Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

Dean wrote: He'll have to answer for himself but I seriously doubt that Iván believes in a literal Adam and Eve anymore than anthropologists believe that the first Australopithecus afarensis fossil found (aka Lucy) was also the first literal Eve. As I have said before in this thread, Adam and Eve of gen:1 is a metaphor for "Mankind"

That is the understanding now, over a thousand years later, established by apologetics under the pressure of scientific discoveries. IMO it is hypocritical for anyone to assume that it was originally meant to be seen metaphorically (and I don't want to imply that you see it that way - I'm speaking generally). Was the story of the Exodus meant to be seen metaphorically? Jewish archeologists (among others) proved that it was fictional, but I'm sure that most religions that are based on the old testament have, over the course of millennia, drawn much of their power from a literal understanding of many of these stories. To say today that they are meant to be seen metaphorically *and* that this doesn't diminish the credibility of the whole "package" is, in my humble opinion, a hypocritical position.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Dean wrote: He'll have to answer for himself but I seriously doubt that Iván believes in a literal Adam and Eve anymore than anthropologists believe that the first Australopithecus afarensis fossil found (aka Lucy) was also the first literal Eve. As I have said before in this thread, Adam and Eve of gen:1 is a metaphor for "Mankind"   That is the understanding now, over a thousand years later, established by apologetics under the pressure of scientific discoveries. IMO it is hypocritical for anyone to assume that it was originally meant to be seen metaphorically (and I don't want to imply that you see it that way - I'm speaking generally). Was the story of the Exodus meant to be seen metaphorically? Jewish archeologists (among others) proved that it was fictional, but I'm sure that most religions that are based on the old testament have, over the course of millennia, drawn much of their power from a literal understanding of many of these stories. To say today that they are meant to be seen metaphorically *and* that this doesn't diminish the credibility of the whole "package" is, in my humble opinion, a hypocritical position.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Even today there are numerous denominations that have a literal understanding of many of these stories. I think that Christianity as a whole is suffering from a major case of cognitive dissonance (avoiding the word schizophrenia here) in that regard. I accept that apologists came up with the "it's allegorical" approach quite soon, but that didn't stop the church from preaching those stories to the pew as if they were real. Hell , even I as an Atheist remember being taught about Adam & Eve by my Catholic grandparents - and they didn't tell me that it wasn't meant to be taken literally. About Jonah: Sure. Some Atheists argue that nobody could possibly survive three days in the belly of a whale/fish, but of course that's beside the point since God apparently resurrected him. Still, it's quite easy to in hindsight tie this to the story of Christ. And be that as it may - I still think that accepting these stories as allegorical does not bolster your case when arguing against Atheists. If anything, it moves your theology closer towards the status of fairy tales. Which, as Iván correctly points out, puts you in a lose-lose situation - either you adopt the literal view, which is ridiculous in the face of science and historical events, or you adopt the modern/liberal view, which is extremely vague and tenuous. And neither of those views gets you closer to having rational explanations for your faith. Which may not be a bad thing - why not admit that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but you choose to believe it anyway?

Petards ? Freudian slip?

^ Ah, I see, I thought you were being a pedant

seventhsojourn wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Even today there are numerous denominations that have a literal understanding of many of these stories. I think that Christianity as a whole is suffering from a major case of cognitive dissonance (avoiding the word schizophrenia here) in that regard. I accept that apologists came up with the "it's allegorical" approach quite soon, but that didn't stop the church from preaching those stories to the pew as if they were real. Hell , even I as an Atheist remember being taught about Adam & Eve by my Catholic grandparents - and they didn't tell me that it wasn't meant to be taken literally. About Jonah: Sure. Some Atheists argue that nobody could possibly survive three days in the belly of a whale/fish, but of course that's beside the point since God apparently resurrected him. Still, it's quite easy to in hindsight tie this to the story of Christ. And be that as it may - I still think that accepting these stories as allegorical does not bolster your case when arguing against Atheists. If anything, it moves your theology closer towards the status of fairy tales. Which, as Iván correctly points out, puts you in a lose-lose situation - either you adopt the literal view, which is ridiculous in the face of science and historical events, or you adopt the modern/liberal view, which is extremely vague and tenuous. And neither of those views gets you closer to having rational explanations for your faith. Which may not be a bad thing - why not admit that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but you choose to believe it anyway?   ''(avoiding the word schizophrenia here)''... that's why you used it then.

