The Case for Christianity

[bilby]

But what does my grandmother know?

Not too much about the history of science, it seems.

True. I look forward to learning from the people in this thread.

You would do better learning from people who have made a life's work of describing the history of science and technology in an accessible format for non-scientists.

James Burke's long running Connections show on the BBC is a good starting point. It's rather dated, and concentrates on technology rather than the underlying pure science, but it covers a lot of ground without demanding to much prior knowledge of the subject. There were, I believe, three seasons. It should be locatable on YouTube.

I found S1E1 for you:

 

[Brunswick1954]

Little did I know that molecular biology is founded on Egyptian science.

All of science is founded on all previous science, so yes, it is.

I would say that I am glad to hear that you have learned something, but I suspect that you are attempting sarcasm here.

Not at all. I'm just trying to rise to the level of intelligent discourse displayed in this thread.

Really? Then you are failing.

I know. It may be way beyond me.

BTW, what are the fundamental principles of Egyptian science?

The same as any science - observe, hypothesise, test, repeat.

Hmmm. Sounds like methodology, not principles.

I had the crazy idea that science evolved from the Christian universities of Europe in an attempt to understand the mind of God. But what does my grandmother know?

If she thinks that, then "Nothing about the history of science, or apparently about what science even is" would be a good summary. That certainly is a crazy idea, and appears to be Christian propaganda that ignores a massive history prior to 1088.

Is there a particular reason why you think your grandmother is an appropriate authority? Did she study the history of science?

Not at all. I'm just acknowledging the paucity of my knowledge. I'm looking forward to learning from you.

 

[Brunswick1954]

But what does my grandmother know?

Not too much about the history of science, it seems.

True. I look forward to learning from the people in this thread.

You would do better learning from people who have made a life's work of describing the history of science and technology in an accessible format for non-scientists.

Not you?

James Burke's long running Connections show on the BBC is a good starting point. It's rather dated, and concentrates on technology rather than the underlying pure science, but it covers a lot of ground without demanding to much prior knowledge of the subject. There were, I believe, three seasons. It should be locatable on YouTube.

I found S1E1 for you:

Thank you. Appreciate the link.

 

[NoHolyCows]

I agree. I have somewhat misrepresented the argument and NoHolyCows is absolutely correct. What science is essentially saying is that there is no need for a God hypothesis, but several authors like Richard Dawkins have argued that God is thus a delusion. What I wanted to point out though is that science is much more successful with non-living things that it is with living processes (NoHolyCows disputed that later in their reply and I will also respond to that later). I also agree with the second point, that a "good" God shouldn't allow suffering. But He does, and suffering exists. It will take me a lot further into my case before I can address this question.

Thank you for the honest clarification—I appreciate the acknowledgment. You’re right that Dawkins goes further than methodological naturalism, arguing that the God hypothesis is not just unnecessary but implausible. But even then, his argument isn’t that science disproves God in the absolute sense, but that the God claim functions like any other explanatory hypothesis—and fails under scrutiny. That’s not dogma, that’s parsimony.

As for the suffering issue, I respect that you’re holding off until later to address it, but just be aware: any theological framework that acknowledges God allows suffering while still calling Him “good” faces a steep burden of explanation. Simply postponing the answer doesn’t make the problem go away—it just kicks it down the road. When you’re ready to address it, I’ll be curious to see if the explanation respects both logic and moral intuition, not just doctrinal justification.

And yes, I look forward to your follow-up on the living/non-living science claim. There’s a lot to unpack there too.

Because I became a Christian after around 50 years of being an agnostic. I became a Christian about 20 years ago and struggled with a lot of Christian doctrine (Yes, I am over 70 years old). I came to some surprising findings (to me anyway) about the Bible which I wanted to share and see if you agree, etc. I am hoping to build upon their questions as well as their answers. I think their questions are eternal, still burning within us. But the answers have changed and some of the answers we have today surprised me.

But if we want to quote their words and refer to what has been written in the Bible, I think we owe it to ourselves to ask what they might have meant when they wrote it. Did they understand it in a different way? If we understood what they wrote from their perspective, it may make more sense to us. I gave the example of the word "spirit" to illustrate this. We see "spirit" as some supernatural ghost floating in the air whilst to the ancient mind, it simply represented living things. Thus all living things had a spirit to the ancient mind. And praying to trees and animals is simply their way of paying respect to these living things. To the fact that they are alive and not just sticks and stones. Sure, we don't see things that way today, but if we keep this in mind, what they said may make more sense to us today.

One of the reasons I turned to Christianity was because the answers in the Bible made more sense to me than anything else I've read since I embarked on the journey.

I appreciate you sharing your personal journey, especially the shift after decades of agnosticism. Life experience matters—and I respect that your path led you to answers that felt meaningful. But we need to separate psychological resonance from epistemic reliability.

