It makes me rather sad...

[bladespark]

More stuff on religion. I'm reading through some of the rest of the articles on creationist claims, and they make me very sad. They're basically trying to use science to prove the literal truth of the Bible, and they're having to twist and manipulate and sometimes outright lie in order to do so.

And it totally shames their own faith that they're doing this.

For example, just now I'm reading through a set of claims about Noah's ark, where the reality of the ark is "proved" by Nessie-like sightings of the actual ark still on mount Ararat! And where there are all kinds of convolulted explanations for how Noah and his three sons, and their wives could have cared for that many animals, and so on. And trying to propose "vapor halos" around the earth, or "sub-strata" of water that could come up to the surface, to create a world-wide flood.

Either believe or don't. Believe that God created a miracle and flooded the world, or don't. Trying to "prove" it by science merely proves that your faith is weak.

I believe in Noah. I don't believe the account is 100% literal, or that all details of the account were given. I believe it happened, but I am willing to simply say that I don't know how. And further, I'm quite happy to say that it doesn't matter how. The story of Noah isn't in the Bible to show anything about science or history. It's there to show certain principles, for example, that there are consequences for actions. Noah warned people, they ignored the warning, they died in the flood. That's the point of the story. (Or at least one point. Biblical stories tend to work on multiple levels.) Actions have consequences, and we're responsible for our actions. That's the point of most of the Old Testament. Sin and die, repent and live. The most basic beginning of good behavoir. The New Testament then builds on that with more advanced moral lessons. But the Bible is a moral guide and an object of faith, not a scientific text. And when science disproves something in the Bible, I simply have faith that the Bible is still true, and that it's merely our understanding of what it's supposed to mean that's flawed, rather than stubbonly clingling to the old interpretation.

Sheesh. Will you nutjobs quit giving faith a bad name?

Comments

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

...Sometimes, I get the feeling you may be one of the sanest people I've met.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Hey, just randomly wandering by in my weekly wanderings of LiveJournal, and I have to say that I totally agree with you. I end up butting heads with a lot of people because I'm a Christian, but I'm going into paleontology and I do not take the Bible literally. So I get agony from both sides: Christians saying I'm dumb because I believe in evolution, and scientists saying I'm dumb because I believe in a God.

Anyway, the important thing is belief in God, and (for me, anyway) following Jesus. Does it really matter how old you think the earth is, or how it was created, or if the seven plagues of Egypt happened? No, not really. That's not the point of the faith, and it scares me that people get so wrapped up in it that they'll condemn anyone who doesn't agree with them.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

There's no reason why anybody who believes should be threatened by science. I think it just means that these people are so weak in their faith that they can't be flexible, they have to rigid.

[loweko.livejournal.com]

*applause*

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

As a scientist, I'm very upset that fellow scientists are mocking you for belief in a God.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Sadly, it's very prevalent in my area of study.

I mostly just ignore those people :E.

[unspeakablevorn.livejournal.com]

I feel threatened by science.

Why?

Because she blinded me with it

Frickin' science. Now I can't see! ;_;

Vorn

[silveradept]

It was your own fault. The warning clearly said "Do not stare at the potato for significant amounts of time."

[crystallinegirl.livejournal.com]

Woot! Someone else who doesn't mind resorting to "I don't know." I believe. I have religious discussions all the time, often with Alex. And there are times when my answer is simply I don't know. But it doesn't bother me. At least he's not one of those people that then jumps me with "But if you don't know, how can you believe?" which is SO the point, actually. Knowing and believing are such different things. Take the movie Constantine for example. They told him he couldn't go to heaven because he didn't believe. He knew. And there's a huge difference.

[euphoriel.livejournal.com]

I wish that more people had actually gotten that message from the movie. :)

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

I note that that's what nutjobs (in all communities) are for.

Fundamentalist atheism has Richard Dawkins, and Christianity has the "scientific creationists", amongst others.

