[thechat] Religious dependance

[Drew Shiel]

At 23:20 21/01/2003 -0800, chris parker wrote:
>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.

   Er, yes. Yes it does. Earthquakes are an effect of plate tectonics, the
movement of the parts of the surface of the earth. We'd be living on a very
different planet if there were no moving plates, and earthquakes are a part
of that. Even if you don't "believe" in evolution, you can't deny that
earthquakes, volcanoes, etc have had major effects on the world, and if you
do, there's a strong argument that it's due to the active nature of the
planet that life developed at all.

>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.

   Um, I'm kinda lost here. What was your point?

>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...

   Your analogy is flawed; Free will is to planet as small pebble is to
milk. With the exception of severely enormous nuclear explosions, humans
can't have any major effect on the planet itself.

>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.

   OK, let me explain here, because there's something one of us is nor
understanding. According to the Bible, the earth was made first, Adam
second. The Earth is a large system, which includes the movement of the
plates, which cause earthquakes. Later, Adam is introduced to this system,
and makes a decision of his own free will which leads to certain
consequences. Some of these consequences include "bad things".

   My point is that Adam's effects (without God's intervention, because if
God intervenes, it's no longer free will at work) are limited to those
parts of the system which Adam can affect. Now, unless Adam was possessed
of weaponry that modern superpowers would be envious of, Adam can not cause
or un-cause earthquakes.

   Therefore, earhquakes existed before Adam, continue to exist after Adam,
and in fact have nothing to do with Adam.

   Unless God intervened, in which case it was not a consequence of Adam's
free will, but a consequence of God's free will.

>>   *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.

   You're entitled to that opinion. I'm not saying, however, that the Bible
is invalidated by literalness or non-literalness, any more than it is
invalidated by its own internal contradictions. I'm arguing from within the
Bible's information.

   Drew.


Drew Shiel                               webmaster at swiftpay.com
                                                     +353-1-2365705
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