Seeing is believing?

[Fenris]

Good point.

Jesus made a similar statement.

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

I can not remember one leader / founder of a religion who spoke similar words and became the biggest religion of the world, for centuries.

Nothing being said here is falsifiable.

Absolutely. Usually people who immigrate are completely assimilated after a century or so. Jews kept their identity, habits, religion for almost 2000 years by now after the big Diaspora in AD 70.

Or the various attempts at genocide.

[Fenris]

Yep Jesus a descendant of King David, Savior of the world.

This is not objectively true. It's also not falsifiable. It's something that Christians believe to be true.

Or just an evolutionary survival case? Because of all the persecutions Jews had to be smart in order to survive?

Other historically persecuted groups don't show a similar pattern.

Yes, Jesus as first and dominant reason. Nevertheless your interpretation of Gen 22:18 could be true as well.

We need a "thumbs up" emoji

[Oscar_Kipling]

How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?

why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?

[ProDeo]

How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?

why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?

What factual inaccuracy?

I would say science got it right   

[Oscar_Kipling]

How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?

why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?

What factual inaccuracy?

I would say science got it right   

Science probably did, Genesis almost certainly didn't.

[ProDeo]

How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?

why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?

What factual inaccuracy?

I would say science got it right   

Science probably did, Genesis almost certainly didn't.

You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.

[Oscar_Kipling]

How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?

why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?

What factual inaccuracy?

I would say science got it right   

Science probably did, Genesis almost certainly didn't.

You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.

The odds are what exactly are 1 in 16? I don't agree that the order is correct in the bible, but perhaps i'm reading it incorrectly, what was the order of appearance organisms in Genesis (briefly summarize please)?

[Fenris]

You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.

I don't really understand the point. The bible is not a science book. It's an instruction manual for how to live our lives.

[Oscar_Kipling]

You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.

I don't really understand the point. The bible is not a science book. It's an instruction manual for how to live our lives.

Well, yes, I was responding to Athanasius who asserts something similar, and I was attempting to reason within that framework. The meat of my point is that while the bible isn't a science book that does not preclude it from being accurate when it comes to apparent factual information that is contained within it. Would the bible be worse at life instruction if it were scientifically accurate? I think it's difficult to make the argument that in order to be a good metaphysics/ morality/ theology/ philosophy book that any apparently factual scientifically investigable facts must be metaphor or allegory or else the bible will fail to be useful theologically, philosophically etc. If that isn't the case, and it could be scientifically accurate and instructive then it seems it is a fundamentally worse book than it could have been.

[ProDeo]

You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.

I don't really understand the point. The bible is not a science book. It's an instruction manual for how to live our lives.

True but the subject is also Seeing is believing like your falsifiable argumentation. In Genesis 1 four facts are presented in a particular ordering.

1. creation of  vegetation, plants, trees
2. creation of fish and birds
3. creation of the beasts
4. And finally mankind.

Compatible with science.

Now if the Bible had mixed up one of these, for instance God created mankind first, secondly the trees were created the Bible was proven wrong according science. So there are 16 combinations possible and 15 are wrong.

[Oscar_Kipling]

You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.

I don't really understand the point. The bible is not a science book. It's an instruction manual for how to live our lives.

True but the subject is also Seeing is believing like your falsifiable argumentation. In Genesis 1 four facts are presented in a particular ordering.

1. creation of  vegetation, plants, trees
2. creation of fish and birds
3. creation of the beasts
4. And finally mankind.

Compatible with science.

Now if the Bible had mixed up one of these, for instance God created mankind first, secondly the trees were created the Bible was proven wrong according science. So there are 16 combinations possible and 15 are wrong.

so, you think birds and fish appeared at essentially the same time, and birds appeared before land animals?

[CadyandZoe]

What did Kierkegaard say about the ditch?

Nothing that won't get him accused of being a subjectivist/relativist

You studied this subject yes? I thought maybe. Perhaps my memory is failing me. Do you remember what K said with regard to Lessing's ditch?

[Athanasius]

What did Kierkegaard say about the ditch?

Nothing that won't get him accused of being a subjectivist/relativist

You studied this subject yes? I thought maybe. Perhaps my memory is failing me. Do you remember what K said with regard to Lessing's ditch?

That's right; Climacus (not K proper) wrote about Lessing's ditch (or ditches?) in Philosophical Fragments and Postscript. It's been a while so I'd need to familiarise myself, but Climacus' answer, if we can call it that, was to do something like properly place the subjectivity of the individual, bring in relevation to overcome any problems posed by historical distance, emphasize faith, make notions of historical belief, etc. As far as I remember.

[Fenris]

Well, yes, I was responding to Athanasius who asserts something similar, and I was attempting to reason within that framework. The meat of my point is that while the bible isn't a science book that does not preclude it from being accurate when it comes to apparent factual information that is contained within it. Would the bible be worse at life instruction if it were scientifically accurate?

I think it's just not relevant. The bible doesn't need to reveal scientific truths to us because we can discover those ourselves. And our knowledge of science or lack thereof doesn't change our standing with God.

[Fenris]

True but the subject is also Seeing is believing like your falsifiable argumentation. In Genesis 1 four facts are presented in a particular ordering.

1. creation of  vegetation, plants, trees
2. creation of fish and birds
3. creation of the beasts
4. And finally mankind.

Compatible with science.

Compatible with what science? I don't believe in evolution.