I am interested, however, in a genuinely interested way (I note this, because this isn't an attack on your faith - it's a question from someone who actually doesn't understand the mental state called "religious faith", and would like to try to understand the mental processes involved), in how you reconcile belief in the (close to literal) truth of the Noah story with the fact that it is predated by an earlier, almost identical, story from a different religion (the Babylo-Sumerian)?

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Generally, I don't. *shrugs* There are many possible explanations, but I find it to be quite pointless to try and sit and and rationalize my way through them, and pick one that's "the truth." I wouldn't actually know if it was true, and what difference would it make? How would it change my life? Would it change how I act? Would it change anything about my religion? As I said above, the point of the Noah story is a moral, and the moral is valid even if the story is a total fabrication. So I don't bother to spend any mental energy trying to logically defend the story, as it doesn't accomplish anything at all.

Were I more educated, and a real expert qualifed to speak on the subject of Babylo-Sumerian religion I might well devote more effort to reconciling to two, but really it's a subject I know only a little bit about, and trying to come up with theories on it would only show my ignorance. And it would convince nobody who didn't already believe.

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

So, why not just regard it as purely allegorical, then? Much of the Torah works if you assume that it isn't historical fact, for Christians at least (for the Jewish people, of course, there's a much stronger drive to believe that bits are genuinely historical - the Exodus, for example). I'm perfectly happy with "Noah is a moral lesson". It's "Noah really happened", that I don't understand.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

It's largely because there are a lot of non-biblical references to Noah, in other LDS scripture, that treat him like he was a real person. Therefore, he was a real person. And his being a real person isn't inconsistant with myths about him existing in other cultures. (If anything, it counts as evidence that there was!) And really, why get worked up over it? You can't prove there wasn't a Noah. You can't prove there was either. It falls into the realm of faith and it's a really rather silly thing to argue over.

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

Well, the existence of earlier versions of myths about a Noah-like figure set in an entirely different religion (polytheistic, for a start), might actually count as evidence that he didn't exist, or at least, wasn't called Noah originally.

And, yes, this whole thing is what confuses me about faith. I'm intrinsically reductionist in my thinking; there is incompatible evidence for religions (I know many people of many faiths, and they all seem equally sane): hence, they're either all true, or all false, in the simplest reconciliation. I'm happy with either, although both would require some readjustment from many (but not all) religions.
I don't, deep down, get faith; the choice that one particular set of things is true, with no evidence, hence the related decision that the other set of beliefs are therefore false (although, of course, this isn't usually stated, or internalised that way, as far as I can tell). What makes you believe that Noah really existed?

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

See, there's the problem. You say "with no evidence." I HAVE evidence, 100% solid and sure, that certain fundamental things are true, and from them I extrapolate other things, such as the reality of Noah. I KNOW God exists, and I KNOW a few other basic things, like that the Book of Mormon is inspired by God, and those things are not taken on faith at all, I have evidence of them. Then, knowing that there is a God, I have faith that the other things that follow from that base statement are true.

But I cannot share my evidence with you, because it is experienced, and cannot be adequately described. I have internal proof that God exists, because I've "spoken" with God, though not in words. I've had revelation, inspiration, I've been in touch with the allmighty. But that's useless in a debate, of course, because it's personal, I can't prove to you, though I can to me, that it happened. And I can't describe it adequately either.

It's the "taste of salt" problem. If you had never tasted salt in your life, the only way to understand what salt tastes like is to taste it yourself. There is no other experience that's like the experience of tasting salt, and to somebody who's never tasted it, saying something is salty is useless. You've never had inspiration from God, thus you don't understand why people believe, and my saying I believe because of inspiration is useless.

I really don't feel that there's any point in my trying to explain why I believe. If you are convinced that there's nothing to believe in, then you are, and I can't change it. It can only change if YOU go and seek spiritual confirmation yourself.

