to change in the face of feminism, if black people are really lesser individuals, it was wrong for the church to change during the civil rights era.
It just reveals how socially constructed religion is, and, imho, how detached it is from anything remotely resembling divine truth. If that is what a specific denomination or individual wishes to wear on their sleave, far be it from me to say it can't be so.
👆
Originally posted by Quiero Mota
I'm not saying "Aha, see! Proof positive!"Based on those occurrences (and considering humans are animals just like komodo dragons), I'm questioning the possibility of a human having a virgin birth.
Even if Mary was a hermaphrodite with fully functioning male and female reproductive organs, it would be an extremely slim chance of that happening. So either she was impregnated by a male (knowingly or unknowingly), or God did actually put "himself" inside her womb. I'm going with the former.
There's always the chance that sperm was inserted into her virgin vagina by other means than a penis and therefore she indeed did have a "virgin birth", but I doubt artificial insemination was happening back them and Jesus would still have a human father in that scenario.
Originally posted by Evil Dead
you stated in this thread that you believe that some yarns in the bible are true while others are obvious metaphors. You denied that you pick and choose. You said your basis of determining if something is true or a metaphor is if it is scientificly sound. If it isn't scientificly sound, it's an obvious metaphor.it's the same ballgame. All of those stories (Adam & Eve, Noah's ark,jesus christ, etc.) are all scientificly unsound.
Just admit that you beleive whatever you want to believe with no basis of believing it other than you want to or don't want to. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no need to say, "I believe this is an obvious metaphor because it isn't scientificly sound"........especially when you believe all kinds of other stuff that is equally or moreso scientificly unsound.
everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe. no need to try to rationalize to others, especially with rationalizations that don't hold up.
Adam and Eve is an obvious metaphor. A virgin birth is a lot more sound (seeing that it occurs in nature) than 6 billion people coming from just two, don't you think. And it's not me who does the "choosing", no more than an Egyptologist chooses what a given heiroglyphic means. Its scholars who find out, and then I learn through some form of media.
Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Adam and Eve is an obvious metaphor. A virgin birth is a lot more sound (seeing that it occurs in nature) than 6 billion people coming from just two, don't you think.
I would disagree
the breeding population of human females was at one point (at least this is the current understanding) reduced to, iirc, less than a dozen.
The idea of a very small amount of individuals populating the planet over the course of hundreds of thousands of years is not necessarily that outlandish.
Virgin human birth? There is no real mechanism for it, outside artificial insemination... Even then, and I don't know how this works in frogs, but the mamalian genome, at least the human one, is subject to error if people are too closely related.
Originally posted by inimalist
I would disagreethe breeding population of human females was at one point (at least this is the current understanding) reduced to, iirc, less than a dozen.
The idea of a very small amount of individuals populating the planet over the course of hundreds of thousands of years is not necessarily that outlandish.
At one point, there was probably only one [modern] human female, she would have been the first born with the ever so slight differences that made her "us" and separated her from her parents, though you'd need a microscope to see the differences.
I do agree that a small group could make a larger given enough time and under the right land/food conditions. But just two modern humans breeding and inbreeding, making 6 billion people of all the varied ethnicity and all within a span of just 6k years (or so) is just stupid, which is what the Adam & Eve story teaches.
Originally posted by Robtard
At one point, there was probably only one [modern] human female, she would have been the first born with the ever so slight differences that made her "us" and separated her from her parents, though you'd need a microscope to see the differences.I do agree that a small group could make a larger given enough time and under the right land/food conditions. But just two modern humans breeding and inbreeding, making 6 billion people of all the varied ethnicity and all within a span of just 6k years (or so) is just stupid, which is what the Adam & Eve story teaches.
didn't he say adam and eve could be metaphorical though?
In which case it can be post hoc-ed to fit any historical model...
I agree of course with the idea of Adam and Eve being retarded. Have you see Rickey Gervais' take on Genesis?
Originally posted by Robtard
At one point, there was probably only one [modern] human female, she would have been the first born with the ever so slight differences that made her "us" and separated her from her parents, though you'd need a microscope to see the differences.I do agree that a small group could make a larger given enough time and under the right land/food conditions. But just two modern humans breeding and inbreeding, making 6 billion people of all the varied ethnicity and all within a span of just 6k years (or so) is just stupid, which is what the Adam & Eve story teaches.
I know what you're referring to. She is called the "real Eve". She is not the true mother of ALL human kind. Just everyone outside of Africa. There are others in Africa which did not descend from her. However, that doesn't really change your good point.