Yes, the questions our ancestors asked—about life, death, meaning—are still with us. They are deeply human. But while their questions endure, their answers were constrained by the tools and knowledge available at the time. That’s precisely why we shouldn’t just revisit their worldview uncritically. Trying to “see through their eyes” can offer cultural insight—but it cannot substitute for rigorous evaluation by today’s standards.

Take your example of “spirit.” You’re absolutely right that in ancient times, “spirit” meant breath or life-force—because they didn’t understand biology. They weren’t wrong to call attention to the mystery of life, but they were working within a framework of poetic animism, not biochemical reality. Interpreting that as metaphor today is one thing—taking it as literal truth is another.

And about the Bible: if parts of it resonate more than anything else you’ve read, that’s meaningful to you. But resonance isn’t evidence. Lots of people feel the same way about the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, or Buddhist sutras. The test isn’t whether something “makes more sense to me,” but whether it holds up to reason, evidence, and internal consistency. If we don’t apply those standards to sacred texts, then we have no way to distinguish deep insight from emotionally satisfying myth.

So yes—let’s explore their questions. Let’s respect their humanity. But let’s also be honest about the limits of their knowledge, and cautious about treating ancient answers as timeless truth.

LOL. I disagree. Science began with Newton's Laws and the study of how objects move. It never got to the point of explaining why ameobas can move without an external force whilst stones can't. I'm not even asking if we can recreate life. Sure, we have biology, but it doesn't really come near to understanding how living things work. We also have medicine, but medicine only works in terms of curing diseases and helping to keep the body alive. Indeed, in medicine itself, it is widely accepted that the true healing comes from the patient, and that the level of faith that the patient has in terms of recovery affects the possibility and rate of recovery. The most important thing for the patient to heal is to rest and let the body, in effect, heal itself. Significantly, you can worry yourself sick and perhaps even die because you believe you are going to die. Modern medicine has no cure from that, apart from trying to convince you not to worry and that you are not going to die (eventually, but not yet).

More importantly, this is not an argument I want get into because it is somewhat beside the point.

Glad to see some humor, but let’s take the point seriously.

Yes, modern science began with Newton, but it’s evolved far beyond studying falling apples. Biology, biochemistry, genetics, neuroscience, and systems biology do explain how living things work—at cellular, molecular, and systemic levels. We understand how amoebas move: through cytoplasmic streaming, pseudopodia, and motor proteins interacting with actin filaments. That’s not a mystery anymore—it’s textbook science.

You mention that medicine often relies on the body’s own healing processes. That’s true—and entirely compatible with biology. The placebo effect, immune response, cellular regeneration—these are all natural mechanisms. Saying “the body heals itself” doesn’t imply magic; it reflects a highly evolved biological system. And yes, psychological states like stress or belief can influence physical health, but again, that’s a field called psychoneuroimmunology, not spiritual mystery.

You then say this isn’t the argument you want to get into because it’s “beside the point.” But it’s not. You originally claimed science doesn’t deal with the Nature we experience. I showed that it does, and now the goalposts are moving. If your argument depends on a fundamental distinction between living and non-living nature—and you’re saying science can’t touch the former—then this is the point.

Backing away from it now doesn’t strengthen your position. It just leaves an important claim unaddressed.

So let’s be clear: complexity is not a gap for mysticism. It’s an invitation for deeper investigation. And science is already well inside that territory.

On the contrary, I think it is decidedly odd. We can make claims about things that are far away and even about things in the past which we can't possibly touch and study in the normal way, but we have next to zero understanding about things that are right in front of us. I'm not talking about the origin of life, which is admittedly a difficult problem (although I'm not sure why since it's all around us). I'm just saying we can't make bones from milk, which our bodies do on a daily basis. Or make a dead chicken lay eggs. We have done a lot of work, I am not saying that we haven't. But they fall far short of the level of faith that we seem to have in it.

If you admit that life is a difficult question that may lie beyond the scope of current science, maybe we need to revisit some old texts to see if they have some answers we need to reconsider. We may even have to think in a different way to get answers to some of the questions about life that we have.

BTW: Music does indeed escape physics. Scientists are unable to explain why some sounds is music to some ears and not to others. If you have a good scientific explanation, do let me know. Saying that we know how sound works is a far cry from saying that we understand music. But again, this is beside the point.

Thanks for clarifying, but let’s unpack this carefully.

You say it’s “odd” that we can study things far away but struggle with things close to us. It’s only odd if you assume proximity equals simplicity. That assumption doesn’t hold. A black hole obeys relatively simple physics once you understand general relativity. A single living cell, by contrast, involves massively complex biochemical systems with layers of regulation, emergent behavior, and evolution-driven redundancy. It’s not odd that some things are harder—it’s just reality.

Now, the “bones from milk” line keeps coming up. Our bodies do convert nutrients into bones through very well-documented pathways: calcium absorption, vitamin D regulation, hormonal signaling, osteoblast activity. You say science hasn’t figured this out, but we literally teach it in biology classes. The fact that we can’t yet replicate the entire physiological system artificially doesn’t mean we don’t understand it—it means engineering a full, living system is hard. That’s not a philosophical gap. It’s just technical limitation.

