There's been a lot of talk about the Bible today...

"The Transporter" (transporter)
02/05/2014 at 00:15 • Filed to: None

...because of a debate between Bill Nye the Science Guy and some Aussie that has more money than common sense. As someone who grew up in a religious environment, but loves science, I had a hard time reconciling the two worlds. My brother is even more religious than I am and still is very scientifically minded. Yet, he never seemed to have that problem. He's also way smarter than me.

Currently, he's studying music and minoring in world religions at the University of Utah (yes, he's Mormon. Yes, he grew up Mormon. Yes, I grew up Mormon, too). He's also thinking about turning his minor into a second major and switching from the Utah National Guard, to the Air Force to be a Chaplain. He's taking this religion thing very seriously. One of the things he had to take to get his minor in world religions was a couple of classes in ancient Hebrew.

This is the whole point of this rambling wall of text.

Because he lives halfway across the country, we very rarely get a chance to talk, but when we do, we talk about everything. Often times, our conversations turn to science and religion and that means we end up talking about evolution and cosmology and the first two chapters of Genesis. One time, shortly after he finished studying ancient Hebrew, he relayed to me that what modern Christians think Genesis chapters 1 and 2 meant, and what was meant in the original Hebrew, are miles apart. As an example, the word "yom" which means day in modern Hebrew, could mean "day" in ancient Hebrew, or it could mean a period of time with an unspecified length, like how modern science uses the terms "age," "era," or "epoch." They had fewer words to work with back then, so a lot of words got re-used for different purposes.

He also said that a lot of modern Christians get hung up on a couple of vaguely worded and horribly mistranslated chapters that have very little to do with their daily relationship with God and forget entire chucks of the Bible which really have way more relevance to our modern lives. Look at the number of pages in the Bible. Depending on the translation and printing, it pushes close to 1,600 pages. Genesis, chapters 1 through 11 (from creation through Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, and the Tower of Babel) occupy the first 16. That's a little over 1%. And that is how much concern modern Christianity needs to give to the creation of the Universe. After all, science is the study of how humans came into being, religion and philosophy is the study of why . If God really thought that understanding the creation of the Universe was important to understanding ourselves and our relationship with each other and God, he would have devoted much more time to it and would have been way more specific about it. If you've ever read the Bible and its endless string of begats, you know how specific the Bible can get.

Anyway, this debate today got me Googling the meaning of ancient Hebrew words, which led me to the page of Dr. George Benthien, a computer scientist and mathematician who's hobby seems to be ancient Hebrew and the book of Genesis. On his web page is a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from the point of view of the original Hebrew. Needless to say, it backs up a lot of what my brother said.

DISCUSSION (37)

ddavidn > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 00:19

I've actually heard the theistic evolution piece from another Mormon as well... interesting. But you're right. At the end of the day, religion and science shouldn't be competing.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 00:21

While not really on the same topic as the "debate" tonight, I recommend everyone interested in science check out the Vatican's observatory page. Yes, this is a church sponsored research institute that actually does science

It's not the biggest or baddest in the world but it is unique in that it has government backing but is free from many of the usual restrictions placed on university based observatories. They also do a decent job of breaking down intoductory level ideas and vocabulary used when discussing interstellar bodies. Oh, and no, they don't think the earth is only 6,000 years old or whatever.

offroadkarter > ddavidn
02/05/2014 at 00:28

They've been competing ever since people used "God" as an answer to every question that started with "why"

"Why is the sky blue?"

"God"

"Why don't we float off the earth?"

"Ggggaaaaawwwwddddd"

All I want is for someone to prove if there is an afterlife, or if we're just going to slip into the inevitable black hole after we die and thats that.

ddavidn > offroadkarter
02/05/2014 at 00:31

Well, nobody ever will... so... Not sure what to tell you there. But He definitely shouldn't be the shortcut answer to every science-related question we don't understand.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles
02/05/2014 at 00:31

When the Big Bang theory was first proposed in the 1960s, the Vatican stated it was definitive proof of the existence of God. Interesting that they don't follow the literalism of Ken Ham

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
02/05/2014 at 00:35

Well when compared to Ham's laughable "museum", it isn't a comparison at all. Yes, some of the researchers at the observatory publish religious papers but it is a recognized research institute and many of their faculty have given presentations and had published papers of their findings and observations.

feather-throttle-not-hair > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 00:35

Somebody told me that "floating" is a thing. And that is is done by Mormons. Have you heard of this/is my friend full of shit.

I was not raised to be religious at all. My mother raised me, she's Chinese and pretty much nobody on my mom's side has ever believed in god. That said, knowing what I know about science, it's pretty hard for me to believe that we know enough about the universe to say that god doesn't exist. Honestly the whole religion thing just strikes me as being pretty plausible.

