Catholic Church now says parts of the Bible may not be true

[Tacks]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1811332,00.html

[Darcler]

Oh look, an article.

[Tacks]

[Zanchief]

hahaha

[Lueyen]

Many parts of the bible have not been considered litteral for as long as I can remember. Revelations in particular if taken in historical context is obviously symbolic. Significance here is not really a major change of perspective. The content of the letters written by the bishops isn't really a "policy change" as explanation, and application of ideas. The articles title is pretty sensational, in that the church has been teaching along these lines and even specifically some of the cases mentioned for years.

[Donnel]

That's an absolutely terrible stance for the Catholic church to take.

If you accept that the Bible is not true in some places, then it leaves it completely open to be torn down in others. Expect the foundation of the Catholic church to be undermined soon to follow.

Obviously, some language in the Bible is figurative about the depictions, but that doesn't mean that it is not true in it's historicity.

[Jay]

That's an absolutely terrible stance for the Catholic church to take.

If you accept that the Bible is not true in some places, then it leaves it completely open to be torn down in others. Expect the foundation of the Catholic church to be undermined soon to follow.

Obviously, some language in the Bible is figurative about the depictions, but that doesn't mean that it is not true in it's historicity.

They might as well revise the bible and add Harry Potter into it.

[Phlegm]

So the libraries should put the bible in the fiction section now?

[Gidan]

I have to admit that it would appear the Cahtolic Church may have screwed up here. If you admit that the bible isn't 100% true even though you have said it is for so long, you are not in a position to say what parts are true and what parts are not. Its an adminition that the whole thing could be false.

[Darcler]

Lord people. Give it up.

[Zanchief]

If anyone has "the" pic can you e-mail it to me?

zanchief@gmail.com

Thanks

[mofish]

Of course parts of the Bible arent true. Duh.

Let's start with the fiction of a virgin birth, for one.

Or how bout coming back from the dead after three days? Riiigghht.

Noah's flood?

Parting of the Red Sea?

The Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve?

Genesis in 7 days?

Congrats to the Catholic Church for a tiny bit of lucidity. It only took 2000 years!

[Arlos]

Obviously, some language in the Bible is figurative about the depictions, but that doesn't mean that it is not true in it's historicity.

That's just the thing, Donnel, is that the Bible is PROVABLY historically inaccurate.

For example, the age of the earth. If you believe in a strict biblical interpretation, you arrive at the same (or similar at least) age of the earth as Bishop Usher & compatriots, who said that Earth began in 4004 BC, on October 27th at 9am. (not 100% sure on month/day/time, but I know the year) We can show that this is demonstratably false by radiometric dating techniques. No, not Carbon-14 dating, but other methods, like, say, Potassium Argon dating.

Brief rundown on K-Ar radiometric dating: Several types of minerals that are found in volcanic rocks have Potassium (K) as part of the chemical makeup. By definition, a mineral has a crystalline structure. Now, Potassium can undergo radioactive decay into Argon, which is a noble gas and is completely chemically inert, ie, it forms no compounds with anything. So, when the crystalline solid is first formed, any argon present is lost, as it's forced out of the crystal as it is formed. Now, however, we can go back to some of those rocks and look at it directly to determine how much argon is now present, trapped inside hollows inside the crystal left as the potassium decayed. Since we know very precisely the half-life of Potassium, and we know that there was 0 Argon present at formation of the crystal, it makes for a very simple dating method. We simply look at the mineral and see how much K is there now, how much Ar is there now, look at the ratio, then do some simple math using the half-life # to figure out how old the rock is.

Now, the flaw in the method is that if the rock containing the mineral has undergone significant heating, that expands the microscopic gaps enough to allow the trapped Argon to escape. This can indeed lead to false ages. However, it would lead to ages that appear to be too YOUNG, rather than too OLD. Yet, using this dating method (among others), we come up with rock ages of 4+ billion years. It's these kind of radiometric dating methods that are used to guesstimate the ages of dinosaur fossils, by the way. Dinosaurs are way too old to age directly, and are almost universally found in sedimentary rock, which is itself likewise impossible to age. So, when a Dinosaur is found, the geologists/paleontologists look for igneous rock (ie, ex-lava) in layers above and below the layer where the dinosaur is found. They then date the layers of igneous rock, which gives them then the rough estimate of how old the dino is. (ie, if the layer above the dino is 100 million years old, and the layer below it is 110 million years old, we know the Dino died between 100-110 million years ago.)

Now, as for some other issues: We have 0 evidence, anywhere, of a massive world-wide flood, certainly not one that somehow managed to generate huge quantities of extra water from SOMEWHERE, to cover the world in an extra 15,000 feet (or more) of water, so that everything but the highest mountains were covered. Even if every single bit of ice at both poles (and on Greenland) were to melt, we're talking about < 50' of sea level rise.

