Re: Observe the trend

On Tue, 18 Mar 2025 17:26:45 +0000, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Martin Harran
<martinharran@gmail.com>:

On Tue, 18 Mar 2025 09:21:31 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
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On Tue, 18 Mar 2025 08:22:39 +0000, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Martin Harran
<martinharran@gmail.com>:
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On Mon, 17 Mar 2025 22:56:35 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
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On Mon, 17 Mar 2025 17:08:32 +0000, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Martin Harran
<martinharran@gmail.com>:
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On Mon, 17 Mar 2025 09:23:41 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
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On Mon, 17 Mar 2025 06:04:13 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com>:
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On Sun, 16 Mar 2025 09:33:54 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
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On Sun, 16 Mar 2025 05:18:02 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com>:
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On Sat, 15 Mar 2025 09:30:41 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
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On Sat, 15 Mar 2025 08:50:22 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com>:
>

On Fri, 14 Mar 2025 09:19:20 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
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On Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:13:29 +1100, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com>:
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<snip>

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The measure of literalism is in the *interpretation* of the text of
Genesis, not the quoting of it.
>

Nope; sorry. "Literalism" literally (sorry 'bout that) means
that the text is taken exactly as read; no interpretation
allowed. If it's interpreted it's not taken literally.

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That's right.  Everybody knows the Bible was originally written in
English.
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...which has exactly zero to do with my point regarding the
meaning of "literal", or his error (an error he has
admitted).

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Check your jerky knees.  My comment is an *affirmation* of your point
to his error.  That means it has everything to do with your point,
contrary to your point to me.
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I concede that may have been the meaning you intended.

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The literal point is that it's silly to argue about THE literal
meaning of THE Bible when THE Bible being referenced is an
interpretation of a translation of a translation of an interpretation.
Children who play telephone know this.  Even if there was a literal
omni-everything God who literally quoted Its pearls of wisdom
literally directly to some mortal, finite humans in their limited
native languages, there is literally zero chance they would have
literally understood what It literally meant.
>

I don't disagree; arguing about the "real" meaning of any
religious text is a fool's game, as nonproductive as
conjectures about angels dancing on pinpoints.

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I disagree.
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Your prerogative.

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Science is a particularly useful way of finding out stuff
that we can verify through testing and experimentation but there are
many things that are simply not open to scientific investigation and
it is an inherent part of human nature to try to figure out how those
things work, how those things have happened.
>
That is where approaches like theology and philosophy come into play;
whilst they are very limited in verification techniques in comparison
to science, reasoning and debating can give us better understanding of
areas not open to science - not perfect understanding but still
better. For example, it is theology and reasoning, not science, that
has pushed the Western world to try to move away from warfare as a
means of settling disagreements
>
The problem comes when someone tries to hold onto a theological or
philosophical idea when science throws up contradictory but clear-cut
evidence. That is the problem with Bible literalism, there is so much
contradictory evidence against a 7-day creation or God creating man
directly by breathing into dust that it is outright foolishness for
someone to try to hold out against that evidence which damages
religious belief in the way St. Augustine warned about.
 

I don't know how long it will be until the idea that
religious belief can be addressed by the methods of science,
or that science can be addressed by the tenets of religion,
can be relegated to the dustbin of bad ideas, but it can't
come any too soon.

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Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that science can be used to
directly uphold religion or vice versa but I do think both can be used
collaboratively to give us a bigger picture. That's where I think
organisations like Biologos, the Templeton Foundation and the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences make important contributions.
>

I suppose that's theoretically possible, but all such
"collaborations" of which I'm aware tend to devolve into
cross-justification, usually by ignoring those pesky
contradictions.

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I don't see that in the three organisations I mentioned but that is
possibly due to me being more familiar than you with their work and
ideas, especially the religious slant to it. The important factor is
that they start by accepting science and seek ways to fit their
religious views around that science. Despite Ron's vehement but
unsubstantiated claims, they do not try to adapt science to fit around
religious beliefs.
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OK. I'm not familiar with those specific ones; my comment
was based on what I've observed in general when people try
to fit together two (or more) mutually contradictory
processes or beliefs.

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And until people become perfect and
perfectly rational I don't see that changing. They're
philosophically distinct (and frequently contradictory)
things; best to keep them that way, at least for now.

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But *my*
point was that I didn't comment about the content, only
about the meaning of "literal" (or, of course, "literally"),
and MarkE's assertion that "The measure of literalism is in
the *interpretation* of the text of  Genesis, not the
quoting of it.". I thought I made that clear with my further
comments made in reply to him and others. IOW, he misused
"literal", which is defined (OED online) as (paraphrased)
"exact or actual meaning, not allegorical or figurative".
"Exact or actual meanings" do not allow of interpretation,
regardless of how the word may be misused ("literally
Hitler"; "I literally died"). At least that's how I see it,
and the OED seems to agree.

>

--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
 the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov