If there are theists that believe in evolution/big bang, why are you still religious?

[chimburgandy]

We are all responsible for our own sins. Adam is responsible for his own sins. We all need a Jesus independently of the actions of Adam.

I think the point of the question was that if you understand evolution, than you realize that humans didn't just pop into being as humans. We gradually became homosapiens over millions of years of evolution, and have been gradually learning and establishing societies and laws and proper ways to treat each other as we go along. God creating humans as Adam and Eve doesn't fit anywhere in the chain of events established by evolution. We didn't appear out of thin air as humans, our path has been difficult and lengthily.

[neonhypoxia]

snip

The problem here is that you’re just plain wrong. You keep using the term “chemical evolution” (Which isn’t even the appropriate term for it.) in an attempt to force a connection with biological evolution. The two are not the same. Abiogenesis deals with lower level chemical processes only that are not subject to the pressures of natural selection. When natural selection does start up, this would be at the point where RNA begins to self-replicate, that’s when evolution takes over. Prior to that it is not evolution at all and does not operate by the same principles. It is only when you have a material that can self-replicate that contains information which is subject to mutation of one form or another that evolution starts. The reality of the situation here is that you are playing a game of semantics and attempting to force others to adopt your definitions within said game.

Could "let there be light" be a metaphor for the big bang?

Eh, that one is a bit iffy, especially given that light didn’t exist at that time. To say the least it would be a very clumsy metaphor and one that is extremely inaccurate. But I will grant that if you are talking to illiterate goat herders anything even remotely accurate would most likely be way over their heads. However I say way over their heads with respect to a human trying to tell them what happened. You would think that god being all knowing and understanding could do a better job at it then a human could. Just saying.

There are laws of physics that exist at the big bang, we just don't know or understand them yet and probably won't for a very very long time.

Interestingly enough some of them are known, electroweak and electrostrong unification for example. Some of it, actually a fair amount in the very first picoseconds, is still fuzzy and not well understood however. My point however is that up until the very very beginning everything is well understood and a little before that is known. Its not like it is a completely mystery or anything.

At guyver and access1, the most honest conclusion that can be reached about the origin of matter in the universe is simply, "we don't know." Or if you prefer, "we don't know yet."

Anything beyond that is both arrogant and dishonest.

There is some known about the origin of matter. I’ll forgot the physics lecture for now however and just say that it relates to inflation and leave it at that. Again inflation is one of those areas that’s still a bit fuzzy, but its also not completely unknown either.

snip

I rurzed. Well played. BTW I meant to tell you that I was not ignoring your request for information earlier about the book; its just that I haven’t read it so I can’t comment on it. In general though if you have any questions about evolution feel free to ask and I’ll try my best to answer them as non-technically as I can. In a thread works fine for me (Although you may need to let me know you asked them, I do have a bad habit sometimes of not noticing threads.) or you can PM me.

This would be hilarious if it wasn't so much real life.

Perhaps. But you still didn’t answer my question earlier. (I wouldn’t mind at all if Sawoobley and Adrogeus answered as well. Not to call anybody out or anything, just curious.) How do you decide if something is a metaphor or literal? I’m not trying to state that there is nothing in it that isn’t meant to be allegory or anything like that. But what I am wanting to know is how you decide which is which.

The library is closed due to a power outage so I couldn’t check out that book about the big bang theory, although I think I'll read this other book instead below. I’ll still comment while this thread is still alive. It appears from that paper you linked that claiming that Lemaitre derived Hubble’s law is wrong, given that Lemaitre himself seemed to not think so. If I ever made that claim I take it back.

You have to hate a power outage. The Hubble thing wasn’t directly targeted at you, its just that many people give him credit for it which obviously is not validated. As for the BBT thing, not really. Well at least not exactly. He did demonstrate that the universe cannot be steady state. He even pointed out that it must be either expanding or contracting. Later on he did write that since it is expanding there must have been a point at which everything was in one place (He was not the only one to say this I might add. Actually Hubble commented on it when he released his paper on what’s now known as Hubble’s Law.), in other words it must have had a size of zero early enough on. However this is not at all the BBT as I’m sure you’re aware and he was not the only one to say this.

