Nope.
God would speak plainly.
Do You Still Believe the Bible is God's Word?
by cantleave 58 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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PSacramento
And sound like Liam Neeson or maybe Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart would be cool too, but only if Jesus sounded like Willam Shatner !
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snowbird
Marcus Scriptus, welcome!
Your posts are so lucid and concise.
I have mentioned on this forum before that I view the Bible as containing God'sMessage to us.
No other literary work can make or sustain such a claim.
Syl
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finding my way
I don't know what to believe anymore, but I'm beginning to lean towards "no".
It's rough when you've been discouraged from using your own brain since birth.
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Mickey mouse
No. Welcome to Marcus.
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Twitch
It's man's word about god and not the only divinely inspired book around IMO
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ex-witness
Saying the earth is "likely billions and billions of years old" is a bit watered down. it has been PROVEN the Earth is over 4.7 Billion years old. Fact.
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jehovahsheep
flipper-can you give yourself eternal life also?
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MarcusScriptus
If there is one thing I am, ex-witness, it's that I’m totally in agreement with the scientific models on the origins of the universe and life. I’ve also taught the scientific method for several years, and one thing I can say is that it is not “proven” that the earth is any certain age. This doesn’t mean the date of 4.-so-many years is incorrect, but it isn’t “proven.” We must be very careful with the way we present and use terms in association with the application of science.
The mistake many make regarding the methodology is that all that science holds as true is “proven” or “fact,” but the reality is that according to the scientific method there is no such requisite. (I can’t “prove” that there will be air available to sustain your life the next time you take your breath, but I have evidence to support that hypothesis. This doesn’t make my “prediction” about your next breath false or “proven,” it just makes it the most likely model that fits with what evidence we have on hand. My hypothesis about your breath is no less scientifically correct just because I cannot prove a future event until it happens.)
For example, I believe in evolution. So I will tell someone that I hold to the “theory of evolution.” Is it wrong to use that term since I hold to this model of science?
No. It will always remain a “theory” because there were no eyewitnesses to the first steps the theory puts forth, regardless of the fact that everything points to these first steps as occurring. Without the verifiable eyewitness testimony and some other type of empirical evidence, evolution, though as true as you can get in my book, is correctly referred to as the “theory of evolution.” It will never be called anything else unless such empirical testimony can be found that proves to be objective in the exhaustive sense. This doesn’t mean the theory is false or without proof to support, it just means this is as far as the methodology goes in labeling things.
The same is true about the age of the earth. There is no “proof” that the earth is such-and-such years old. We can give the best educated guess, but that is it. There were no eyewitnesses alive then who are hear now who can supply empirical evidence which can withstand test under independent variation in order for what we know to ever leave the position of “theory.” Yes, it’s the best guess we have, yes we know by application of the scientific method that is likely true, but no, it is not “proven.”
The rule is for something to be “proven” requires that empirical evidence of an proven objectively nature (under all and any circumstances) exists. You can’t debate over empirical evidence unless one or both parties are insane (i.e., “Mount Rushmore exists, objectively so”), but the evolutionary model is only a hypothesis because the model is supported by means of circumstantial evidence instead of empirical evidence. But these things don’t have to be “proven” since we have enough objective evidence to relatively support the hypothesis (the application of lex parsimoniae, popularized as Occam's razor ).