Well, I'm back, and I apologize for the long delay in any sort of response (or, conversely, I apologize for dredging up a topic everyone else is done or sick of talking about, lol). Anyway, I thank you, Erich, for your reception of my post, and I commend you for trying to be as objective and even-handed as you can be about the argument. Also, sorry if I seemed condescending or short in my response, it was not intended. I was writing it during some small bit of free time I had, so I was sort of rushing through it.
I hate to press the argument, especially since you so considerately acknowledged what I was saying, but there are several things that I wanted to address. First off, I would not say that the Bible's age adds to its credibility. In fact, it really ought to call into suspicion its claims more than anything, considering generally how uneducated and ignorant people were back then. Then also stack upon that the fact that many, if not all the accounts, of the things that happened in the Bible are written years or decades after they actually happened, allowing for distortion and exaggeration or outright incorrect recollections. Then, on top of all that, the fact it underwent several translations (accompanied by lots of mistranslations), various forms of censorship, trimming, and embellishing, all of course adding further to the skewing of whatever the Bible originally was (which probably wasn't all that accurate to begin with). So, by and large, the Bible is hardly an accurate, or genuine account by any definition, whether to being historically accurate, or trying to be logically and scientifically plausible.
As for the bit about a god using science to make everything, if you're admitting that a god would pretty much have to use science in order to result in what we see around us, then you might as well just cut the "god" part out. There's already a perfect good explanation using science that would cause the arising of life and planets as a natural consequence of these very laws. No god needed.
Also, if the supposed "miracles" that were performed were scientifically possible, then why is that we hear about none of them now? The laws of science haven't changed in the past millennia, so if they were scientifically plausible then, they should be now as well. Does it not give rise to some skepticism on your part that all the miracles happened to have happened so long ago, with poor accounts for them and during an era with little knowledge of science, yet now, in the period where science is exponentially better understood and events so much more reliably documented, we hear of no such "miracles", or at least ones that haven't been proven false?
Plus, just as a little add-on, I don't know precisely what sort of god you believe in (funny how something that apparently is so powerful and absolute varies in description and abilities from person to person), but you do know it's impossible for a god to be both omnipotent and omniscient, right? I know you didn't say specifically anything about omnipotence, but you quite clearly seem to believe in his/her/its omniscience.
And, now, to talk about faith. I believe this is where the real debate and issue comes from. I personally find faith to be a pernicious thing, because it essentially means that someone believes in something because they want it to be true, irregardless of whether it actually is true or not. A lot of people have an issue understanding this concept. Just because you want something to be true does not at all make it more likely that it is true. But that's precisely what lots of religious people do, they believe what they want to believe, often flying in the face of all evidence. This debate goes beyond simply flaws in Christianity, and even religion versus atheism. It's a debate between believing in what you want to be true, and what the evidence says is true. This is the basis of many debates, whether its about gods, ghosts, alien abductions, or strange homeopathic medicines (some weird, silly things in there). It's the debate that shows truly where people's intellectual maturity is at (which is not at all a reflection on people's emotional maturity, I should be quick to add).
As you can probably guess, beliefs are powerful things. All human actions performed is based on or affected by what we believe, whether it's the belief that things persist and continue to be whether we're looking at them or not, or whether it's the belief that an alien empire created humankind. People will love, hate, fight, enjoy, kill, and die for their beliefs. The power of beliefs is not a trifling thing, and should be treated and handled with the proper respect and gravitas. Thus, it is of the supreme importance that people's beliefs are based as much as they can be upon accurate and sure ground, not only for the person's happiness and efficacy, but also for everyone else's, since we live in a world were everyone is interconnected, and no action is without consequence.
Now, enter faith. Faith essentially gives people free reign with their beliefs. They can believe pretty much believe whatever they want to believe, simply because they want to believe it (often its not a conscious decision or something the person is necessarily fully aware of). Now, I want you to take in that sentence and realize its full, and possibly terrifying, consequences.
As long as faith is condoned as a reason to formulate your beliefs, people can pretty much make up whatever they believe, as long as they want to believe in it. Such a system for creating beliefs will at the very least be inefficient and annoying, but at its worst, it can dangerous and fatal. With faith, you can easily believe that the moon is inhabited by extra-dimensional beings, or that there's a god who will reward you richly in some afterlife if you kill everyone who does not believe in him. And, as long as we allow some people to believe in somethings with faith, we cannot hold other people accountable for believing other things with faith as well.
Hitler believed that the Jewish people were, without any sure line of logic or proof, the root of all the bad things that were beguiling Germany (and the world). Islamic fundamentalists believe that they're doing the best things for themselves and the people that they kill since its what a god apparently dictated to them. Such beliefs were brought around because they believed in something that they wanted to, on some level, believe was true, irrespective of what reason and science would say is actually the case. Such faith-based beliefs, while it won't necessarily manifest itself in such extreme forms in every person, nonetheless having people who do leaves the door open for such extreme and dangerous beliefs.
The ostensible "Church" of Scientology takes advantage of this very sort of thing. It's clear that the whole premise, even discounting the fact that it was started by a the unscrupulous L. Ron Hubbard, is ridiculous, shown to be false without a shred of truth to it. Yet, they are trying to establish a sense of legitimacy to themselves by trying to become officially recognized as a "religion". Unfortunately, it is also somewhat working because the claims of Scientology in comparison to any other religion is not any more or less factually ridiculous (though the weirdness of it will definitely seem more so since we're so accustomed to Christianity, Judaism and Islam). Since facts, evidence, and logic don't apply or keep these other religions from operating, Scientology just needs to try to claim its a "religion" as well, and then be impervious to such criticisms (and get other benefits as well, such as tax-breaks).
Beliefs, being such a potent aspect of the human psyche, should really be tempered by evidence and accuracy. Not only does it allow for a more realistic, helpful, and efficient world-view, but also seems to lead to a happier, more moral world. I've never heard of anyone being killed due to differing over scientific theory, and if everyone was educated to the point where they recognizing beliefs they hold because they want them to be true from beliefs they hold that are based on evidence, much people would needlessly suffer or die. There is no good scientific backing or logical reason to kill a particular group of people, or to die killing others. Reason and the scientific process is some of the greatest accomplishments of humankind, enabling us to stand so far above all other complex life on Earth. To let it go continuously marred and ignored only holds us all back.
Now, back to doing other things while realizing how obnoxiously long my posts always end up being.
I'm sure there are those in here who will try to argue this point, but you know what? If you're any kind of believer in science, then you know that there is an infinite amount of things to be discovered and we don't know everything. IF God exists, then he does. We've got a long way to go.
We all have some of those times, eh?
) than a flame war with five or ten other people, where nothing is productive and I learn nothing.