Again though my entire point here is not to disregard Lemaitre. Actually I have recognized his contributions here several times. The issue I take is with the over exaggeration of what he did and the contributions he made which are largely done in an attempt to make religion look better with respect to science. I would like to think this is a point we can both agree on, that his contributions should not be either exaggerated or minimized, and that its probably in very bad taste to exaggerated them for PR gain for a religion.

Notice how even atheism can cloud scientific research!

Any preconceived conception can cloud scientific research and all should be avoided. However you seem to be under the impression that I am somehow trying to argue for atheism in this thread. While I am an atheist, I am not attempting to do so here.

From reading John XXI’s biography in the Catholic encyclopedia, at the last paragraph, it appears that such a tale about him might be only a legend.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08429c.htm

Yes, it was John XXI. It was the Condemnation of 1277, although looking it up apparently it wasn’t the Pope himself who wrote it, but rather an assistant of his. (I’m probably using the term assistant inappropriately here as I’m not sure what the correct term is in the CC, but you get what I mean.) But yes, apparently the Condemnation of 1277 did declare natural law to be heretical although technically the pope did not write it. So… Yeah. I’m not sure where to go with that one.

Also, what’s up with the hate on Thomas Aquinas there? I’m don’t at all get the reason for that.

My Hitler side note was more to make a point. The point being that I don’t think they actions of a single individual should be taken to imply the stance of an entire organization. As an individual I consider neither Lemaitre or Hitler to be representative of the CC. However the organization did support him, and I’m not buying the concept that just because a pope never met him this implies the CC held a different opinion there. Actually you completely glossed over the fact that they did launder money for them and they did move many people in the NAZI party out of Europe so they could avoid war crimes trials. That would definitely seem to reflect poorly on the church’s position there.

And why didn’t you comment on Galileo? Come on man, if you want to talk about being anti-science that’s definitely a big issue. As well as them deny evolution, heliocentrism, the Earth being round, all of that. Can we agree that the CC has a bad track record here when it comes to science or not?

Also I was sort of hoping for a response to the abiogenesis part. My understanding is that the CC still denies it. Is that correct or not?

[lasher]

Perhaps. But you still didn’t answer my question earlier. (I wouldn’t mind at all if Sawoobley and Adrogeus answered as well. Not to call anybody out or anything, just curious.) How do you decide if something is a metaphor or literal? I’m not trying to state that there is nothing in it that isn’t meant to be allegory or anything like that. But what I am wanting to know is how you decide which is which.

Sorry didn't see the question.

When you read a biblical passage you need to discern what type of writing it is. The bible is filled with all sorts of different writings. There are histories, laws, proverbs, hymns, poems, stories, dreams, visions, prophecies, letters and allegories. People who have studied the languages and cultures of the time periods in question are typically the ones who write commentaries we can consult to determine the literary genre we are looking at. For example, many experts in Hebrew and ancient near east studies would agree that genesis 1:1 is poetic in structure. Many would also agree that the rest of the first part of genesis is a polemic specifically addressing other known creation stories in the surrounding ANE cultures. Another example, people study first century biographies from writers such as Plutarch and show the literary contact points these biographies have with the gospels.

All of the books and passages were written at different times and histories by different people in different contexts and for different groups of people than are reading them now. We cannot read a bible passage as if it were dictated by God Himself and then fell from the sky. The church has never made this claim in its history. Islam has however.

[neonhypoxia]

Sorry didn't see the question.

When you read a biblical passage you need to discern what type of writing it is. The bible is filled with all sorts of different writings. There are histories, laws, proverbs, hymns, poems, stories, dreams, visions, prophecies, letters and allegories. People who have studied the languages and cultures of the time periods in question are typically the ones who write commentaries we can consult to determine the literary genre we are looking at. For example, many experts in Hebrew and ancient near east studies would agree that genesis 1:1 is poetic in structure. Many would also agree that the rest of the first part of genesis is a polemic specifically addressing other known creation stories in the surrounding ANE cultures. Another example, people study first century biographies from writers such as Plutarch and show the literary contact points these biographies have with the gospels.

