Yes, Virginia There is a Hell -- Jesus Said So

LOL! Really? And how was I supposed to interprete - "you serve the Devil."

LOL! Apparently you don't understand!

The "voweled" Hebrew system we now use was added later!

The original Hebrew texts have no vowels!

 

"Jam 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. "

 

Taken out of context - and having a totally different meaning - and also there is no "devil" in that text - it is demons (δαιμονι&#945

Jas 2:17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

Jas 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

Jas 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

Jas 2:20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

 

Well of course it is... you said so. The lady who claims to translate ancient texts without knowing the vowels and or the placement of those vowels.

 

Indeed. So don't involve it.

 

Science cannot deal with anything supernatural. Religion is about something supernatural. Ergo, science cannot deal with religion. There is neither support nor opposition to be gained.

Of course. Knowledge is more than empirical knowledge.

Yep, and they're compelled to do so exactly due to such notions that "science can support religion and vice versa".

Empirically speaking, there is nothing to gain from religion. Supernaturally speaking, there is nothing to gain from science. Not one little bit.

 

Please explain the emphasized text above.

 

real saving grace is displayed thru faith. So works alone will not achieve salvation. It's Faith. And when that faith is real, one has the works to go with it. Because one wants to live as close to the example of christ as possible.

 

While I’m waiting for the very earthly matter of my pumpkin fries getting ready, maybe I can bridge your differences on the question at hand.

IMHO your both right in a way. As one of my old theology professors has once said: “science is one thing, faith is the other.” He said it when my more ‘evangelical’ fellow students got a bit upset on the lesson on “resurrection”, where the concepts of “resurrection “ may stem from, how they may have entered the Christian faith etc.

So of course science and religion can touch. Said professor would have described his job as scientific. He occupied himself with the scriptures of the New Testament, textual analysis, historic contextualization etc. I’m almost certain that he would have put down the theory of Jesus having learned sorcery in Egypt as weak BS without having used the word BS or any other insults, but calmly questioning the scientific reasoning behind it.
And even though as a scientist he would have told you that there is strong evidence against the bodily resurrection of Jesus, as a religious man he celebrated Easter which for him was a statement of faith, with strong symbols for what he believed in: the living Christ.

Really? For example according to this study "the past two decades have increasingly found more empirical evidence supporting the beneficial effects of religiousness on mental health". http://www.psychosocial.com/IJPR_11/Positive_Effects_of_Religiousness_Yeung_Jerf.html
Not that I'd argue with you if you said that an empirical study on the posters of this subforum might produce contrary results.

I agree that it's foolish to try and prove the existence of anything supernatural via science.
But whenever science comes up with something utterly amazing I tend to praise the Lord for the wonders of this world. And my agnostic husband says learning about quantumphysics brings him as close to the idea of God as he may get. So at least in our case supernatural beliefs get some gain from science. But when I mentioned that before I got loads of abuse from some of our bible-believing creationist posters here - so I reckon it depends on who you ask.

 

An interesting post that you produced.

I suppose that most everyone is out to lunch right now, as the forum has been relatively quiet for the past hour. So, in that absence, I would like to ask you what your opinion is on the statement made by Freeware, where he stated: "Knowledge is more than empirical knowledge."? I am presuming that he is caught up at the moment and unable at this moment to give a response, so, I was just wondering what you suppose he might have meant.

 

I don't know how to get my point across any more clearly. Did you consider the possibility that the root of the problem of understanding it might be on your side?

But I'll happily give it abother try:

Yes, Jesus got angry here and there. Mostly with the religious establishment of his faith and society who abused the name of the Lord for their own materialistic interests or who followed the laws letter by letter in complete disregard of what he saw as their essential sense: To love God and to love ones neighbours as oneself for the benefit of mankind for which said laws where made.

If you take the stories of Jesus getting angry out of context and try to use them as depicting Christianity as a religion that requires its followers to become choleric bigotted pricks (i.e. pretty much like the pharisees), IMHO you distort the meaning of such stories.

Well to give you the answer that you'd have no scruples giving anybody else: Go and pray to the Lord to give you more wisdom. Obviously you still lack some.
And to sound less smug: if Christians had a hive-mind making them judge matters of faith in complete unison, there'd be no need for ecumenical dialogues. I don't know wether to find the thought incredibly convenient or just plain eerie.

 

Well, I do appreciate you taking the time to express another version of your opinion. Thank you for that time.

 

Well, over here where I live it's actually dinner time and I'm about to head off to my nightshift.

I suggest you wait for said posters statement on what he meant by that. My answer on how I understood it would be in short: Solomon, one of the bible's main role-models for wisdom, certainly wasn't an empirical scientist, nor a scientist in any other way: yet he had knowledge to share. A bit like the knowledge my granddad may have had. Unlike me he never went to university, yet I could learn from him.

 

OK, I can accept what you are saying. In short, then 'knowledge' does not necessarily have to be science based or in any way connected to the rules established by the scientific community. But surely there must have been a little touch of science involved with Solomon if the tales of his accomplishments were true.

 

What exactly are you responding to ? I do not see a response to anything.

