[thechat] Religious dependance

[chris parker]

Drew Shiel wrote:
> At 02:23 18/01/2003 +0000, m-s s-u-c-k-s wrote:
>
>> i can't say that if adam never ate there fruit there would never have
>> been
>> any earthquakes, but i would *guess* that there wouldn't have been any
>> earthquakes only because they can cause destruction/death/harm/etc.
>
>
>   Um. I'm as religious as many, although in a different direction. But I
> stop short of believing that the exercise of free will has an effect on
> plate tectonics.

i think this is a moot point. who cares if there were earthquakes or
not? it doesn't really change anything.

so... i don't really have basis to believe there wouldn't have been
earthquakes other than for the reason i think earthquakes and the
desctruction they cause are "evil" as opposed to "good". if it had to
black and white.

i want to say that there was no evil in the world, but at the same time
i don't know how i can reason that absolutely since there was satan. aka
the serpent in the garden.

so i don't know.

>   Even if you're going to go for the view that the Bible is literally,
> factually true*, then the Earth was created BEFORE Adam. How could Adam's
> actions have an effect on the way the Earth works?

how? well the same reason that any new "thing" introduced into a closed
system will affect that system.

for example if you've got a bottle of milk with the lid capped and then
you open the lid and put oil in it, the milk goes bad. the clean bottle
of milke existed before the oil was put in... so...

just because the earth was made BEFORE adam makes no difference. how
could adam have eaten the fruit if there was no place for him to live?
or for that matter a tree to grow? so it doesn't really matter.

>   *Something I have never understood.

i think this is interesting. people seem to think that when they say
something like this--"man is fallable and therefore the bible sucks."
and as you've stated "the bible is not to be taken literally."--it
immediately invalidates the bible. jesus was a real person. he was
actualy and factualy (<sing>it's actual and factual</sing>) killed on a
cross. the part that people have a hard time accepting is the part where
the bible says he was raised from the dead three days later. and that's
fine.

my point with that is that yes, i would agree (although i don't know
what people in the christian world i respect would say about this) that
the bible is literal when read word for word. but i also think that the
bible has lots and lots of literal passages. take revelation for
example, in it it's said that a giant angel will stand with one foot in
the sea and one foot on land. maybe this will *actually* happen, but as
far as i'm concerned it was just a spiritual manifestation of a physical
event. but that doesn't mean that other parts aren't literal.

anyways, this again i don't think is a good point.


chris.