As for the dead chicken laying eggs—that’s a category error. That’s not a scientific shortcoming; that’s a misunderstanding of biological death. No system—scientific or spiritual—has reversed that.

You then suggest that because life is complex, we might need to return to “old texts” for answers. But ancient texts didn’t explain life—they anthropomorphized it. They projected agency where there was only complexity. They gave us metaphors, not mechanisms. Re-examining them for cultural insight? Absolutely. For literal biological understanding? That’s nostalgia, not knowledge.

And finally—your point about music “escaping physics” misunderstands the distinction between how something works and how we value it. Physics explains how sound waves function. Psychology and neuroscience study perception and emotion. That some people prefer Bach to bebop isn’t a failure of physics—it’s a feature of subjective experience layered atop a very well-understood physical substrate.

So again, we’re not dealing with something “beyond science.” We’re dealing with something science is already deeply engaged in—just not at the speed of human impatience or the clarity of ancient poetry. Let’s not confuse that for failure.

Exactly. I am suggesting that to the ancient mind, the spiritual world is not something supernatural, but part of the reality they inhabit. The reason why, I think, we perceive that religion makes claims that are not rationally defensible to us is because we understand religion in a different way than believers do. According to the Internet (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/), 84% of the population in the world today are religious - identified in the study simply as people who ascribe to a recognized religion. Several of our most prominent scientists are religious. After much study and research, I too became religious. I happen to be Christian because my research led me to Christianity and probably more importantly, the material I have most access to are in English (the only language I read) and they mainly talk about Christianity (both for and against).

Is this helpful? I feel like I'm running around in circles and not moving forward. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if NHC comes back with a reply, probably several, to defend his points and I will then have to reply as well. This is a very long reply to just one response which took a lot of my time and didn't help me develop my case. And there are a lot more arguments that readers have made. Most of us "free-thinkers" have our own set of beliefs which are very hard to argue against. The more intelligent we are, the more difficult it is to disprove. This topic has engaged some of the best minds we have and we're no closer to an answer that is widely satisfactory. I really don't want to get into a heated argument with anyone. We are all entitled to our views and I have no problems with yours (even when this thread is deemed "a poor man's ChatGPT overview of Christianity". LOL).

Still, it's an interesting topic to me and I want to share my thoughts and see where it takes me. Should I ask @pood to be the arbiter and select a post for me to respond to each day (I'm planning to only do one post a day) or pose questions on behalf of the readers? Or maybe just answer the first response I get each day? If anyone has any suggestions around how we can moderate this thread, do tell.

BTW, I haven't covered everything I wanted to cover. There's a lot more to come.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I appreciate that you’re trying to move the conversation forward constructively and not spiral into endless back-and-forth. That said, there are still a few key things worth clarifying for both you and the audience before we move on.

You’re absolutely right that to the ancient mind, “spirit” wasn’t supernatural in the modern sense—it was their way of understanding life and vitality. That’s an important distinction. But when modern religious claims invoke “spirit” today, they often leap from that historical-poetic sense into metaphysical assertions about souls, divine agencies, or unseen realms. That’s where rational critique becomes necessary—not because we misunderstand believers, but because those claims go beyond metaphor into literal, unverifiable territory. And that is fair game for scrutiny.

Now, citing the Pew statistic that 84% of the world is religious doesn’t prove the truth of religious claims—it proves their popularity. Billions once believed the sun orbited the Earth. Belief is not evidence. The appeal to authority through “prominent religious scientists” is also not quite what it seems. Many of them compartmentalize their beliefs—doing science in the lab while maintaining private faith. And many more of the most rigorous scientists today are either agnostic or explicitly nonreligious. So while you’re free to take inspiration from others’ journeys, it doesn’t resolve the central question: are the truth claims of religion rationally and evidentially supported?

You also said something worth emphasizing: that you became a Christian largely because the material you encountered was in English and mostly about Christianity. That’s an important admission. It reveals just how much geography and language—not just truth—shape belief. If you’d grown up with fluent Arabic and read Islamic apologetics instead, would your “research” have led you elsewhere? That’s not an attack—it’s a call to recognize the cultural scaffolding behind conviction.

Finally, I hear your concern about pace and engagement. You’re welcome to set whatever limits you need—respond to one post a day, ask someone to moderate, or pick one thread to explore at a time. Just don’t conflate the effort of reply with the lack of progress. Sometimes, the most meaningful insights emerge when we wrestle through complexity and disagreement, not avoid it.

Looking forward to seeing where you take the next part of your case.

NHC

 

[steve_bank]

Science did not begin with Newton, He was a point in time going back to early civilizations.

As to impact on modern science and technology many contributors but Newton and Maxwell stand out.

Newton for what we call Newtonian mechanics, dynamic motion treated mathematically along with his mathematical system of notation which evolved in the calculus as we have it today.