All of the books and passages were written at different times and histories by different people in different contexts and for different groups of people than are reading them now. We cannot read a bible passage as if it were dictated by God Himself and then fell from the sky. The church has never made this claim in its history. Islam has however.

So in short, and correct me if I am wrong here, any of the passages dealing with physical reality (I’m not sure how to word that properly, but I mean those which could be seen as dealing physics, biology, geology, ect.) are all meant to be allegory. Did I get that right, or am I missing something from what you meant there? I ask because I’m more interested in the parts that deal with physical aspects specifically, not the visions or poems or anything like that.

[lasher]

So in short, and correct me if I am wrong here, any of the passages dealing with physical reality (I’m not sure how to word that properly, but I mean those which could be seen as dealing physics, biology, geology, ect.) are all meant to be allegory. Did I get that right, or am I missing something from what you meant there? I ask because I’m more interested in the parts that deal with physical aspects specifically, not the visions or poems or anything like that.

No, I wouldn't make a blanket statement like that. We study each specific passage in question, case by case, to determine what type of literary genre it is, what the context is, who it's written to, etc. For example, Genesis has multiple literary genre's in it. The first chapter, as I mentioned, is widely accepted as having a poetic structure by Hebraic linguists. And therefore should be read and interpreted as poetic in form. But later parts of Genesis are clearly narrative and not poetic based on the written style of the hebrew.

Just to add, it is a very recent movement in Christianity that has claimed everything needs to be read and interpreted as inerrent and literal in the bible. This is an early 20th century movement that really didn't exist previously, and was a kneejerk reaction to the enlightenment. Before that it was always understood that some things are allegorical and metaphorical. Augustine in the 4th century wrote that Genesis 1 is poetic allegory. And the rest of christendom outside of fundamental protestantism still holds to this tradition.

[neonhypoxia]

No, I wouldn't make a blanket statement like that. We study each specific passage in question, case by case, to determine what type of literary genre it is, what the context is, who it's written to, etc. For example, Genesis has multiple literary genre's in it. The first chapter, as I mentioned, is widely accepted as having a poetic structure by Hebraic linguists. And therefore should be read and interpreted as poetic in form. But later parts of Genesis are clearly narrative and not poetic based on the written style of the hebrew.

You’re killing me with this man. Alright, let me ask this a different way. Which sections that deal with physical reality as I poorly tried to define earlier do you consider to be literal?

[lasher]

You’re killing me with this man. Alright, let me ask this a different way. Which sections that deal with physical reality as I poorly tried to define earlier do you consider to be literal?

lol you'd have to point out the section your talking about tbh. I don't have anything I can think of off the top of my head. I guess the historical narratives are dealing with physical reality right? So the accounts of kings in the books of kings / chronicles, war stories, narratives about the assyrian and babylonian exiles, pauls letters the the churches etc. You have to understand that this isn't a book. It's a library of over 70 books in the eastern church tradition.

[chimburgandy]

lol you'd have to point out the section your talking about tbh. I don't have anything I can think of off the top of my head. I guess the historical narratives are dealing with physical reality right? So the accounts of kings in the books of kings / chronicles, war stories, narratives about the assyrian and babylonian exiles, pauls letters the the churches etc. You have to understand that this isn't a book. It's a library of over 70 books in the eastern church tradition.

Why are the parts relating to god manifesting himself/itself in reality or concepts like the trinity more believable than other parts of the bible, which to outsiders would seem just as poetic or fictitious? Why do the parts that make god seem plausible have more validity than the parts we're all supposed to just know are allegorical or not meant to be taken literally, is what I think he's asking.

Edit. Maybe not.

[neonhypoxia]

lol you'd have to point out the section your talking about tbh. I don't have anything I can think of off the top of my head. I guess the historical narratives are dealing with physical reality right? So the accounts of kings in the books of kings / chronicles, war stories, narratives about the assyrian and babylonian exiles, pauls letters the the churches etc. You have to understand that this isn't a book. It's a library of over 70 books in the eastern church tradition.

