The worst part is that many interpretations of the bible are completely compatible with modern science and vaccines in the same way (almost) all Christians now believe in the Heliocentric model. At this point its not even the bible that is the problem, instead its the pastors.
Some random
cult leaderpastor: YoU hAvE tO ReAd ThE bIbLe LiTeRaLlY Also some random pastor: "This verse from the Bible is not a contradiction to what I just said, you have to read between the lines"In catholic circles it’s more like: “Don’t read the bible, you don’t have the proper toolset and knowledge to understand. Come to church, we’ll explain it to you and leave out the bits we don’t like.”
“Oh, and while you’re there, make sure to put some money in the box we pass around. That is before you put money in the other box to touch our fancy cross. And after you put money in the other other box to light a candle.”
DING
And even if you read between the lines you'll get a dozen different readings from a dozen different people.
Yes
The problem is religious texts are generally vague and come from cultures hundreds or thousands of years ago. That lets people claim they speak for god or know "the truth" and cherry pick and twist meanings until they get the answer they want. I've listened in on bible studies where they pick over the tiniest word and inflate it into a huge story. They'd make all sorts of assumptions about it "This is what they meant!" I'd be thinking "Really? You got all of that out of one word that can be interpreted a number of ways?"
Yep, but it also means its there fault for choosing to ignore science because of a human "error". Its not even "gods word" at that point, its just another humans opinions.
What you are saying is true only if you stretch interpretation way way past what you would accept anywhere else. I could interpt Batman to be an allegory for the French revolution seen through the eyes of a Marxist-Heggelian but just because I could do such a thing doesn't mean I ought too.
Added to this the Bible often references itself and it's pretty clear that when it does it is taking itself literal not allegorical. Just look at the letters attributed to Paul, he is talking about a literal snake in a literal Garden of Eden and a literal Adam and a literal Eve made from his rib.
So yeah if you do whatever you want you and ignore what doesn't suit you there is a way you can try to save the Bible and science.
Yes there are some interpreteations pushed forward by various later authors of the bible which force different interpretations of it (the previous fortelling of the macciah being applied to Jesus being one of them, something the Jews disagree with).
I am not talking about that, I'm talking about ambiguity in the bible which allows it to work with modern scientific theories, for example in Genesis 1:11
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass ..."
It does not say how it was brought forth, allowing the use of evolution, intelligent design or some other thing to explain it. This ambiguity is what allows one sect to condemn science while another embraces it.
I grew up in a fairly conservative Christian home and was taught that God gives humans the intelligence to use science. There was no big disconnect between science and Christianity. This was the 1980s though...
I was told that the dinosaurs were the animals that weren't allowed on the Ark and all the scientists knew it. Also that the universe was only a few thousand years old.
I grew up in the 90s and in Mexico and I was taught the same thing. I still didn't end up religious but that's because my family always pushed for critical thinking and was pro science. Tbf they also grew up in an age and area where they saw older family legit die of shit that was preventable with medicine that might not have existed yet or was unavailable in their poor town.
Things like religion give frameworks on how to live and guide moral choices, science is a tool for living. Science won't tell you if the death penalty is right or wrong, if there should be limits to what people can say, etc. Religion won't tell you how old the earth is, why people get sick, etc.
But it does though... All religions pass descriptive statements about the world like "earth sits atop the backs of elephants which stand on the back of a huge turtle" and so on.
Sure, religions do pass normative statements (i.e., statements about what you ought to do), but they try to objectify those too.
Science gives you color photography.
Can we take a second to appreciate how cool film is? Tell your ancestors you can capture a perfect likeness of someone by suspending silver in animal fat and exposing it to light. Imagine how that conversation goes.
The right side is totally inaccurate. There’s also a lot of child rape that is going on, along with the thoughts and prayers.
And exploiting the same children to push their religion. A lot of services, like help for the disabled, are heavily outsourced to churches, so they double as a recruitment agency. Churches even started to provide services to those that are victims of sexual assault and human trafficing, which lead to the rise of the argument "porn will lead to increase of human trafficing".
You can't post child rape on lemmy
Bottom right should be coffins.
Believe it or not, a majority of scientists in the United States believe in a higher power according to Pew.
This is about the practice, not the practitioners.
When I read your message, my takeaway is, "Science as a process is so reliable that you can take irrational beings who believe in a ghost father, teach them the scientific method and generate provable rational outcomes that yield progress."
The rational 'machine' is what matters, I could not care less about the irrational thoughts of the 'gears'.
TLDR, People are irrational, yep, even scientists. Thank goodness even irrational beings can follow a rational process.
Yeah but they don't use it to do their job.
Their thesis director?
I would like to know what they mean by that. Like a Spinoza-Einstein higher power, or a diest higher power, or go to services once a year higher power...
Belief in a higher power is pretty vague. If you pushed me I might concede that since I believe that our universe has operating laws and humans have the ability to understand them I believe in a higher power that is our understanding of these laws. That the community that is humanity can produce a collective understanding that is greater than we can produce as individuals. In this very vague sense I believe in a higher power. I would prefer we just call it our collective knowledge but whatever.
Isaac Newton was a christian. Seems like theres room to believe and also be awesome in science. But maybe its as rare as the Newtons of history are
He was an Unitarian (Christians that reject the Trinity) so even for his time he believed in two less gods than the people around him did. Making him that much more of an atheist.
Thoughts and prayers