Newtonian mechanics covers a lot and is still a mainstay. Aerodynamics, fluid mechanics. Static and dynamic mechanical structures. Getting a probe on the Moon is Newtonian mechanics.

Maxwell’s Equations from the 19th century set the stage for electrical technology and theory. It remains a cornerstone. His work was based on Gauss, Faraday, and Ampere.

Einstein was important but not for relativity. His paper Photo Electric Effect experimentally demonstrated that light was quantized. Quantum mechanics opened the path to modern solid state electronics. Computers and all that is derived from commuters like AI.


Newtonian Mechanics – large aggregates of particles as an object like a baseball, rocket, or a planet. Slow relative to speed of light.

Relativistic Mechanics – fast particles, high percentages of speed of light.

Quantum Mechanics – small particles.

Note Newton was Christian, he resorted to ‘god of the gaps’ at times. He held views on the Trinity that could have gotten him into trouble.


Newton and Einstein have become modern icons of science, but it is rare if ever one single person. Everything builds on the past.

Newton does show one can be religious and do good science.

 

[Swammerdami]

Wait a week, calm down, and take a look at the post where you insulted Brunswick.

I didn't make any posts where I insulted Brunswick.

Seriously, pointing out that someone has made a factually erroroneous statement is not an insult. Nor is accusing them of ignorance, if the accusation is true (which it demonstrably is in this case).

Please, quote to me the part of my post that you believe to be insulting.

You're joking. YOU made factual errors. Egyptian technology is NOT science in the modern definition.

Except for your own errors, almost everything you wrote was deliberately intended to be insulting. It would be harder to locate the phrases (and perhaps even a complete sentence or two) which were NOT insulting.

ETA: The whole diatribe -- complaining about a shorthand Newton reference which was tangential anyway -- served zero purpose except to insult Brunswick. That you claim otherwise is baffling. Calm down.

 

[Brunswick1954]

I agree. I have somewhat misrepresented the argument and NoHolyCows is absolutely correct. What science is essentially saying is that there is no need for a God hypothesis, but several authors like Richard Dawkins have argued that God is thus a delusion. What I wanted to point out though is that science is much more successful with non-living things that it is with living processes (NoHolyCows disputed that later in their reply and I will also respond to that later). I also agree with the second point, that a "good" God shouldn't allow suffering. But He does, and suffering exists. It will take me a lot further into my case before I can address this question.

Thank you for the honest clarification—I appreciate the acknowledgment. You’re right that Dawkins goes further than methodological naturalism, arguing that the God hypothesis is not just unnecessary but implausible. But even then, his argument isn’t that science disproves God in the absolute sense, but that the God claim functions like any other explanatory hypothesis—and fails under scrutiny. That’s not dogma, that’s parsimony.

As for the suffering issue, I respect that you’re holding off until later to address it, but just be aware: any theological framework that acknowledges God allows suffering while still calling Him “good” faces a steep burden of explanation. Simply postponing the answer doesn’t make the problem go away—it just kicks it down the road. When you’re ready to address it, I’ll be curious to see if the explanation respects both logic and moral intuition, not just doctrinal justification.

And yes, I look forward to your follow-up on the living/non-living science claim. There’s a lot to unpack there too.

Because I became a Christian after around 50 years of being an agnostic. I became a Christian about 20 years ago and struggled with a lot of Christian doctrine (Yes, I am over 70 years old). I came to some surprising findings (to me anyway) about the Bible which I wanted to share and see if you agree, etc. I am hoping to build upon their questions as well as their answers. I think their questions are eternal, still burning within us. But the answers have changed and some of the answers we have today surprised me.

But if we want to quote their words and refer to what has been written in the Bible, I think we owe it to ourselves to ask what they might have meant when they wrote it. Did they understand it in a different way? If we understood what they wrote from their perspective, it may make more sense to us. I gave the example of the word "spirit" to illustrate this. We see "spirit" as some supernatural ghost floating in the air whilst to the ancient mind, it simply represented living things. Thus all living things had a spirit to the ancient mind. And praying to trees and animals is simply their way of paying respect to these living things. To the fact that they are alive and not just sticks and stones. Sure, we don't see things that way today, but if we keep this in mind, what they said may make more sense to us today.

One of the reasons I turned to Christianity was because the answers in the Bible made more sense to me than anything else I've read since I embarked on the journey.

I appreciate you sharing your personal journey, especially the shift after decades of agnosticism. Life experience matters—and I respect that your path led you to answers that felt meaningful. But we need to separate psychological resonance from epistemic reliability.

Yes, the questions our ancestors asked—about life, death, meaning—are still with us. They are deeply human. But while their questions endure, their answers were constrained by the tools and knowledge available at the time. That’s precisely why we shouldn’t just revisit their worldview uncritically. Trying to “see through their eyes” can offer cultural insight—but it cannot substitute for rigorous evaluation by today’s standards.