Nah, I wouldn’t count the historical narrative part. Its quite a different subject matter from say the formation of the Earth or that kind of thing. But the part about not having anything you can think of off the top of your head, that works for me. I’ll got with all of the physical parts being allegorical for you and we can leave it at all.

I do have a question though. Why do you think that all of the parts dealing with the subject matter of physical science is allegorical. Specifically I mean don’t you think that god being god would have been able to explain it to them in a way that is literally accurate? I get the whole counter argument about them being illiterate goat herders, but we are also talking about god here. I wouldn’t claim that I could accurately explain things to a group of people like that, but you’d think that god would be able to. He is god so I wouldn’t think that would be outside of his powers.

[lasher]

Why are the parts relating to god manifesting himself/itself in reality or concepts like the trinity more believable than other parts of the bible, which to outsiders would seem just as poetic or fictitious? Why do the parts that make god seem plausible have more validity than the parts we're all supposed to just know are allegorical or not meant to be taken literally, is what I think he's asking.

The parts written about Jesus's incarnation are not written as poetry or allegory. You're belief that it didn't, or can't happen isn't really the point. But you can't attack Christians for not taking the genesis account in chapter 1 literally as how the creation of the universe took place because it can be linguistically shown that it was a poetic description of creation.

[lasher]

Nah, I wouldn’t count the historical narrative part. Its quite a different subject matter from say the formation of the Earth or that kind of thing. But the part about not having anything you can think of off the top of your head, that works for me. I’ll got with all of the physical parts being allegorical for you and we can leave it at all.

I do have a question though. Why do you think that all of the parts dealing with the subject matter of physical science is allegorical. Specifically I mean don’t you think that god being god would have been able to explain it to them in a way that is literally accurate? I get the whole counter argument about them being illiterate goat herders, but we are also talking about god here. I wouldn’t claim that I could accurately explain things to a group of people like that, but you’d think that god would be able to. He is god so I wouldn’t think that would be outside of his powers.

Yes, I suppose he could. But that doesn't seem to me to be the point of the bible at all. So I don't really see why there would be a pressing need to include things like inflationary expansion during the expansion of the BB. The eastern orthodox church believes that one of our purposes here is to explore our world. Science is one of the means we are to use to do that. They call it the book of nature and contrast it with the book of revelation (scripture). They are revealing different, but complementary things, and in different ways.

edit: I actually did think of an example.

I don't remember the exact passage, but Isaiah talks about the universe wearing away like a rotting cloth. many Christians will point to that text and claim that the bible was teaching about entropy. I would make the same criticism of them as I do of people who try to pigeonhole me (not saying you are) into a literal reading of a poem in genesis. Clearly Isaiah was not teaching entropy. He was simply commenting on the clearly observable fact that things fall apart, and always have.

[chimburgandy]

The parts written about Jesus's incarnation are not written as poetry or allegory. You're belief that it didn't, or can't happen isn't really the point. But you can't attack Christians for not taking the genesis account in chapter 1 literally as how the creation of the universe took place because it can be linguistically shown that it was a poetic description of creation.

I try not to attack Christians for anything, and I encourage them not to take genesis 1 literally as it seems you do too. In what other way does the bible depict god ushering in our existence if not in genesis though, in a way that can be interpreted literally as him being the creator of the universe and our world and who intervenes in our lives and who is worthy of so much praise? And how has it been established by biblical scholars that Jesus' death and resurrection is meant to be taken literally when other such fantastic occurrences are meant to be read as only poetic stories (Abraham and Issac, God and the Devils wager regarding Job, the ark, if all of those are in fact meant to be allegorical and not literal as it varies from theist to theist.)?

[lasher]

I try not to attack Christians for anything, and I encourage them not to take genesis 1 literally as it seems you do too. In what other way does the bible depict god ushering in our existence if not in genesis though, in a way that can be interpreted literally as him being the creator of the universe and our world and who intervenes in our lives and who is worthy of so much praise? And how has it been established by biblical scholars that Jesus' death and resurrection is meant to be taken literally when other such fantastic occurrences are meant to be read as only poetic stories (Abraham and Issac, God and the Devils wager regarding Job, the ark, if all of those are in fact meant to be allegorical and not literal as it varies from theist to theist.)?