Yep.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Dean wrote: He'll have to answer for himself but I seriously doubt that Iván believes in a literal Adam and Eve anymore than anthropologists believe that the first Australopithecus afarensis fossil found (aka Lucy) was also the first literal Eve. As I have said before in this thread, Adam and Eve of gen:1 is a metaphor for "Mankind"   That is the understanding now, over a thousand years later, established by apologetics under the pressure of scientific discoveries. IMO it is hypocritical for anyone to assume that it was originally meant to be seen metaphorically (and I don't want to imply that you see it that way - I'm speaking generally). Was the story of the Exodus meant to be seen metaphorically? Jewish archeologists (among others) proved that it was fictional, but I'm sure that most religions that are based on the old testament have, over the course of millennia, drawn much of their power from a literal understanding of many of these stories. To say today that they are meant to be seen metaphorically *and* that this doesn't diminish the credibility of the whole "package" is, in my humble opinion, a hypocritical position.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: To explain it more:   Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began. But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be “historical”. At most, they say, they may contain “historical traces”. The document shows how far the Catholic Church has come since the 17th century, when Galileo was condemned as a heretic for flouting a near-universal belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible by advocating the Copernican view of the solar system. Only a century ago, Pope Pius X condemned Modernist Catholic scholars who adapted historical-critical methods of analysing ancient literature to the Bible. In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language” and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions. They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”. The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.” They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article574768.ece   Now, Mike asks what is more important, the official interpretation or what some Christians believe. Well, the only ones who have authority to make an interpretation of the Bible are the Pope in an "Ex Cathedra" document or the Cardinals when reunited in Conclave or Or Concilium. Just imagine, the native Peruvians accepted the Catholic Church FORMALLY, but they created a cross-breaded Church that mixed their ancient beliefs with the Catholic ones (mestizaje), for example on June 28 the Church celebrated the Corpus Christi, but the native Peruvians celebrated the Inti Raymi (Harvest Feast) with the excuse of the Corpus Christi. You can't consider this celebrations or what a grandmother taught in the old school believes more important than the official position of the Church Iván

This is an important point, because I know Mike will twist some words there. Focus in the fact that 500 years ago, the ecumenism was practiced in America and it's very interesting how the thing evolve. Some would think that Catholic believes and native believings wouldn't fit in together and here's an example of both religions merged together. In the case of my country was the Mayas as well, in which the celebrate the Corpus Christi instead of their "Rain festival", but at the end, for the natives, the catholic God became the face of their own god, so there's no big deal for them.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: We believe God may have decided when the moment came to provide the evolved man of a soul:   On the creation of the soul, the Church has a very strong teaching. The human soul was deliberately created in the likeness and image of God. The human soul is not simply a byproduct of the human body. The human soul has the power to know abstract concepts, to know God (intellect) The human soul has the power to choose and to love (will) The human soul has unique dignity above the rest of visible creation. The human being is a combination of human body and human soul. Regardless of any speculative ideas of evolutionary processes that God may or may not have used in the design of the human body, Adam and Eve became human beings when God infused their bodies with human souls. The creation of the human soul was created immediately. The "image and likeness of God" that we read about in Scripture may be referring to our soul. : So the instantaneous creation by God of human soul is the center of our believe   Well, it's nice to hear from you that despite everything you said before you do still believe in the literal Adam and Eve. And it's also interesting that the center of your believe (as you put it) has been almost entirely debunked by modern science - cognitive neuroscience, to be precise. Iván wrote: Being that religion should not mess with scientific issues, the Pope accepts evolution as more than a hypotesis, but doesn't give a definitive opion, which not being an issue of doctroine and faith isn't covered by the infallibility.   But about the human soul, he is the authority.   Iván Yeah - screw all these idiotic neuroscientists. All these things that you attribute to the soul can also be attributed to the brain itself - most can be demonstrated, and there's no reason to assume that we won't eventually be able to demonstrate all.