But then there's taking everything in the bible literally.

offroadkarter > ddavidn
02/05/2014 at 00:39

This whole shit makes my head hurt, thats usually why I try not to think about it.

With the billions and billions of miles that space covers, I'd be very surprised if God is focused on our little rock.

Flat Six > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 00:40

Its Sunday morning and you see a beautiful Miata on Craigslist. It has 6000 miles, 1 owner, and is a special edition #1 of 1! Wow! You run over and talk to the seller who has a detailed account of its history and convinces you this car will change your life.

You go home to get 10% of your salary and have a look at the carfax. Huh... it actually has 13,000,000,000 miles, a very suspicious maintenance history, and is one of approx 1 quadrillion cars Mazda made that year.

You go back to the seller and he has some story about how the odometer was broken, other smart people own this same car, and you will die in a fiery wreck if you buy any other car!

I don't know about you but I'm shopping elsewhere!

Leadbull > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 00:46

Just remember, while forensics and other evidence can point one way or another, empirical science can neither prove, nor disprove the existence of God. It'd be nice if people acknowledged this more often, and it'd be more nice if people respected each other's views.

...

And yeah, you definitely bring up some good points. As a Christian, I've heard a lot of Ken Ham. I think he makes some solid arguments, but he tends to go off on tangents and say crap with no solid roots to any known facts. Also, Mormonism and Christianity are very different fundamentally, just in case you didn't know (many people don't).

The Real Dacia Sandero > Flat Six
02/05/2014 at 00:47

Kinja'd!!!

Lets Just Drive > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 00:48

I don't know why Science bothers debating theology. Ask me, theologians should debate other theologians.

Leave religion to be debated by the relgious and let science get on with the work of explaining how our universe works. Let the Christians argue with the Muslims and let the Jewish in there too, maybe bring a few Buddhists and Hindu's too. They can bicker over which imaginary character is the real imaginary character and once they reach a consensus, then and only then should science give a flying fucktasm.

Seriously, why is Science debating the Christian/Biblical Creation story? If Science is going to give Christianity grounds for debate, it should do the same for all other snake doctor... err.. religions.

Look, I'm an agnostic - not because I'm lazy or because it's easy but because there is no conclusive evidence to support strict atheism - but even being an agnostic, guys like Ham make me want to make the leap into full blown atheism.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone, I've just been harboring these thoughts all evening.

The Transporter > feather-throttle-not-hair
02/05/2014 at 00:51

It's news to me, but the ratio of rumor to fact about the LDS church is laughably lopsided.

MtrRider Just Wants Doritos > feather-throttle-not-hair
02/05/2014 at 00:55

The fact is, the possibility that a god exists depends entirely on if one does. Then again, the same goes for unicorns.

The Transporter > Leadbull
02/05/2014 at 00:55

To put it into computer terms, the way Mormons view themselves with respect to the rest of Christianity is like a service pack - a critical update - to the operating system. Understandably, most Christians are wary of what this update may do to the rest of their system and don't want a lot of the new "features" that come with it.

Battery Tender Unnecessary > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 00:57

It's hard to have a "day" without the sun and earth yet. And even then, the concept of a day only pertains to the perspective of a human being on Earth specifically. A day could mean billions of years, or it could just be an arbitrary period between the stages of creation.

And in the end, it's a belief not fact in the scientific sense. I'm always amused at the need to justify or "prove" which religion is the right one. By definition, faith requires you to belief something in the absence of evidence or proof.

I grew up in a religious home. But I was also raised to accept and love everyone regardless of their beliefs. Life is too short to hate someone because of who they pray to, what language they speak, or the color of their skin.

Basically, science and religion can and should co-exist. If god exists he's the greatest engineer and came up with an amazing rule set for existence we call science. If he doesn't exist, I'm going to spend the rest of my life believing a myth that makes me a better human being, makes me treat people with dignity and love, and hopefully lets me leave the world a better place. Either way I'm happy.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > offroadkarter
02/05/2014 at 00:59

I have your afterlife question - you go back to the dirt and your nutrients and minerals will be consumed by the world to be reborn again as the cycle of life continues......unless you are cremated in which case you contribute to global warming you asshat! (sarcasm implied with that last bit)

evil2win > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 01:02

One thing I find interesting about religion is how much a persons beliefs depends solely on a fluke of birth. If a person happens to be born in a Hindu family that person will most likely be Hindu. It seems many times people are taught from birth a belief system, and from that point the premise of those beliefs goes on unquestioned. It seems people are willing to question everything except those things taught to them from birth by those closest to them. It's like a perpetual motion machine. Once it's set in motion it's self perpetuating. It's an interesting aspect of human nature.