As I already said, it can be linguistically shown in the hebrew that genesis chapt 1 has a poetic structure. That's why we read it as poetry. The gospels are not written as poetry or allegory. They are more correctly comparable to other first century biographies as shown by studies comparing them to plutarchs biographies. I've never made the claim that Abraham, Isaac, or Job's stories were allegory. Noah's ark + flood is widely acknowledged as a regional mesopotamian flood. It says the eretz (land) was flooded, not the whole world.

[chimburgandy]

As I already said, it can be linguistically shown in the hebrew that genesis chapt 1 has a poetic structure. That's why we read it as poetry. The gospels are not written as poetry or allegory. They are more correctly comparable to other first century biographies as shown by studies comparing them to plutarchs biographies.

I'm not familiar with plutarchs biographies but I'll assume there is a good reason why a story of someone dying and coming back from the dead, recounted by eye-witness testimony of only a couple followers alone, has more validity than other stories from the bible, even other stories of people coming back to life and crawling out of their graves.

All that aside, assuming the story of Jesus is somehow entirely accurate, in what way does the bible claim to have a comprehensive enough explanation of our origin, so much so that it can run parallel and not conflict with what we know about human evolution? Is there another attempt to explain god creating this and that other than in genesis, in a way that acknowledges that we are biologically linked, edit: not linked but similar in terms of chromosomes, to pigs and potatoes?

[neonhypoxia]

Yes, I suppose he could. But that doesn't seem to me to be the point of the bible at all. So I don't really see why there would be a pressing need to include things like inflationary expansion during the expansion of the BB. The eastern orthodox church believes that one of our purposes here is to explore our world. Science is one of the means we are to use to do that. They call it the book of nature and contrast it with the book of revelation (scripture). They are revealing different, but complementary things, and in different ways.

edit: I actually did think of an example.

I don't remember the exact passage, but Isaiah talks about the universe wearing away like a rotting cloth. many Christians will point to that text and claim that the bible was teaching about entropy. I would make the same criticism of them as I do of people who try to pigeonhole me (not saying you are) into a literal reading of a poem in genesis. Clearly Isaiah was not teaching entropy. He was simply commenting on the clearly observable fact that things fall apart, and always have.

Okay, a few follow up questions then.

1. Lets assume that all of the passages that touch on subjects with related to physical science are allegorical. Lets also assume that what you said is true about god wanting us to explore the world and with that including science. In that case, why were those allegorical passages which cover physical science topics even included in the first place? I mean if Genesis is just meant to be a story and not true at all, why did they even bother to include? Why would god come to some prophet and give him the story and inform him to tell others? That seems very strange to me.

2. I would seem logical to believe that god would know many of his followers would take what are supposed to just be stories literally. He is god after all, you’d think he would see that one coming. For me this further complicates the idea of why god would have those included. He would know what’s going to happen, that people would take them literally and not just ignore science but try to completely shut the process down. So knowing that this would happen, knowing that people would take it the way they did and try to further propagate ignorance, why would he do that? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

3. I could definitely see a pressing need for some things that have been shown via science to be communicated by god to humans. For example germ theory, that one would have been incredibly helpful. I get why you are trying to say there would be no need for god to communicate some things, but when it comes to important things like that which have a huge impact why is god silent? I’d even settle for a “Thou shall wash thy d*mn hands” or something like that. But it isn’t there.

4. This one is a bit out there compared to the others, but follow me on it. I believe it was Carl Sagan who mentioned the concept. Basically the idea is that god could have done something to provide evidence he was real that wouldn’t have been known to people at the time, but that later would have been discovered by science. For example it could have listed say the speed of light, Maxwell’s Equations, something like that. It would have meant nothing to the people at the time, but once they were discovered it would have provided good evidence in favor of christianity. It wouldn’t have been cheating either as I’ve seen some suggest. That it would discourage us from investigating those principles because it said what they are in the Bible. You know how us scientists are, you say something like that and instead of getting lazy with it we will jump all over that sh*t. (Falsification FTW!) Another example was god writing it on the far side of the moon. It sounds a bit silly at first, but we would have had to know those things before putting people on the moon and its not like you could say a human had done it. It would definitely have made an impression. So what do you think about something like that? Just wondering about what your take on it would be as a hypothetical.