Take your example of “spirit.” You’re absolutely right that in ancient times, “spirit” meant breath or life-force—because they didn’t understand biology. They weren’t wrong to call attention to the mystery of life, but they were working within a framework of poetic animism, not biochemical reality. Interpreting that as metaphor today is one thing—taking it as literal truth is another.

And about the Bible: if parts of it resonate more than anything else you’ve read, that’s meaningful to you. But resonance isn’t evidence. Lots of people feel the same way about the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, or Buddhist sutras. The test isn’t whether something “makes more sense to me,” but whether it holds up to reason, evidence, and internal consistency. If we don’t apply those standards to sacred texts, then we have no way to distinguish deep insight from emotionally satisfying myth.

So yes—let’s explore their questions. Let’s respect their humanity. But let’s also be honest about the limits of their knowledge, and cautious about treating ancient answers as timeless truth.

LOL. I disagree. Science began with Newton's Laws and the study of how objects move. It never got to the point of explaining why ameobas can move without an external force whilst stones can't. I'm not even asking if we can recreate life. Sure, we have biology, but it doesn't really come near to understanding how living things work. We also have medicine, but medicine only works in terms of curing diseases and helping to keep the body alive. Indeed, in medicine itself, it is widely accepted that the true healing comes from the patient, and that the level of faith that the patient has in terms of recovery affects the possibility and rate of recovery. The most important thing for the patient to heal is to rest and let the body, in effect, heal itself. Significantly, you can worry yourself sick and perhaps even die because you believe you are going to die. Modern medicine has no cure from that, apart from trying to convince you not to worry and that you are not going to die (eventually, but not yet).

More importantly, this is not an argument I want get into because it is somewhat beside the point.

Glad to see some humor, but let’s take the point seriously.

Yes, modern science began with Newton, but it’s evolved far beyond studying falling apples. Biology, biochemistry, genetics, neuroscience, and systems biology do explain how living things work—at cellular, molecular, and systemic levels. We understand how amoebas move: through cytoplasmic streaming, pseudopodia, and motor proteins interacting with actin filaments. That’s not a mystery anymore—it’s textbook science.

You mention that medicine often relies on the body’s own healing processes. That’s true—and entirely compatible with biology. The placebo effect, immune response, cellular regeneration—these are all natural mechanisms. Saying “the body heals itself” doesn’t imply magic; it reflects a highly evolved biological system. And yes, psychological states like stress or belief can influence physical health, but again, that’s a field called psychoneuroimmunology, not spiritual mystery.

You then say this isn’t the argument you want to get into because it’s “beside the point.” But it’s not. You originally claimed science doesn’t deal with the Nature we experience. I showed that it does, and now the goalposts are moving. If your argument depends on a fundamental distinction between living and non-living nature—and you’re saying science can’t touch the former—then this is the point.

Backing away from it now doesn’t strengthen your position. It just leaves an important claim unaddressed.

So let’s be clear: complexity is not a gap for mysticism. It’s an invitation for deeper investigation. And science is already well inside that territory.

On the contrary, I think it is decidedly odd. We can make claims about things that are far away and even about things in the past which we can't possibly touch and study in the normal way, but we have next to zero understanding about things that are right in front of us. I'm not talking about the origin of life, which is admittedly a difficult problem (although I'm not sure why since it's all around us). I'm just saying we can't make bones from milk, which our bodies do on a daily basis. Or make a dead chicken lay eggs. We have done a lot of work, I am not saying that we haven't. But they fall far short of the level of faith that we seem to have in it.

If you admit that life is a difficult question that may lie beyond the scope of current science, maybe we need to revisit some old texts to see if they have some answers we need to reconsider. We may even have to think in a different way to get answers to some of the questions about life that we have.

BTW: Music does indeed escape physics. Scientists are unable to explain why some sounds is music to some ears and not to others. If you have a good scientific explanation, do let me know. Saying that we know how sound works is a far cry from saying that we understand music. But again, this is beside the point.

Thanks for clarifying, but let’s unpack this carefully.

You say it’s “odd” that we can study things far away but struggle with things close to us. It’s only odd if you assume proximity equals simplicity. That assumption doesn’t hold. A black hole obeys relatively simple physics once you understand general relativity. A single living cell, by contrast, involves massively complex biochemical systems with layers of regulation, emergent behavior, and evolution-driven redundancy. It’s not odd that some things are harder—it’s just reality.

Now, the “bones from milk” line keeps coming up. Our bodies do convert nutrients into bones through very well-documented pathways: calcium absorption, vitamin D regulation, hormonal signaling, osteoblast activity. You say science hasn’t figured this out, but we literally teach it in biology classes. The fact that we can’t yet replicate the entire physiological system artificially doesn’t mean we don’t understand it—it means engineering a full, living system is hard. That’s not a philosophical gap. It’s just technical limitation.

As for the dead chicken laying eggs—that’s a category error. That’s not a scientific shortcoming; that’s a misunderstanding of biological death. No system—scientific or spiritual—has reversed that.