 

Junobet, even if there were any evidence of people coming back to life after death, it has nothing to do with the supernatural event that Jesus' resurrection is.

An organism being alive after having died, that's science (or at least pertaining to the accuracy of scientific terminology). A god calling someone back to life after death, that's religion. Those two scenarios have absolutely no intersection.

This has nothing to do with science intersecting with religiousness. It has to do with studying the effects of religiousness.

In other words, science does not gain anything from religion in this example and religion does not gain anything from science.

 

I'm neither caught up nor unable to respond, Incorporeal, I just couldn't care less about your 'inquiry'.

 

Look at the two words and you will have your answer.

knowledge empirical knowledge

Obviously one is a subset of the other.

Gain an understanding of what empirical knowledge is, and then you will be able to figure out the types of knowledge that do not fit into that catagory.

 

Which two words are you referring to? You listed three words (actually two but one was printed twice making a total of three printed words).

You presume that I don't have understanding of what 'empirical knowledge' is, yet your statement ""Knowledge is more than empirical knowledge."?" indicates that there is conceivably more to that term than what is expressed . That is precisely why I asked you to explain what 'empirical knowledge' is, and you still evade answering that question. Do you know what 'empirical knowledge' is? If you do, then please explain your comprehension of the term. Also explain to us what are the various categories of knowledge that you are aware of.

 

The supernatural is what it is regardless of any kind of empirical exercise.

In fact, what you describe is a wonderful example of how religious ideas will compel a person to fit the world into such ideas. This is diametrically opposite of experience, which is about forming ideas from observation.

 

What is your definition of 'experience'? Where does 'experience' become cognizant to the human? What constitutes 'experience'?

 

I do not presume you do not have understanding of what emperical knowledge is.

Obviously "emperical knowledge" is a subset of "knowledge"

This is clear just from a linguistic standpoint.

You did not ask "me" what emperical knowledge was .. You asked someone else.

One thing I can tell you is that by observing your incorrect usage of the term "emperical knowledge" . .it is clear that you do not understand it very well.

"NOW" you may accuse me of presuming something except I would not be a presumption given that I have emperical evidence of your lack of understanding of the term.

 

Gee that is great.. now go ahead and explain like I asked you to.

 

My point was that theology is a science (in German it would be ranked among the "Geisteswissenschaften" (arts) just like social sciences or philosophy. It's quite a interdisciplinary one: involving history, archaelogy, linguistics, ethics/religious philosophy, etc. And you can of course study theology without being in any way religious, just as you can write an essay about existentialism without being an existentialist.
The biblical accounts of the resurrection of Christ and their reception throughout the times can be subject to a scientific analysis.
No matter what their personal beliefs on the matter may be theology students have to become aquainted with the wide range of theories concerning it (at least when they study at an accredited university), including theories that biblical resurrection accounts are wholly legendary, the result of the disciples coping-mechanisms with the death of Christ, that the resurrection is to be regarded as a spiritual resurrection or indeed a bodily one etc.

You're right concerning that example - it was sloppy.
However, if you don't limit science to empirical studies you'll find loads of intersections: Both a theology student and a psychology/ social sciences student will probably have to read Erich Fromm and Martin Buber at some point. And while you don't have to be religious to study art history it would certainly help if you had a concept about religious imagery. And if you look at the science of theology: Textual criticism - ideally a purely scientific exercise - may indeed have effects on the religious views one derives from religious texts. On the other hand certain religious views expressed in a certain text may help you to date it.

yepp.

Not really. It would be if religious or ideological preconceptions affected the results of scientific observations, which is of course to be avoided - no matter whether you try to date/reconstruct an ancient religious scripture or whether you're trying to date/reconstruct some dinosaur bones.

You'd be absolutely right if I insisted the world was flat, the sun circled around the earth, the earth was only 5000 years old etc because that's what the Bible may suggest. But I'm pretty open minded about scientific observations and theories concerning the physical world. I suspect the only difference between you and me watching the latest "Horizon" documentary or Sir Patrick Moore's "The Sky at night" is that you'd just think "wow" and I think "wow, God is great!" And of course the existence of the latter as a supernatural being shall remain a question of faith and is beyond anything that could be proven or disproven by science.

 

Yes, theology resorts under academia as the study of a particular range of myths. However, you need to be very careful about your discernment; it is true that things like sources, origins, and receptions of Biblical accounts can be subjected to empirical investigation, but the actual contents of Biblical accounts cannot.

Put in another way, there are plenty of ways to make scientific analyses of human behavior and interaction but there is no way to make a scientific analysis of divinity.

Junobet, your second sentence above is an oxymoron; if a religious idea affects the results of scientific observation then it is no longer a scientific observation.

What religiousity does is to affect perception. You can call this observation if you wish, but you cannot call it scientific observation (that modifying adjective is the filter between your vision of reality and the verification of it).

When you watch the Sky at Night show you're referring to and think "wow, God is great" then that is a result of your religious ideas having affected your perception. So, really, this is yet a wonderful example of how religious ideas compel a person to fit the world into such ideas.