[3flips6]

you're born alone and you'll die alone.
you will never experience another persons death or another persons birth.
whatever lets you feel good when leaving the earth is what matters.
nothing can prove or unprove after death.
everything dies. and is born.
whatever floats your boat

this whole argument is

invisible space man made everything vs something popped outta nothing and went kabloowey

[Weightaholic]

Yes but life does not end at death. That is also the truth. lol

Prove it.

[boseador]

Prove it.

This is why the cling on to religion. They all want to live forever.

[guyver79]

We are all responsible for our own sins. Adam is responsible for his own sins. We all need a Jesus independently of the actions of Adam.

So there was a literal Adam? How does that fit into evolution? Was eve, the garden of Eden, the talking snake and the apple literal?

I can understand how the snake could be seen as a metaphor for temptation and the apple as a sin, but what does that do for a literal Adam and eve? They never really existed? Are they metaphors too?

In that case then Jesus died for a sin that was never committed? A literal demigod killed himself for a metaphor?

I always thought Christians believed that Adams sin was passed down through generations and that's why Jesus died? We are or were born with sin? And Adam was responsible for that sin?

[Weightaholic]

So there was a literal Adam? How does that fit into evolution? Was eve, the garden of Eden, the talking snake and the apple literal?

I can understand how the snake could be seen as a metaphor for temptation and the apple as a sin, but what does that do for a literal Adam and eve? They never really existed? Are they metaphors too?

In that case then Jesus died for a sin that was never committed? A literal demigod killed himself for a metaphor?

I always thought Christians believed that Adams sin was passed down through generations and that's why Jesus died? We are or were born with sin? And Adam was responsible for that sin?

Never heard of that chemical evolution, have you...?

[guyver79]

Never heard of that chemical evolution, have you...?

Isn't that when god evolves mud into a person?

Of course I've heard of it, i am science.

[Myriad88]

Why is literal genesis still brought up as an argument?Is there one piece of straw you still havent beaten out of this faux-argument?

[guyver79]

Why is literal genesis still brought up as an argument?Is there one piece of straw you still havent beaten out of this faux-argument?

Because if Adam wasn't literal then he literally couldn't of sinned and Jesus literally died for nothing.

And if Adam is literal where does that leave the theist in regards to evolution?

That's literally quite a reasonable question don't you think?

[Myriad88]

Because if Adam wasn't literal then he literally couldn't of sinned and Jesus literally died for nothing.

And if Adam is literal where does that leave the theist in regards to evolution?

That's literally quite a reasonable question don't you think?

Adam and Eve in Hebrew translate to Mrs Man and Mrs Life. It is a poetic narrative which is a warning against hubris, reflecting all of humanity, not something so ludicrous as two people with the names of Adam and Eve.

[GreatOldOne]

Prove it.

This is a good read. It takes a look at a few of the problems with even trying to conceive of a life after death...that somehow involves, "you".


Extended cliffs:
http://www.unc.edu/~megw/Perry.html

Just a few snippets:
The Soul View

Miller's first stab at proving that survival after death is possible involves claiming that people are identical to souls, not bodies. If this is right [so the argument would go] then survival after death is possible because even though your body dies, you--your soul--lives on.

Weirob challenges this in the following way: the soul is defined as something immaterial--something that cannot be seen or felt or touched or smelt, etc. Yet all we have access to are material bodies--things that can be seen or felt or touched or smelt, etc. Souls in principle cannot be seen or sensed in any way; that is, by their very nature they are inaccessible from the outside. So, even though I might want to conclude that you are the same person in class this week as you were last week, the only thing I have to go by in concluding this is what I see or sense. I cannot, for example, see or sense that your soul is here--indeed, souls are just the sort of thing that one cannot see or sense! So Weirob's objection to the claim that people are identical to souls is that there is a serious problem of accessibility.


In class we discussed one of the flaws of this kind of argument: viz., that it might be committing the intensional fallacy.