You then suggest that because life is complex, we might need to return to “old texts” for answers. But ancient texts didn’t explain life—they anthropomorphized it. They projected agency where there was only complexity. They gave us metaphors, not mechanisms. Re-examining them for cultural insight? Absolutely. For literal biological understanding? That’s nostalgia, not knowledge.

And finally—your point about music “escaping physics” misunderstands the distinction between how something works and how we value it. Physics explains how sound waves function. Psychology and neuroscience study perception and emotion. That some people prefer Bach to bebop isn’t a failure of physics—it’s a feature of subjective experience layered atop a very well-understood physical substrate.

So again, we’re not dealing with something “beyond science.” We’re dealing with something science is already deeply engaged in—just not at the speed of human impatience or the clarity of ancient poetry. Let’s not confuse that for failure.

Exactly. I am suggesting that to the ancient mind, the spiritual world is not something supernatural, but part of the reality they inhabit. The reason why, I think, we perceive that religion makes claims that are not rationally defensible to us is because we understand religion in a different way than believers do. According to the Internet (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/), 84% of the population in the world today are religious - identified in the study simply as people who ascribe to a recognized religion. Several of our most prominent scientists are religious. After much study and research, I too became religious. I happen to be Christian because my research led me to Christianity and probably more importantly, the material I have most access to are in English (the only language I read) and they mainly talk about Christianity (both for and against).

Is this helpful? I feel like I'm running around in circles and not moving forward. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if NHC comes back with a reply, probably several, to defend his points and I will then have to reply as well. This is a very long reply to just one response which took a lot of my time and didn't help me develop my case. And there are a lot more arguments that readers have made. Most of us "free-thinkers" have our own set of beliefs which are very hard to argue against. The more intelligent we are, the more difficult it is to disprove. This topic has engaged some of the best minds we have and we're no closer to an answer that is widely satisfactory. I really don't want to get into a heated argument with anyone. We are all entitled to our views and I have no problems with yours (even when this thread is deemed "a poor man's ChatGPT overview of Christianity". LOL).

Still, it's an interesting topic to me and I want to share my thoughts and see where it takes me. Should I ask @pood to be the arbiter and select a post for me to respond to each day (I'm planning to only do one post a day) or pose questions on behalf of the readers? Or maybe just answer the first response I get each day? If anyone has any suggestions around how we can moderate this thread, do tell.

BTW, I haven't covered everything I wanted to cover. There's a lot more to come.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I appreciate that you’re trying to move the conversation forward constructively and not spiral into endless back-and-forth. That said, there are still a few key things worth clarifying for both you and the audience before we move on.

You’re absolutely right that to the ancient mind, “spirit” wasn’t supernatural in the modern sense—it was their way of understanding life and vitality. That’s an important distinction. But when modern religious claims invoke “spirit” today, they often leap from that historical-poetic sense into metaphysical assertions about souls, divine agencies, or unseen realms. That’s where rational critique becomes necessary—not because we misunderstand believers, but because those claims go beyond metaphor into literal, unverifiable territory. And that is fair game for scrutiny.

Now, citing the Pew statistic that 84% of the world is religious doesn’t prove the truth of religious claims—it proves their popularity. Billions once believed the sun orbited the Earth. Belief is not evidence. The appeal to authority through “prominent religious scientists” is also not quite what it seems. Many of them compartmentalize their beliefs—doing science in the lab while maintaining private faith. And many more of the most rigorous scientists today are either agnostic or explicitly nonreligious. So while you’re free to take inspiration from others’ journeys, it doesn’t resolve the central question: are the truth claims of religion rationally and evidentially supported?

You also said something worth emphasizing: that you became a Christian largely because the material you encountered was in English and mostly about Christianity. That’s an important admission. It reveals just how much geography and language—not just truth—shape belief. If you’d grown up with fluent Arabic and read Islamic apologetics instead, would your “research” have led you elsewhere? That’s not an attack—it’s a call to recognize the cultural scaffolding behind conviction.

Finally, I hear your concern about pace and engagement. You’re welcome to set whatever limits you need—respond to one post a day, ask someone to moderate, or pick one thread to explore at a time. Just don’t conflate the effort of reply with the lack of progress. Sometimes, the most meaningful insights emerge when we wrestle through complexity and disagreement, not avoid it.

Looking forward to seeing where you take the next part of your case.

NHC

Dear NHC,

There's a lot to unpack here. Will it be alright if we agree to disagree on parts that are tangential and focus on those parts which are central to the discussion?

I think the first part to unpack is the Bible itself. I take it to be a collection of holy books, but not sacred in the sense that it is literally true. In fact, the fact that it was written by human agency and not by God himself is admitted in the Bible itself. Thus, the Bible is not so much a collection of books written by God but books about human encounters with God written by humans. The fact that it is freely translated and interpreted seems to suggest that we're supposed to see it that way.

