Life On Earth, Science Vs Religion

[jd_1984]

I don't wish to denigrate any individuals beliefs, but I am curious how this story is received by those who follow religion and the origins of the earth taught through religion.

Do some Christians take the biblical accounts of creation literally, believing that they describe exactly how the universe and human beings were created.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/life-earth-started-300-million-6664589

[naomi24]

Khandro, //I think he's got it! - by Jove he's got it!//

I think not.

[jomifl]

Naomi, Your certainty rivals even that of the JWs.

[naomi24]

Jom, there's rather more to support this than the JW's can muster to support their beliefs

divebuddy, I think it could be true. However, it's opponents, it seems, want it not to be. Why I cannot fathom.

[jomifl]

Jom, there's rather more to support this than the JW's can muster to support their beliefs
Any real number is bigger than zero

[naomi24]

Indeed.

[naomi24]

^That was to Jom.

Divebuddy, we consider it improbable simply because we can't get our heads around the idea that it's at all possible. We should take notice of the ancients. They didn't understand what they were seeing, but they did their best to describe it - and they did so in abundance.

[jomifl]

and with imagination...they did have imagination?

[naomi24]

Divebuddy, Why do you think it was a vision?

[naomi24]

Divebuddy, From your link (although I’ve no idea who ‘myself’ is – or ‘Mike’).

//The point of all this is to note the fact that none of the elements of Ezekiel's vision are foreign to religious iconography of the times (or before Ezekiel's era). The cloud / storm element of the vision is very common to the Old Testament, and is chiefly aimed at Baal, the king of the gods at Ugarit (the storm god), which is outside Babylon, both terribly common to Israelite thinking. Hence the vision of Ezekiel, in many respects, is an amalgam of familiar (early) Israelite theophanic portrayals of Yahweh and Babylonian elements, all designed to put Yahweh "in the picture," ousting the pagan god(s).//

….. or alternatively it could mean that Ezekiel wasn’t the first to have experienced such a ‘vision’, not something your author considers. Interestingly, a chap called Josef Blumrich, former chief of NASA's systems layout branch of the program development office, whilst still in office, set out to debunk Ezekiel’s spaceship. He analysed several different translations of the bible and ended up writing a book describing and illustrating in detail what he thought Ezekiel actually saw. A spaceship. He concluded that the technology of the builders must have been somewhat in advance of mankind’s at present, and said he had “seldom felt as delighted, satisfied, and fascinated by being proven wrong”. He also published an article "The spaceships of the prophet Ezekiel", in the UNESCO journal ‘Impact of Science on Society’.

[Zacs-Master]

Ronald Story in his book Guardians of the Universe? (1980)stated "Blumrich doctors up his Biblical quotes just a smidgen to make them conform a little better to his spaceship interpretation", and "The Spaceships of Ezekiel, in all honesty, can only be described as an extreme form of rationalisation, with a good supply of technical jargon, charts, and diagrams, carefully designed to impress the general reader. The book does contain a good collection of impressive drawings which prove nothing more than that whoever prepared them is a good draughtsman." Jerome Clark wrote that Blumrich "... offered a creative but misplaced effort to translate the metaphorical biblical account into a properly engineered spacecraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spaceships_of_Ezekiel

[naomi24]

Indeed. Criticism is to be expected.

[Zacs-Master]

You're unbelievable at times Naomi. As unbelievable as biblical images showing spaceships. As someone has already commented, you seem to want to believe the rather dodgy evidence.

[naomi24]

I don't think it is dodgy. I think it makes perfect sense of the gobbledegook of religion - and it's certainly more feasible than the 'supernatural'.

[jomifl]

Zacs the words 'want to' are superfluous.