Instead of finding fault with Weirob's reasoning, however, Miller instead claims that there is a correlation between bodies and souls, which is why we can conclude that a certain soul is around whenever a certain body is. But as Weirob is keen to point out, we aren't justified in making such claims of correlation if we don't have some other, independent way of showing that souls are around whenever we think they are. Since we can never see or sense that souls are around, then we can never justify the claim that souls are correlated with bodies.

The Soul View Take 2

Miller attempts the soul view again, this time claiming that we can legitimately establish a correlation between souls and bodies. He claims that because bodies exhibit certain behavior that implies certain psychological characteristics--e.g., because someone may scream this or that, or argue in a certain manner, or be a happy or sad, or be really energetic or act like a drunken fool, etc.--we can infer from this that there is the sameness of soul, and then correlate this with the sameness of body.

Weirob objects that we cannot judge from the sameness of psychological characteristics that we have the sameness of soul. To make her point, she proposes the following analogy: If we wanted to test whether a certain river--say, the Eno--was the Eno, as opposed to any other river, we would check to make sure that the water was of a certain quality, that it flows in a certain place, that our fishing hole we went to the other day is still there, etc. So if, for example, we found that the water of a certain river was of a decidedly different quality, or it suddenly had entirely different fish, or our fishing hole was no longer there, etc., we would more than likely conclude that the river we are at is not the Eno. So: we judge that a river is the river it is because of the qualities that we expect it to have after getting to know it. [Notice the parallel to people: we judge that people are who they are because of the psychological characteristics we expect them to display after getting to know them.] However, a river, while perhaps exhibiting certain characteristics over time, is continually changing waters. That is, since rivers run, there will always be different waters flowing through the same river over time. Likewise, Weirob argues, souls might work the same way. In fact, because we can't be certain that this isn't how souls work, Miller cannot conclude the sameness of souls from the sameness of psychological characteristics.

Miller tries to respond that he at least knows he himself has a soul, and he can thus establish the correlation between soul and body in his own case. Then, he can generalize by analogy to other cases, resulting in the general conclusion that there is a correlation between souls and bodies. [For info on Arguments by Analogy, go to my logic page here.]

Weirob's response is that this move doesn't help him. For the river analogy still holds...it is still possible that psychologically similar souls could be flowing in and out of one's body, such that one could not detect a difference. The problem, Weirob summarizes, is that by the very nature of what a soul is--i.e., immaterial, un-see-able, un-sense-able, etc.,--one cannot have a legitimate principle of personal identity based on them.

[guyver79]

Adam and Eve in Hebrew translate to Mrs Man and Mrs Life. It is a poetic narrative which is a warning against hubris, reflecting all of humanity, not something so ludicrous as two people with the names of Adam and Eve.

Jesus died for hubris? that doesn't seem very noble?

So there was never an inherited sin?

[lasher]

Jesus died for hubris? that doesn't seem very noble?

So there was never an inherited sin?

original sin is a western doctrine developed by saint augustine in the 4th century and then reinvigorated by John Calvin in the 16th century. It is not shared by eastern Christians, and never was. The idea that we are guilty for the sins of someone else is pure folly. Eastern christianity believes that mankind has an inclination to sin, and this is represented by the story of adam and eve. They aren't required to be literal people, never have been.

[notorius1]

They aren't required to be literal people, never have been.

This also applies to jesus and his entire story. It makes no sense for jesus to die a literal death if genesis isn't true.

Man has an inclination to sin because that's how your god created you.

[notorius1]

Why is literal genesis still brought up as an argument?Is there one piece of straw you still havent beaten out of this faux-argument?

Because we atheists appreciate logical consistency more than theists do.

[lasher]

This also applies to jesus and his entire story.

no it doesn't.

It makes no sense for jesus to die a literal death if genesis isn't true.

You not understanding something has no bearing on the issue. Educate yourself and you won't have this problem.

http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodo...l-of-faith/sin
http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodo...ith/redemption

Man has an inclination to sin because that's how your god created you.

Man has an inclination to sin because he has free will. Apparently the risk of having free will was worth the risk of mankind sinning, especially if a plan was in place for redemption.