Understood that way, the narrative in the Bible takes on a different nuance. For example, I'm rather amazed and impressed by how closely the Creation myth anticipates the Big Bang and evolution. Looking at other myths extant at that time, it's really quite amazing that someone much later after the birth of humankind could conceive such a concept. Perhaps, it came to the author as a vision or a dream. And if so, imagining seeing the unfolding of the Big Bang as a dream, the author might communicate it in human terms as they did. If so, indeed, perhaps the dream came from God, rather than their own imagination.

In those days, authorship wasn't as big a deal as it is now, and so even though Moses was ascribed as the author of the Pentateuch, he probably had a group of advisors and prophets who advised him, and what the Bible actually is, is a history of the Jewish nation and not an all out condemnation of the rest of humankind.

Does that make sense? I dread to anticipate the brilliant rebuttals to come, LOL. It's so way beyond my modest mind.

 

[bilby]

Wait a week, calm down, and take a look at the post where you insulted Brunswick.

I didn't make any posts where I insulted Brunswick.

Seriously, pointing out that someone has made a factually erroroneous statement is not an insult. Nor is accusing them of ignorance, if the accusation is true (which it demonstrably is in this case).

Please, quote to me the part of my post that you believe to be insulting.

You're joking.

Nope.

YOU made factual errors. Egyptian technology is NOT science in the modern definition.

I didn't say it was. It is, however, like all technology, underpinned by the scientific method (even if that method is not formally acknowleged or even recognised by those doing it). The people who worked out that the rising of Sirius presaged the flooding of the Nile were doing scence.

Except for your own errors, almost everything you wrote was deliberately intended to be insulting.

I am impressed by your attempt at mind-reading, but the results are very disappointing.

It would be harder to locate the phrases (and perhaps even a complete sentence or two) which were NOT insulting.

So, pick one. Or can't you find one?

ETA: The whole diatribe -- complaining about a shorthand Newton reference which was tangential anyway -- served zero purpose except to insult Brunswick.

Again with the mind reading. It's fortunate that I have you to tell me my intents and purposes, because clearly you are a far superior authority than I on the topic of "what bilby intended or wanted to achieve"

That you claim otherwise is baffling. Calm down.

I am perfectly calm. Your bafflement is your own problem.

As is your inability to support your claim that I insulted Brunswick, which claim is apparently supported only by your efforts to divine my intents and purposes without actually communicating with me.

Good luck with that.

 

[James Brown]

If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

--Isaac Newton

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

--Isaac Newton

I have heard that was meant as an insult to people like Hooke.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Wait a week, calm down, and take a look at the post where you insulted Brunswick.

I didn't make any posts where I insulted Brunswick.

Seriously, pointing out that someone has made a factually erroroneous statement is not an insult. Nor is accusing them of ignorance, if the accusation is true (which it demonstrably is in this case).

Please, quote to me the part of my post that you believe to be insulting.

Oh no, not Brunswick, we mustn't insult him, of all people. The horror.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Understood that way, the narrative in the Bible takes on a different nuance. For example, I'm rather amazed and impressed by how closely the Creation myth anticipates the Big Bang and evolution.

It does neither. Furthermore, the First Creation narrative is ripped from the Babylonian's Gilgamesh Epic. It isn't remotely original, except that it ends the seventh day as something of note, the day of rest... which of course was how Israelites worshipped while in captivity. Evolution? Where in the Tanakh is it suggested that life (animals and plants) tends towards symbiosis?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I haven't had so much fun in years. You people are simply hilarious. Anyway, I set up my altar outside my cave, as I always do, and prayed to God last night. My grandmother, who taught me Newtonian physics, had said that much of classical science was founded upon Newton’s principles and framework, and is referred to as Newtonian science in contrast with the later science of relativity and nuclear physics. Little did I know that molecular biology is founded on Egyptian science. As I prayed, Jesus Christ physically appeared before me and told me to leave this group. I asked him why and he said something about sheep and goats. When I pressed him further, he smiled and said I wouldn't understand. So, regrettably, I must leave. Jesus calls.

But what does my grandmother know?

Not too much about the history of science, it seems.

True. I look forward to learning from the people in this thread.

Nothing like the swapping of personas mid-thread.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Matthew 22: How can you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and not believe in him? And if this is Jesus' "great and first" commandment, then you do indeed have to believe in him. It's the crux of the whole covenant.

That is not where I find the crux. I see the crux as located with the second part of Jesus' remark.

Recall that according to the story, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the like were testing Jesus "to entangle him in his talk" (Matthew 22: 15). Because it was a test, when they asked Jesus to identify the greatest commandment, there was already a set, expected answer that would be acceptable. This was not an open problem that needed solving. In order to pass the test, the acceptable answer would be one which invoked Deuteronomy 6: 4-5: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” So, Jesus appears to respond precisely as is required by the thought conventions of the time. Except for the fact that he tacks on another notion regarding love of neighbor. But even that could not be objectionable since he was referring to an already well-known commandment from Leviticus 19:18 which says, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus is asked to say aloud, to recognize, to admit, to specify which is supposedly the great commandment. It is a request to have stated the single commandment which is properly acknowledged as the great, the foremost amongst all of the many commandments. And Jesus does so answer. Sort of.

