Comment by KellyCriterion

Comment by KellyCriterion 6 days ago

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Weeks ago a local newspaper had the headline:

"keep the big bang until later for your children, the bible is really a great set of fairy tales"

Im not religious at all, actually "implicitly fighting against it", though I have to admit: This sentence made sense and Im thinking still until today about it, because actually I think its quite true - for smaller children, the storylines in the bible are much more "real" and understandable than the story of: "hey, there was a big bang, all molecules were created then and you are consisting today of these molecules"

a022311 6 days ago

The Bible and the Big Bang theory are not mutually exclusive. The Old Testament is a very symbolic book and gives no specific details on how exactly the world was created, other than the seven days of creation. We know that the 7 days weren't referring to our current concept of a day. There's also no water above the sky. It was written like that, because it would be easier for people to understand. Science wasn't a thing back then. If it were written in 2025, it would obviously be very different and probably much more detailed.

Modern Christians know that religion and science can go together. Science researches _how_ something works. Religion answers _who_ created it. The Big Bang theory is actually accepted by them today.

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  • krapp 6 days ago

    >We know that the 7 days weren't referring to our current concept of a day.

    We don't know that. Some Christians believe that because they believe the Bible is univocal, which it isn't, and because they want to use other unrelated scripture like "a day for God is like a thousand years" to support a framework for Genesis which they believe is validated by current science.

    But I see no reason to believe that when the ancient Hebrews wrote about creation taking seven days, that they didn't mean seven actual days.

    >It was written like that, because it would be easier for people to understand.

    A supposition not backed up by evidence, and one that assumes the author of Genesis had a modern understanding of astrophysics, which they did not.

    > Science wasn't a thing back then. If it were written in 2025, it would obviously be very different and probably much more detailed.

    OK. So as I suspected you believe that the Genesis creation story (or at least one, as there are two conflicting creation narratives) represents literal truth, but that the account itself couches this literal truth in metaphor.

    I suppose that's better than the Biblical literalists who insist that Old Testament genealogies prove the world is only 10,000 years old and that therefore things like carbon dating are fake, but I do wish Christians would just accept that Genesis (along with the rest of the Bible) is entirely mythology and that they don't have to "make it fit" with modern science. It just didn't happen.

    >Science researches _how_ something works. Religion answers _who_ created it. Religion also makes just as many claims about how as who and why.

    Religion doesn't answer anything of the sort, it claims to answer it, a priori, without evidence.

    And of course there are countless religions with countless such "answers." You believe only one answer is valid, again, without evidence.

    This is not an opportunity for you to proselytize to me.

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  • throw48k76e 6 days ago

    If we are free to interpret the Bible that way, does that mean the resurrection of Christ is also a metaphor? Maybe they just meant that he is alive in our hearts.

    What part of the Bible are up for interpretation, and what parts are considered to be fact?

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    • hamdingers 6 days ago

      Every part of the Bible is up for interpretation. Which parts you interpret as fact will depend on what worldview you're trying to justify (or which church you're trying to be a member of).

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    • lo_zamoyski 6 days ago

      Ah, this is a good question. And a big one. Here’s a start, anyway.

      Contrary to the historically recent error of sola scriptura, the Bible does not interpret itself. And contrary to the modernists, it is not whatever you want it to mean.

      First, what is the general nature of Scripture? It is not meant to be a scientific text. It is meant to communicate, above all, revealed truths about God that are not available to unaided reason (obviously, it also contains things we can know through unaided reason, but the unique value proposition is in what we cannot know by our own wits).

      Historically, the tradition of knowledge, indeed the content of Scripture itself, preceded the biblical canon. You needed that tradition to make the determination of what is canonical and what is not. Similarly, you need that tradition to determine the nature of a given book: is a historical in structure, poetic, etc? This unbroken tradition, scholarship, literary analysis, etc. tell us the nature of a given text.

      In the case of something like the creation accounts in Genesis (and there are two accounts, which differ), it is clear under such an examination that these are not scientific descriptions. They are written using the language of a pre-scientific culture. They do not tell us in scientific terms how the physical universe was formed. They do tell us that creation is ex nihilo, or out of nothing. (This is not a question of a big bang btw. The big bang is not necessary. It is a question of casuality. God as the Logos - eternal Reason - is the per se - rather than per accidens - cause of the universe’s existence, sustaining it in existence at every moment. God is not some Paley-style watchmaker arranging parts into a watch out of some primordial chaos, and the universe is not the result of some clash of opposing forces.) Genesis also tells us that there was a first human couple and that original sin can be traced to the first freely chosen immoral act. There are no binding or definitive claims about how exactly this all occurred in a historical sense. We don’t know, and as interesting as that question is [0], for the relevant purposes of the text, it doesn’t matter.

      The Gospels of the New Testament, however, are very much historical in character. They are eye witness accounts of Christ’s ministry, and the canonical four were deemed to be the only reliable ones. They aren’t figurative, and the early Christians, the many witnesses of Christ’s ministry, and new evidence all align with the received and continuous tradition (indeed, one of the responsibilities of the Catholic Church is to safeguard tradition from “innovation”). Figurative interpretations of the Gospels also tend not to be compelling either, especially in light of tradition.

      Obviously, biblical hermeneutics is a big topic that goes beyond an HN post. I’ve included links to a couple of texts that should introduce the material with greater depth and expertise than I can [1][2].

      [0] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern-biology-and-o...

      [1] https://a.co/d/4xdAc9Y

      [2] https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhorta...

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  • pmcginn 6 days ago

    The big bang theory isn't just "accepted by them today," it has been since the beginning. The father of the big bang theory was a catholic priest.

