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The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

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Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Kepler said:
Well, flip it around and just substitute "secularism" for "religion" and you'll be able to identify. :)

People should and must use their personal values when thinking and acting politically, so as Run-D.M.C. says, "it's tricky." Mutual respect and diffidence is typically the best approach in situations like this -- or at least that's what a lifetime of watching stuff like Gunsmoke and Have Gun - Will Travel has taught me. :)

97% of all the world's great philosophies boils down to, "don't be a jerk."
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Which is why we, who agree on precious little, yet respect one another, must get our 2016 campaign cranking! "Don't be a jerk" sounds like a campaign slogan we could use!
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Bob Gray said:
Which is why we, who agree on precious little, yet respect one another, must get our 2016 campaign cranking! "Don't be a jerk" sounds like a campaign slogan we could use!
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A picture of Ted Cruz with a diagonal line through it would make a great campaign button.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Kepler said:
A picture of Ted Cruz with a diagonal line through it would make a great campaign button.
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If it's a matching set with the other having a picture of Nancy Pelosi with a diagonal line through it, I could live with that.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Bob Gray said:
If it's a matching set with the other having a picture of Nancy Pelosi with a diagonal line through it, I could live with that.
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I'm not sure Nancy's jerkiness is a match for the big guns. How about Debbie Wasserman Schultz?
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Kepler said:
I'm not sure Nancy's jerkiness is a match for the big guns. How about Debbie Wasserman Schultz?
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Nancy just hasn't had the opportunity to show off since she lost control of the House.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Bob Gray said:
Nancy just hasn't had the opportunity to show off since she lost control of the House.
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Even when she was Speaker, she never really struck me as jerky. She's more an Orrin Hatch type -- mildly irritating, but not a showboat. Certainly not in the Newt / Trent Lott / Ted Cruz league. To find a Dem like that is harder, though Chuck Schumer's a shoe-in if he ever gets a leadership post.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Kepler said:
Even when she was Speaker, she never really struck me as jerky. She's more an Orrin Hatch type -- mildly irritating, but not a showboat. Certainly not in the Newt / Trent Lott / Ted Cruz league. To find a Dem like that is harder, though Chuck Schumer's a shoe-in if he ever gets a leadership post.
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Really? Pelosi was a bully of the highest level. She even yanked her own around a good bit if they got out of line.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

NASA's chief scientist has gone on the record saying that within 30 years she thinks we will have evidence of alien life.

"I think we're going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we're going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years," NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan said Tuesday (April 7) during a panel discussion that focused on the space agency's efforts to search for habitable worlds and alien life.

"We know where to look. We know how to look," Stofan added during the event, which was webcast live. "In most cases we have the technology, and we're on a path to implementing it. And so I think we're definitely on the road." [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]

Former astronaut John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, shared Stofan's optimism, predicting that signs of life will be found relatively soon both in our own solar system and beyond.
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With that in mind, if we do actually find evidence of alien life, how does that impact religious thought, if at all? If you look to science fiction, the best of which is usually some sort of social commentary wrapped up in some far off tale, it'll go one of two ways. Either people will cling onto their reiligious beliefs more than ever, galvanizing them to be more dedicated than ever, or religion fails and the believers find too many flaws in their formerly sacred held beliefs.

Given my irreligious views, I'm not capable of commenting, but how do you think they'll change, if at all, should NASA succeed in their search?
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

The discovery of life probably won't have much effect at all. More worlds that God has given mankind to be fruitful and multiply on.

Discovery of intelligent life would have consequences, but as long as it was at telescope length it can always be denied or made theopomorphic.

First contact, OTOH, is going to be really problematic for a lot of faiths.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I just feel lucky that of all the worlds and civilizations I could have been born in, I happened to land at the one that Jeebus came to save. What are the odds?Those poor alien souls in hell just never had a chance.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

LynahFan said:
I just feel lucky that of all the worlds and civilizations I could have been born in, I happened to land at the one that Jeebus came to save. What are the odds?Those poor alien souls in hell just never had a chance.
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OTOH, if the Tralfamadorians turn out to be Miaphysite, I'm on my way to the Serbian patriarch faster that you can say hypostasis.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Kepler said:
Discovery of intelligent life would have consequences, but as long as it was at telescope length it can always be denied or made theopomorphic.

First contact, OTOH, is going to be really problematic for a lot of faiths.
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There is a theory, which I hope is not going to be supported by empirical evidence, that the development of intelligence will inevitably lead to the quick and early (on a geologic time scale) extinction of the species that developed said intelligence.


It seems to me that we are getting closer to extinction than we are to prosperity. :(
 
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Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Kepler said:
First contact, OTOH, is going to be really problematic for a lot of faiths.
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How so? What religion sets forth anything at all about other worlds besides the one we've got? (While I don't see us finding intelligent life "out there", I don't understand what it would have to do with faith in God, if we did)
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

geezer said:
How so? What religion sets forth anything at all about other worlds besides the one we've got? (While I don't see us finding intelligent life "out there", I don't understand what it would have to do with faith in God, if we did)
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Let's take faiths which posit a universal, omnipresent, omnipotent God. Man has a special place in these faiths -- intelligence and/or self-awareness is God's gift to us alone. God's communications have been with us (there have been a lot of Chosen Peoples throughout history, but they're always people). Contact with another intelligence in the universe would present them with either:

1) an intelligence that knows nothing at all of Gods
2) an intelligence that has Gods of their own
3) an intelligence that has one of our own established Gods

3) is easy -- that God wins.
2) is fairly easy to finesse -- either their Gods are our Gods but in a different, cultural-appropriate visage, or they just have the wrong Gods and the evangelists have an answer for that (particularly if the new intelligence has wealth)
1) is going to be difficult. All human cultures have some sort of man in the sky, even if it's a woman in a tree. Religion answers basic human needs. But what if we find an alien intelligence that's done just fine for 10,000 (or 10 million) years without any concept of the supernatural at all? The first assumption of religion is that it matters. When presented with a context in which it doesn't matter, some people are going to lose their sheet.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Kepler said:
When presented with a context in which it doesn't matter, some people are going to lose their sheet.
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For my part, I'm pretty much willing to let things fly without needing to have all the answers, but one time I read an interesting but very bleak book about a self-flagellating missionary to the sadly ignorant heathens of Canada a couple hundred years ago who's "world"view might apply in such a case.
 
Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Kepler said:
Let's take faiths which posit a universal, omnipresent, omnipotent God. Man has a special place in these faiths -- intelligence and/or self-awareness is God's gift to us alone.
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Apparently you don't understand the religious mindset very well, not having one yourself.

You have a very narrow and constricted conception of "man," as if the physical housing of the body actually mattered.

The essential spiritual element is the soul. There is no a priori reason to expect that intelligent life that evolved elsewhere would not also have a soul: if anything, the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere could easily be viewed as affirming the Glory and Wonder of the Deity, giving us siblings instead of leaving us stranded as only children. I would not be surprised if some religious people viewed them potentially as Angels, a higher form of spiritual life sent here to offer us support and guidance.

What would be the point of Creating such a vast and wonderful Universe, and then leaving only piddly little us stuck off in some remote corner? merely for our entertainment? that seems really vain and pretentious on our part, don't you think?



and finally, you presumed without any evidence or justification whatsoever that intelligent life that evolved elsewhere would not have a spiritual aspect. you even allude to the desire of Intelligence to find Meaning in Existence. It seems to me that such a drive, such a curiosity, might just as easily result in intelligent life that evolved elsewhere also to believe in a Diety that fits their evolution and experience.
 
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