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How should the problems with religious historical accounts be dealt with?

afr0byte said:
We can't say, with 100% certainty, that Ents (talking trees from Lord of the Rings) never existed. It's a pretty safe bet to say that they never did, though.
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So you think education should be based on probability, not facts?
 
afr0byte said:
I guess, then, that the story shouldn't mean much to those in other parts of the world (e.g. in the North/South America), since God was only mad enough to try to kill people in that area. Everyone else was OK.
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I didn't say it didn't happen in other parts of the world. In fact my flood example was based on one in the Americas.

There well could be dozens of arks in various locations, for all we know as well as people who lived at higher altitudes who weren't affected.

What you're doing is using an evolutionist POV for what you consider a literal translation of the Bible.

Consider this map released by the US Navy to it's retirees: After Earth changes.

usa-map-navyd.jpg
 
afr0byte said:
There are plenty of facts on the page I linked.
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I'm not going to keep dancing this dance. Too bad you can't acknowledge you have no proof for your assertion that what is written in the bible is not true. But that is your problem, not mine.
 
Artevelde said:
I'm not going to keep dancing this dance. Too bad you can't acknowledge you have no proof for your assertion that what is written in the bible is not true. But that is your problem, not mine.
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No, I'm not dancing around anything. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that the flood story isn't true, as presented on the site that I linked. One can't 100% prove that anything historically isn't true. I mean, hypothetically, if you're going to posit a god that god could have created everything yesterday and filled our minds with false memories.
 
WCH said:
I didn't say it didn't happen in other parts of the world. In fact my flood example was based on one in the Americas.

There well could be dozens of arks in various locations, for all we know as well as people who lived at higher altitudes who weren't affected.

What you're doing is using an evolutionist POV for what you consider a literal translation of the Bible.

Consider this map released by the US Navy to it's retirees: After Earth changes.

usa-map-navyd.jpg
Click to expand...

Oh, and the Bible conveniently decided not to mention the many other arks?
 
Where did that map come from?
WCH said:
I didn't say it didn't happen in other parts of the world. In fact my flood example was based on one in the Americas.

There well could be dozens of arks in various locations, for all we know as well as people who lived at higher altitudes who weren't affected.

What you're doing is using an evolutionist POV for what you consider a literal translation of the Bible.

Consider this map released by the US Navy to it's retirees: After Earth changes.

usa-map-navyd.jpg
Click to expand...
 
afr0byte said:
How about the flood story? There's no way he had two of every animal on the boat, and there's no evidence for a global flood.
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Yeah, but there is evidence of repeated flooding of the Shatt al Arab plain, which would have been the whole world to those guys.

Events in the Bible may or may not have happened in some form. Historical accuracy isn't the point for a lot of those stories.
 
LowDown said:
Yeah, but there is evidence of repeated flooding of the Shatt al Arab plain, which would have been the whole world to those guys.

Events in the Bible may or may not have happened in some form. Historical accuracy isn't the point for a lot of those stories.
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That's fine if you want to treat it as parables, not to be taken seriously...though it does seem to lend creedence to the idea that the Bible is written by men and is not God speaking through man. Certainly God would have told them it was just their region of the world?
 
afr0byte said:
That's fine if you want to treat it as parables, not to be taken seriously...though it does seem to lend creedence to the idea that the Bible is written by men and is not God speaking through man. Certainly God would have told them it was just their region of the world?
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The stories and parables are a distillation of thousands of years of human wisdom. If nothing else it provides us with valuable insight about the human condition over the millenia. It is sophomoric to regard it as "not to be taken seriously."
 
LowDown said:
The stories and parables are a distillation of thousands of years of human wisdom. If nothing else it provides us with valuable insight about the human condition over the millenia. It is sophomoric to regard it as "not to be taken seriously."
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I misspoke. I meant to say literally.
 
tererun said:
Since there is a good now flame rule in effect perhaps we can get a decent discussion going on this.

many religions tell stories that are simply factually not true. There are reasons for this. perhaps it is parable, or perhaps it is ignorance. My personal belief is that, especially in the case of big religions, school should educate our children on the basic beliefs and history of religion as it has been a huge influence in society. Even an atheist who doesn't believe in god knows that the idea has had massive effects.