You've got to be at least a little bit cautious when making any assumptions about how the brain works and what constitutes "mind" or "soul" in relation to that. I'm not over sure what that video demonstrated to be honest - the guy's brain wasn't working correctly before surgery and the "fix" was to break it in two - any conclusions derived from post surgery experimentation have to be viewed as being possibly unrepresentative of every mind, especially ones that do work correctly and haven't been broken in two. Neuroscientists have isolated specific areas of the brain that appear to be attributable to specific functions, and that there is left/right laterailism in the brain, but it is also know that the nasal cycle is also linked to left/right brain activity (which implies that too is cyclic). This suggests that whether someone is predominately left or right brained is determined by when in the nasal cycle they are tested not by any actual hemisphere dominance - we can still process language and have spacial awareness regardless of which hemisphere is dominant during this periodic cycle because of they are interlinked and communicating. Personally I think we are guilty of being far to simplistic in our interpretation of the neuroscientists analysis - while individual areas of the brain can be attributed to specific functions by isolating them from other areas, it is perhaps incorrect in thinking that this works like a matrix of little Von Neumann machines all doing their own bit in isolation from all others. The fact that we have to (effectively) power down certain activities to allow us to concentrate on specific tasks could be that those task require extra processing-support from areas of the brain not normally associated with that task.  

Dean wrote: You've got to be at least a little bit cautious when making any assumptions about how the brain works and what constitutes "mind" or "soul" in relation to that. I'm not over sure what that video demonstrated to be honest - the guy's brain wasn't working correctly before surgery and the "fix" was to break it in two - any conclusions derived from post surgery experimentation have to be viewed as being possibly unrepresentative of every mind, especially ones that do work correctly and haven't been broken in two. Neuroscientists have isolated specific areas of the brain that appear to be attributable to specific functions, and that there is left/right laterailism in the brain, but it is also know that the nasal cycle is also linked to left/right brain activity (which implies that too is cyclic). This suggests that whether someone is predominately left or right brained is determined by when in the nasal cycle they are tested not by any actual hemisphere dominance - we can still process language and have spacial awareness regardless of which hemisphere is dominant during this periodic cycle because of they are interlinked and communicating. Personally I think we are guilty of being far to simplistic in our interpretation of the neuroscientists analysis - while individual areas of the brain can be attributed to specific functions by isolating them from other areas, it is perhaps incorrect in thinking that this works like a matrix of little Von Neumann machines all doing their own bit in isolation from all others. The fact that we have to (effectively) power down certain activities to allow us to concentrate on specific tasks could be that those task require extra processing-support from areas of the brain not normally associated with that task.   To say the neuroscientists can explain/demonstrate soul attributes to brain-function attributes is being premature and making assumptions that science isn't in a position to make and they will be misused and misinterpreted as being the carrier of the soul and not the source because science doesn't know enough to be absolutely conclusive and definitive. This is like the god-antenna claim of Dr Newberg (discussed somewhere on this forum last year) - atheists claim this is the mechanism that makes people receptive to the idea of god and belief while theists claim this is the receptor of god.

Split brain experiments show that the two halves of the brain can be separate personalities - there are examples when one half is an Atheist, and the other one a Theist. So when a brain is split, is the soul also split - or does God send a second soul? This makes no sense to me. It's not a proof that there are no souls, it's just something that makes the concept implausible. Another problem is Chimeras and identical twins - are those two souls in one, or one soul in two different people? We know how identical twins develop - but at which point does the collection of cells get injected with a soul?

Your line of argumentation suggests that I'm making specific claims. I'm not. I'm just showing implausibilities and contradictions, the sum of which make me conclude that my position is more reasonable than the Theist position.