And arguing about stupid, pointless things like the reality of Noah, honestly, just FRUSTRATES the heck out of me, because there's no point! There's no reason! It DOESN'T MATTER if Noah was real. If I found irrevocable evidence tomorrow that he never lived, it would change nothing! I'd go "Oh, so it /was/ a metaphor, not a real story, okay." For now, because it follows logically from other things I know to be true, I belive he lived. But what difference does that make? Religious people used to be sure the world stood on pillars because the Bible said so. We found out otherwise, and we changed our interpretation of that bit, but finding out otherwise didn't chage the fact that we belive there is a God, because it's irrellevant. A TRUE believer's faith in God can't be shaken, because they don't just have "faith" they know God is there. (And I frankly think that many people who argue so vehemently about the literal truth of the Bible aren't believers at all, because otherwise they wouldn't be so fixated on proving it.)

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I know a couple of Muslims who say they know, at the same level, that Allah exists, and that the Koran is true. And I know a Zoroastrian who says that they know, at the same level, that Ahura Mazda exists.

The problem here isn't the taste of salt problem. I'm perfectly happy that you've experienced the religious equivalent of the taste of salt. The problem is that there are other people I respect equally who say the equivalent of "no, it tastes of pepper", or possibly cheese, or something. (Or, I suppose, it's like a colour-blind person asking what the difference between red and green is, and having one person say: "Oh, well, red is like orange, and green is like blue", and another say: "Oh, no, red is more like purple, and green like yellow".)

Again, this is my problem: you've had one or more mystical (in the original sense) experiences with an entity matching the LDS Deity. Other people I know have had mystical experiences with other Deities. I even know people who've had mystical experiences with Odin...
Even if I had a mystical experience with $DEITY, how am I supposed to have faith in that, while accepting the rationality of all those people who've had mystical experiences which differ ontologically from mine?

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

That's not what you asked. What you asked is how I could believe in somebody like Noah, and that's what I answered.

For how I can believe when other religions seem to be equally valid, *shrugs* I don't find it matters much. I'm right doesn't necessarily mean anybody else is wrong. I don't belive anybody who's not like me is going to Hell.

I'm sure there is "The Truth" out there, but I'm also quite sure that we, being very limited, flawed, humans who are bound up in our own cultures and values aren't going to be able to cope with the real truth, so God tells us as much of it as we're able to handle, as suited to our experiences and backgrounds, and He certainly doesn't direct us in every tiny detail. "He that must be commanded in all things, the same is a slothful and unwise servant." We're supposed to figure it out for ourselves, so we each do, according to our experiences and backgrounds. God isn't going to tell me things in terms of Odin, that wouldn't make any sense to me, nor reach me in any significant way. But telling a Muslim things in terms of Joseph Smith isn't going to reach him either. Because God doesn't tell everyone He speaks to exactly the same things doesn't invalidate what He has told them. And because we draw our own conclusions from what He says, inevitably tainted by our upbringings, doesn't make those conclusions worthless. It just means there's going to be some inevitable differences in how we percieve Deity.

You'll notice, though, that He says a lot of the same things across all cultures. Things like "actions have consequences" and "You should love God." and "Serving and helping others is important."

[graydown.livejournal.com]

Only we Jews don't necessarily believe in the literal truth of Exodus. It was a story that our priests came up with to make our exile in Babylon a bit more bearable. It's a story about freedom and about how important it is that we maintain our identity as a nation. It's the muscle-flexing of a Bronze Age war god. The chances that it really happened are slim to none.

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's more culturally significant to you than it is to Christians, so the urge to believe that it might be true is stronger, I'd argue.

Who'd not want a real Moses etc in their cultural history?

[ladisassi247.livejournal.com]

This is the quote that I use on all my emails. There are many out there, but this is the one that has always meant the most to me.

"The believer must have faith. A faith which transcends the senses; if necessary defies them; defies even the power of reason" St. Augustine

Faith doesn't need proof.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) *defies that defiance*