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    • defrost 6 days ago

      So you're saying that the Catholic Church also accepted the Copernican Sun centred model of the universe formulated by Nicolaus Copernicus "from the beginning" as Copernicus was also a Catholic cleric?

      Perhaps it's possible that the beliefs and propositions of individual members of a greater body don't always align with the official stance of the greater body.

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      • lo_zamoyski 6 days ago

        > it's possible that the beliefs and propositions of individual members of a greater body don't always align with the official stance

        It is, and where they depart from or twist binding doctrine, it would be a matter of heresy.

        But FWIW, the Catholic Church didn’t and doesn’t have a stance on the question of heliocentrism. Why would it? It is not a question with any religious importance. Who cares which orb rotates around which? Copernicus wasn’t doing anything forbidden (nor had he vindicated heliocentrism) and had high ranking friends and acquaintances in the clergy (including cardinals like Cardinal Schõnberg and Pope Clement VII) who took an interest in his work. De Revolutionibus was itself dedicated to Pope Paul III. If anything, Copernicus was wary of other academics who held to the Ptolemaic view at the time. Plus ça change…

        No doubt, you have in mind the oft-repeated Galileo affair which has become one of those stubborn black legends that seems to stay afloat despite the lack of facts supporting it because of its instrumental value for sticking it to the Church. The Galileo affair was not about heliocentrism. It was about a clash of egos and personalities (Galileo’s being of them, as he liked to pick pointless fights, including some nasty personal attacks on his friend and benefactor Urban VIII) that spanned decades. It isn’t as piquant as the story as typically told would have you believe.

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        • defrost 5 days ago

          The story of Copernican heliocentrism as commonly told is enough to bounce many out of the rut of thinking as the comment above implied that a large bureaucracy aligns itself with anything an individual thinks.

          > The Galileo affair was not about heliocentrism. It was about a clash of egos and personalities

          That's pretty much the way I heard it, outside of the Catholic Church, some 50 years ago. Make enough enemies, sooner or later they band together and strike if they can.

            > No doubt, you have in mind the oft-repeated Galileo affair
  > It isn’t as piquant as the story as typically told would have you believe.
          It's like you're not reading my mind and yet somehow imagine you can.

          If you enjoy quoting J. Budziszewski you may or may not get a kick out of Graham Priest and Dialetheism.

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  • sapphicsnail 6 days ago

    I'm sure there are some that think that but I was taught the earth is 10,000 years, the creation story in Genesis is the literal truth, and people spell Christmas "Xmas" because people are trying to take Christ out of Christmas. None of these are fringe positions in the US. There are so Christians that believe science is real but we're very much the minority.

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  • djeastm 6 days ago

    >The Old Testament is a very symbolic book

    Can you tell the fundamentalists that? Thanks

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lo_zamoyski 6 days ago

If you think the Bible is childish, then I can only assume you've never studied it in earnest. These aren't fairy tales. They are a collection of books written in numerous styles and languages belonging to various genres drawn from many cultural contexts spanning thousands of years and whose canon was determined by the Catholic Church in the 4th century (most famously, at the Council of Rome when the 73 books were listed). Theologians, philosophers, and biblical scholars are deepening their understanding of this text to this day.

Just look at something like John 1:1: «In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.» Most adults aren't in a position to comprehend that, never mind a child. It is one of the most profound sentences ever uttered (those with sufficient philosophical and theological background might find this recent book on this topic of interest [0]). Or consider Exodus 3:14: «God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”». If that doesn't knock you off your feet, then you have not understood it. This is an incredibly sophisticated metaphysical statement, the meaning of which was unknown to the ancient pagans. (A good, short introduction from a philosophical angle can be found here [1].)

But more importantly, both you and the author of that article have committed a very basic category mistake. The Bible is not in the same business as the physical sciences. It doesn't answer the same questions. The Bible is not a scientific treatise, and the physical science are not a path to salvation from sin.

The Bible is also not a text of mere parables and life lessons. Indeed, this is one of those distinguishing features of Christianity that many fail to appreciate. In other religious traditions, it doesn't really matter where the truth claims come from or who said them. You could accept the claims without knowing or caring about the author. But you cannot do that with the figure of Christ. You cannot say "Oh, I accept the lessons of the New Testament, I think Jesus was a wise teacher. I just don't accept his divinity or the resurrection or the miracles or all that other stuff my bourgeois sensibilities can't stomach." Those claims that are uniquely Christian are about Christ and rooted in the authority of Christ. It is Christ who saves - a person - not knowledge, not some method, not a technology, but a person. Christ calls himself the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all creation, eternal, the Almighty, and the source and completion of history and salvation.

That's not just some "fun" or "cute" passage. The point is that - if Christianity is true - it is through Christ that Man's relationship to God is restored and elevated. It is through Christ that man is ennobled. Man is invited to participate in his divinity, and unlike other traditions that maintain Man can attain divinity through his own efforts alone, the Christian says "no", it is not in Man's power to do that, to pull himself up by his own bootstraps; only God can do that, and the way is by answering "yes" to his offer, by cooperating with him so he can accomplish that divinity in us. To do that, God humbled himself through the Incarnation to share in our humanity: «the Word became flesh and dwelt among us». He entered the pathology and disorder of the world to liberate it from it, to be the path out of it.

That is what Christianity teaches. That is what Christmas is about. Either that is true, or Jesus was a liar or a madman. What he wasn't was merely another "wise teacher". Either Christmas celebrates this momentous historical event of the Incarnation, or it is ridiculous.

[0] https://a.co/d/1QtQWCP

[1] https://a.co/d/bSqgkXq

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