4 ms·

It seems as though, in some online communities, the discussion about faith and purpose has begun to evolve beyond some variation of "OMG you believe XYZ? That i

It seems as though, in some online communities, the discussion about faith and purpose has begun to evolve beyond some variation of "OMG you believe XYZ? That is proven completely false by ABC - Lolz". I won't hold my breath but increased meaningful discussion can only be a good thing.

nitrogen 11y ago
The principles of parsimony and falsifiability still represent an unbridgeable gap between the two camps.
brink 11y ago
I'm ready to receive the down-votes here, but I've been reading through those posts along with scientific articles for years and I'm still not convinced that the Bible was made up. So it's refreshing to have actual open discussion rather than atheist and bible bashing fights.
- gnaritas 11y ago
  Of course the Bible was made up, it didn't write itself; it's a work of fiction by men, nothing more. Nor is there a lick of evidence to the contrary.
  - nZac 11y ago
    Do you mean that because a book doesn't write itself, which is an impossible task, it can't be true? That seems to remove the possibility to know anything from a written text including science, history, autobiographies, and other forms of non-fiction.
    - cconcepts 11y ago
      I've heard it described as confusion between cause and agency. Just because you know how something happened doesn't explain that thing's purpose or that it doesn't have intent. I may have been in the Toyota factory and even met the engineers who designed the cars. That doesn't mean I understand the full intent of Toyota's board of directors.
    - maroonblazer 11y ago
      The Koran and Dianetics didn't write themselves either. Are they true? If not, why not?
    - gnaritas 11y ago
      Any written text can be either true or false, fiction and mythology have always been wildly popular. The bible, like all works of fiction, was made up by men. > That seems to remove the possibility to know anything from a written text including science, history, autobiographies, and other forms of non-fiction. Things aren't true because they're written, they're true because they can be verified as true; writing merely adds the possibility to pass on the knowledge required to verify a truth. Absent re-verification, nothing is true simply because someone wrote it down.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - c0achmcguirk 11y ago
    LOLZ
  - _ak 11y ago
    That's not the point here. The point is whether the Hebrew bible is simply a transcript of tradition and religious beliefs that were previously transmitted orally, or whether some people wrote it Hubbard-style, with the express intention to scam and defraud people. Since stylometry has shown us that it is a document written by many authors over a longer period of time, and since Judaism was very much a tribal religion then, the former is much more likely. Then, there's no point in deriding the Hebrew bible as "just a made-up thing", since it served an important socio-cultural function, so strong in fact that Judaism managed to survive as a religion and culture to this very day, while most other cultures and religions of the bronze and iron age have long been forgotten, or have been assimilated or superseded by others.

nitrogen 11y ago

The principles of parsimony and falsifiability still represent an unbridgeable gap between the two camps.

brink 11y ago

I'm ready to receive the down-votes here, but I've been reading through those posts along with scientific articles for years and I'm still not convinced that the Bible was made up. So it's refreshing to have actual open discussion rather than atheist and bible bashing fights.

gnaritas 11y ago
Of course the Bible was made up, it didn't write itself; it's a work of fiction by men, nothing more. Nor is there a lick of evidence to the contrary.
- nZac 11y ago
  Do you mean that because a book doesn't write itself, which is an impossible task, it can't be true? That seems to remove the possibility to know anything from a written text including science, history, autobiographies, and other forms of non-fiction.
  - cconcepts 11y ago
    I've heard it described as confusion between cause and agency. Just because you know how something happened doesn't explain that thing's purpose or that it doesn't have intent. I may have been in the Toyota factory and even met the engineers who designed the cars. That doesn't mean I understand the full intent of Toyota's board of directors.
  - maroonblazer 11y ago
    The Koran and Dianetics didn't write themselves either. Are they true? If not, why not?
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    Any written text can be either true or false, fiction and mythology have always been wildly popular. The bible, like all works of fiction, was made up by men. > That seems to remove the possibility to know anything from a written text including science, history, autobiographies, and other forms of non-fiction. Things aren't true because they're written, they're true because they can be verified as true; writing merely adds the possibility to pass on the knowledge required to verify a truth. Absent re-verification, nothing is true simply because someone wrote it down.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- c0achmcguirk 11y ago
  LOLZ
- _ak 11y ago
  That's not the point here. The point is whether the Hebrew bible is simply a transcript of tradition and religious beliefs that were previously transmitted orally, or whether some people wrote it Hubbard-style, with the express intention to scam and defraud people. Since stylometry has shown us that it is a document written by many authors over a longer period of time, and since Judaism was very much a tribal religion then, the former is much more likely. Then, there's no point in deriding the Hebrew bible as "just a made-up thing", since it served an important socio-cultural function, so strong in fact that Judaism managed to survive as a religion and culture to this very day, while most other cultures and religions of the bronze and iron age have long been forgotten, or have been assimilated or superseded by others.