Anyway, I get uncomfortable talking about religion with people I don't know, or people I do know, or family. I thought this site was about all things automotive? Can we get back to car stuff?

Leadbull > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 01:03

It's like using a Mac with a Windows emulator. It's pretty much all new, but you just sort of keep Windows around and use it when you want to.

The Transporter > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos
02/05/2014 at 01:04

Saying that God created the entirety of the Universe could be roughly analogous to saying a person creates a computer and all of the associated software that runs it. The person's handiwork may be seen all over the hardware and the software, and the creator may be able to control every aspect of the computer via hardware and software interfaces, but the creator doesn't exactly exist inside the computer itself. If you want to find the creator, you'd have to look outside the system, and if you existed solely inside the system (like Tron or The Matrix ), finding proof of the system's creator might prove difficult if not impossible.

Unicorns on the other hand...

offroadkarter > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles
02/05/2014 at 01:10

I'll show the world, I'll pollute even after I'm gone!

I worked in the family funeral home for 3 years, so that kind of fucked with my psyche a bit (explains why my uncle who has been running it for god knows how long is a grumpy bastard to).

I would imagine cremation would be better since, well, if you have your family scatter your ashes around you'll return right back to the earth. If you are buried, you are locked away in a casket, which is locked inside a concrete vault. That would take some time to degrade, I'd imagine hundreds, maybe thousands of years before the concrete breaks down.

I'm over thinking things again. Trying to think of answers to life's deepest mysteries always fucks with my mind.

Leadbull > Lets Just Drive
02/05/2014 at 01:16

Don't worry, I'm not offended. Personally, I wish Christians would spend less time being butthurt and focus more on living out the faith we believe we have. But hey, we're human, too.

The Transporter > Battery Tender Unnecessary
02/05/2014 at 01:18

Ancient Hebrew consisted of less than 9,000 words. If you include all of our scientific and technical language, modern English consists of over a billion words. Ancient Hebrew culture, like all ancient cultures, was a largely oral one and written language was merely a sort of shorthand. The context of an ancient Hebrew word depended entirely on its pronunciation, which would be lost to you if you had never heard a rabbi read the Torah to you, i.e. many of the ancient Christian monks who translated the Bible from its original Hebrew and Greek into Latin. So depending on how "yom" was pronounced, it could mean one of many things, from just the daylight part of a day, to a whole 24 hour cycle, to an unspecified period of time. Also, except for the sixth "yom," the ancient Hebrew word that was in front was not "the" but "a." So Genesis 1:13 would be more correctly translated as

And the evening and the morning were a third day.

In other words, these days or periods of time didn't have to happen one after another, and they didn't even have to happen in sequential order. The original Hebrew is very vague about this.

Another interesting thing to note, in ancient Hebrew, "Adam" isn't just the name for the first man, it's also the word for the whole of humanity.

MtrRider Just Wants Doritos > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 01:23

But whereas you can rewrite the code in a computer and upgrade the hardware, the rules of the universe don't change. Nothing happens that's can't be explained using logic and science.

The Transporter > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos
02/05/2014 at 01:26

You can't change the code if you're not on the sudoers list. ;)

ddavidn > offroadkarter
02/05/2014 at 01:33

I can identify with that for sure. But I think if you believe in a god, he/she/it/they should be awesome (omniscient, powerful etc) enough to care about this little rock. Just my opinion.

But this opinion comes from someone who doesn't care how old Earth is, because any time he thinks about time itself, his brain asplode.

Dusty Ventures > offroadkarter
02/05/2014 at 01:35

People who have never been in the industry always forget about the concrete vault

Svend > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 02:32

I grew up in a forces family and was very aware of religion. When we took an atlas of the world to Saudi Arabia it was confiscated by the matawa (religious police) and all reference to Israel was deleted or torn out. We also had to have two passports, one general and one 'clean' for if we went to Israel (Elal was a very scary airline back then). I knew of the different religions and their similarities and differences and that often kept me up as a child wondering why so many people believed so strongly in something they had never seen or likely to and how their religion was the right and true religion and disliked others when all I saw from the text was to live an honest and decent life and to respect others, do onto others as you would have done onto yourself. My family thought I was going to be a priest or vicar or something because I was so curious. My mother is Church of England but raised in Mormon style of beliefs, my step-father is Mormom but raised Church of England in many respects. My sister converted to Mormon years ago and I remained atheist. I, and its just my opinion relevant to myself, believe we should get on with life and try to be the best we can to ourselves, others and the world not to live by a book but to use the book as a guide to life not a set in stone 'this is what you will do'. So many people over the years have taken their own meaning from the bible, koran, etc... and tried to force it onto others with virtually all wars coming about from religion or rather in the name of religion. As long as people don't turn up on my doorstep saying "you will burn in hell for not believing in God", we'll get on fine. But people do knock on the door and try to get your to see their way of things. Why can't they accept I may see things differently to them. If I wanted to become religious, I'll find it. They are in the telephone directory or that really old oversized building that no one sleeps in costing a fortune to maintain, until then go away and let me watch Topgear UK with a pint of Old Speckled Hen and a chicken tikka masala getting on with my own life while they lead theirs by a book that holds little to how we live our lives today.