So right here we have a non-offensive open discussion. How do we include religion in education, which is important to understanding the world we live in, while also dealing with the ideas that conflict with reality and science? For example at what point do you put aside the adam and eve story and start looking at historical records.
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Theology in and of itself is valid academic pursuit. There is no doubt the profound effect religion has had and continues to have on human society and societal evolution. The real problem is that on whole, we are not a reasonable species. Any given individual can be very reasonable, but aggregately we behave more like monkeys. Someone gets something they want, and then the flood gates open. Someone is restricted from something they want, and then the flood gates open. We'll bitch, complain, and sue until we get nothing.

At heart, I think you could easily include theological history and comparison classes in high school that teach the histories and theories of various religions and show the impact they have had on history and humanity's future. Will we have it? Depends on whether or not we can actually behave like adults.
 
Ikari said:
Theology in and of itself is valid academic pursuit. There is no doubt the profound effect religion has had and continues to have on human society and societal evolution. The real problem is that on whole, we are not a reasonable species. Any given individual can be very reasonable, but aggregately we behave more like monkeys. Someone gets something they want, and then the flood gates open. Someone is restricted from something they want, and then the flood gates open. We'll bitch, complain, and sue until we get nothing.

At heart, I think you could easily include theological history and comparison classes in high school that teach the histories and theories of various religions and show the impact they have had on history and humanity's future. Will we have it? Depends on whether or not we can actually behave like adults.
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With the number of people that think it's appropriate to open a public/government meeting with a prayer...I'm going to guess that no we can't behave like adults in this respect.
 
afr0byte said:
With the number of people that think it's appropriate to open a public/government meeting with a prayer...I'm going to guess that no we can't behave like adults in this respect.
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You can open up meetings with prayer too, no skin off my teeth. Government must rule by laws of man, not laws of god; but they can run their mouths any way they wish.
 
tererun said:
Since there is a good now flame rule in effect perhaps we can get a decent discussion going on this.

many religions tell stories that are simply factually not true. There are reasons for this. perhaps it is parable, or perhaps it is ignorance. My personal belief is that, especially in the case of big religions, school should educate our children on the basic beliefs and history of religion as it has been a huge influence in society. Even an atheist who doesn't believe in god knows that the idea has had massive effects.

So right here we have a non-offensive open discussion. How do we include religion in education, which is important to understanding the world we live in, while also dealing with the ideas that conflict with reality and science? For example at what point do you put aside the adam and eve story and start looking at historical records.
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It has not been proven that the Adam and Eve account is actually false. Therefore why would you teach that? It IS a historical record in the book of Genesis that Adam and Eve were factual historical characters. Nothing has proved otherwise.
 
davidtaylorjr said:
It has not been proven that the Adam and Eve account is actually false. Therefore why would you teach that? It IS a historical record in the book of Genesis that Adam and Eve were factual historical characters. Nothing has proved otherwise.
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Well, but then why can't we teach the Hindu creation myth as fact? It hasn't been proven false.
 
afr0byte said:
My point is that there are many origin myths. You happen to choose to believe one particular myth. We should teach what can be scientifically proven.
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If you want to teach what can be scientifically PROVEN, then I guess you shouldn't be teaching anything at all..... :shrug:
 
afr0byte said:
My point is that there are many origin myths. You happen to choose to believe one particular myth. We should teach what can be scientifically proven.
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By the way, the Bible is not a myth. It is 100% truth.
 
afr0byte said:
OK. :roll: You should look up the word myth. It doesn't mean it's not true (not that I actually believe it is).
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Myth has more than one definition. It is commonly used to mean fiction, granted your definition is also used.
 
davidtaylorjr said:
If you want to teach what can be scientifically PROVEN, then I guess you shouldn't be teaching anything at all..... :shrug:
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I dunno, my high school physics teacher did a pretty good job of demonstrating, for example, that a bowling ball attached to a cable wouldn't go any higher than its initial starting position on the return swing (if he didn't add any force..he just dropped it). Similarly my chemistry teacher did some pretty cool demonstrations.
 
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