OK, some simple math here. Diameter of the earth is 7900 miles. Which gives us a radius of 3950 miles. Formula for volume of a sphere is 4/3 * (pi) * r^3. Now, the volume of a sphere with a 3950 mile radius is: 258,154,616,722 cubic miles. That's the base volume. Now, the Bible says that even mountain tops were covered, yes? No land anywhere, and the ark came to the rest at the very top of a huge mountain? Well, we know the highest mountain is not quite 6 miles above sea level. But, lets be generous, leave out the Himalayia, and say that the water only rose 3 miles. (only 2 miles would leave a lot of land above water, even in the US. 3 miles still leaves some, but again, we're being as generous to the bible story as possible.) So, lets figure out the volume of a sphere with a radius of 3953 miles: 258,743,263,962 cubic miles. Now, if we subtract the base # from the larger #, we'll know just how much extra water had to be present. This gives us a figure of: 588,647,240 cubic miles.

So, Donnel, where exactly did nearly 600 MILLION cubic MILES of water come from, and where did it GO? Even if you drop it down to just 2 extra miles of water covering the earth above sea level, that still is about 400 million cubic miles of water to deal with. So, if this flood happened, why do we see NO evidence of any such event, and how do you explain the water problem?

Now, I'm not saying there's no evidence for a major flood in the region. Lots of civilizations in the area have flood myths. As best as has been determined, however, these stem from a time shortly before recorded history when the Mediterranean broke through the Bosporus straits and flooded the area around what is now the Black Sea, which was a giant FRESHwater lake at the time. Still, that's hardly a world-wide flood.

Unfortunately, many of the Bible stories are simply incompatible as direct historical events with what we can see and observe in the world, period. Faith is a great thing, even religious belief can be a great thing. But to disregard hard evidence that we can see for ourselves simply because it disagrees with what we want to believe.... That just strikes me as pig-headed foolishness.

-Arlos

[Donnel]

Oink

[KILL]

ummm... Arlos, we're going to have to go ahead and /burn you, mmm'kay?

[Arlos]

OK, Donnel, heh, I am curious as to how you explain the discrepancies then? Non-Carbon-14 dating of earth rocks, the water problem, the lack of evidence, etc. And especially for the flood, if it happened within the last 6010 years or so, we really really ought to see significant evidence of it... So, what IS your explanation?

And Kill, don't worry, I have a stake set up out back already for whenever the Spanish Inquisition catches up to me. I just know it'll happen when I don't expect them, of course.

-Arlos

[Donnel]

To be honest, I don't need to explain it.

My position though, is that if you say that one part of the Bible is false, then none of it has credibility as a religious text.

I believe the whole Bible to be true and inerrant.

I don't have to explain because of faith. Your explanations, though you view them as scientific fact, to me are nothing more then a person "finding a different answer." Which is fine. Not everyone is going to believe, no matter what.

Goddidit

Oink

P.S. Don't you play a pally? How do you like it? I'm having a blast so far.

[Zanchief]

You may be the most reasonable fundamentalist Christian I have ever spoken too, Donnel.

[Donnel]

Thank you.

[Harrison]

I think Arlos pops wood everytime a religion post is made.

He just twitches with excitement until he types up these posts with his dick.

No one really reads them...

[Tikker]

Feel free to comment on something when you've actually contributed something meaningful to a discussion Finawin



Personally, I think it's a good move for the Church

There's obviously things in the Bible that are not completely accurate, and were perhaps never meant to be taken as a literal account of what happened


I don't really see it as a weakness, but rather a move from being pigheaded and stubborn about insisting everyting in the Bible is the word of God, when clearly parts of it are hearsay by the author(s)

[Adivina]

I have a stake set up out back already for whenever the Spanish Inquisition catches up to me. I just know it'll happen when I don't expect them, of course.

Because no one ever does

[Gargamellow]

When I think about the bible, I try to picture what whichever writer was actually seeing as they wrote their tales. Perhaps it wasn't bread from Heaven, but shrooms on cow patties?

I mean...I am a Christian in the fact that I believe in the power of love and that Jesus indeed lived on this planet...but I struggle with the realist within who seeks a solid answer to everything. ><

[Harrison]

I'm not about to "contribute" to a topic that has been beaten with a stick so hard it's starting to look like a stick.

No one is right, no one is wrong. It's a matter of faith, you can't fucking argue with it. Period.

[Lueyen]

I'm not about to "contribute" to a topic that has been beaten with a stick so hard it's starting to look like a stick.

No one is right, no one is wrong. It's a matter of faith, you can't fucking argue with it. Period.

There is a lot more to consider here then the typical science vs religion debate. That a few posters slightly derailed from the topic of the article (although they were still in the same ball park), doesn't mean there is nothing new worth discussing here.

The oldest Christian religion has seemingly had a shift in it's general perception and teaching, the reason I say seemingly is that I feel the authors perception is slightly skewed, and as I have stated the title of the article is more sensational then factually based. These were letters written by bishops to help people in understanding scripture, they were not changes to Catholic doctrine. Yes the implications, and propensity of perversion of these messages is there, and I see some of it as a mistake, but more of a political mistake then a dogmatic one.