If you want to be religious, fine, knock yourselves out just leave me alone.

orcim > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 04:50

I've found that paying attention to the original text as opposed to the translations is worthwhile. I hate it when other people tell me what to think - I like to figure that out myself.

I have a hebrew/greek bible with Strong's concordance, and an ancient language dictionary of Hebrew and Greek with those references. The differences between what I was taught and my understanding now is epic. "abad" the original Hebrew word, translated 'to keep', as in man is 'to keep' the earth (and later) god 'keeps' man. I think those are the only two references to "abad" in the whole book. Makes you wonder about what it means "to keep" doesn't it?

That kind of stuff is all through the translations you can do yourself. Someone (in my opinion) was fucking with us when it came to English. And maybe it's all just made up stories - who knows? I'm just looking to see if there's something there that can help me in my life... don't care where it comes from.

I think my breakthrough was a class with Neil Douglas-Klotz using the Peshitta. I simply accept that there's some amazingly wise shit in that book, if I could just *move* those fucking organizations out of the way between me and what it's saying. And yeah, I agree with your bro: yom is a unit of time.

puddler > offroadkarter
02/05/2014 at 06:04

i've died. wasn't as good as lsd.

d3v > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 08:08

I'm in the same boat as your brother as I've never been bothered by having to reconcile both religion and science. Albeit having studied under Jesuits since grade school probably helped. Heck, one of my professors in college for a science course (Sci 10 which everyone, regardless of major, was required to take) was both a priest and an astronomer. Mostly though it's because these guys usually tended to focus less on literal interpretations of the Bible and creationism and more on the "be nice to others" part.

willkinton247 > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 08:44

Thank you for writing this. I am a Christian, but I have always read Genesis as a theological account, not a scientific account. The point of Genesis is not to tell you how God created the world, but why God created the world. The How is merely there to tell the Why, and the How isn't really that relevant. I believe that its full of truth, deep theological truths, but it's not supposed to be factual.

I once heard it explained in this way, when putting it into the context of the Ancient Hebrews:

Suppose you are a parent and your 4 year old son asks you where he came from. Are you going to give him the nitty gritty details, telling him that you had sex with his mom and your sperm connected with her egg, and so on and so forth?

You would not, because he wouldn't understand it, and it may do more harm than good.

You would tell your son that his mom and you loved each other very much, and because you loved each other so much you decided to bring him into the world so that you could love him (hopefully, I'm not naive, I know this is not always the case, but I feel like this is probably the ideal way to have a kid). You'd gloss over the details and tell your kid why he came to be.

Honestly, the most important thing about the Bible comes pretty far down the line, at the beginning of the New Testament. Everything in the Old Testament should be viewed through the lens of the New Testament, because everything in the Old points to Jesus.

But yes, TL;DR - It's about the Why, not the How. Don't get hung up on the How, get hung up on the Why.

willkinton247 > Battery Tender Unnecessary
02/05/2014 at 08:47

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Bingo. Couldn't have said it better myself.

dinobot666 > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 08:56

People who don't base their life in myth or fantasy cannot relate to people who do.

ESSSIX GmbH - Accountant/Wagon Thumper > The Transporter
02/05/2014 at 09:33

this is an awesome analogy.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Battery Tender Unnecessary
02/05/2014 at 09:37

Thanks for this, BTU.

The Transporter > dinobot666
02/05/2014 at 11:23

I think that was Bill's biggest weakness in the debate - and the biggest weakness of any secularist that tries to debate science with creationists - was that every time Bill threw a wall of empirical fact Ken, all Ken had to do was quote a passage from the NIV Bible and say "All your science is invalid because God." and everyone who's faith revolved around an English mis-translation of a mis-translation of a mis-translation of a 3,000 year old ancient Hebrew text had their faith re-affirmed because Bill could never undermine that faith.

If you were trying to attack a castle or fortification, you would need a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the fortification to be victorious. Unfortunately, most secular scientists lack any understanding of what creationists actually believe, let alone a working knowledge of the ancient Hebrew text that the NIV Bible was mis-translated from. So the secularists keep throwing their longbow arrows and shooting their crossbow bolts and sending wave after wave to attack the walls and get repulsed every single time. They have no knowledge of the blind spots at the corners of the battlements or the sally ports that allow the besieged forces to escape the castle and counterattack.