Sort of, because he does not respond by citing only one commandment as would seem to be required by the manner of the question posed to him. Instead, he notes two commandments. Sort of. Because with that “And the second is like unto it” (Matthew 22: 39), Jesus is not saying that the second is secondary; he is not saying that it is in any way lesser. The “like unto it” veritably equates the second with the first at least in terms of importance.

But these effectively equated commandments are oddly related. The first commandment is effectively dependent on the second in order for the first to be satisfied – without the second seeming likewise dependent on the first. The first commandment is not fulfilled without the second being fulfilled. But, clearly, the second can (in theory) be fulfilled without the first being fulfilled. There is an asymmetry, and the crux of the presentation rests not with the first commandment but, instead, with the second since the first is dependent on the second.

The Luke version of the story differs in that it has Jesus respond such that it is the inquisitor who states what Jesus says in the Matthew version, and the Luke version also differs in that it begins to delve into some characteristics of neighbor, of stranger as neighbor, as well as love for an other, and all of those characteristics would have had supportive Old Testament references.

 

[NoHolyCows]

There's a lot to unpack here. Will it be alright if we agree to disagree on parts that are tangential and focus on those parts which are central to the discussion?

I think the first part to unpack is the Bible itself. I take it to be a collection of holy books, but not sacred in the sense that it is literally true. In fact, the fact that it was written by human agency and not by God himself is admitted in the Bible itself. Thus, the Bible is not so much a collection of books written by God but books about human encounters with God written by humans. The fact that it is freely translated and interpreted seems to suggest that we're supposed to see it that way.

Understood that way, the narrative in the Bible takes on a different nuance. For example, I'm rather amazed and impressed by how closely the Creation myth anticipates the Big Bang and evolution. Looking at other myths extant at that time, it's really quite amazing that someone much later after the birth of humankind could conceive such a concept. Perhaps, it came to the author as a vision or a dream. And if so, imagining seeing the unfolding of the Big Bang as a dream, the author might communicate it in human terms as they did. If so, indeed, perhaps the dream came from God, rather than their own imagination.

In those days, authorship wasn't as big a deal as it is now, and so even though Moses was ascribed as the author of the Pentateuch, he probably had a group of advisors and prophets who advised him, and what the Bible actually is, is a history of the Jewish nation and not an all out condemnation of the rest of humankind.

Does that make sense? I dread to anticipate the brilliant rebuttals to come, LOL. It's so way beyond my modest mind.

Appreciate your tone here—genuinely. And yes, I’m all for narrowing the discussion to focus on core claims. So let’s do that with what you’ve just laid out: the nature of the Bible, its authorship, and whether the Genesis narrative anticipates modern science.

First, your framing of the Bible as “books about human encounters with God written by humans” is far more theologically modest than many traditional Christian claims. That’s refreshing—and far more defensible. But the moment we admit that the Bible is human in origin, we’re in a different category. We’re no longer talking about divine revelation, but about subjective human interpretations of perceived spiritual experiences. And once we go there, those interpretations are no longer exempt from critique—they’re historical claims, and they compete with other cultural myths that make contradictory assertions.

Second, the idea that Genesis “amazingly anticipates the Big Bang and evolution” doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The Genesis narrative doesn’t describe a singularity, spacetime expansion, or billions of years. It gives a flat-earth cosmology: a firm dome (“firmament”) above, waters below, light before the sun, Earth before stars, humans made from dust, and plants created before the sun. Trying to retrofit modern cosmology into this text is like seeing nuclear physics in a fortune cookie—it only works if you squint hard and read into the text what isn’t there.

If the Genesis account came to someone in a dream, we still have no reason to conclude it came from God rather than imagination, culture, or guesswork. Humans dream all the time. Some dreams resonate. But resonance isn’t revelation. If we grant that some ancient person’s dream was divinely inspired because it sounds a little like modern science, why not grant the same to the Rigveda, or the Enuma Elish, or even Plato? Selective attribution doesn’t get us to truth—it just reinforces the worldview we already lean toward.

And finally, yes, authorship in antiquity was different. But that weakens the historical credibility of the text, not strengthens it. If the Pentateuch wasn’t written by Moses but compiled and edited over centuries (which critical scholarship supports), that doesn’t invalidate it morally—but it certainly reframes it as the evolving national mythology of a Bronze Age people, not a pristine revelation from outside time.

So yes—it makes sense that you interpret the Bible this way. It makes it more survivable in the modern age. But it also strips it of divine authority and places it back where it belongs: among the rich, flawed, fascinating mythologies of human history. That’s not a dismissal—it’s a reclassification. And from there, we can discuss it more honestly.

NHC

 

[WAB]

If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

--Isaac Newton

Andre and Jolly Green have filed a suit...

 

[TomC]

Wait a week, calm down, and take a look at the post where you insulted Brunswick.

I didn't make any posts where I insulted Brunswick.

Seriously, pointing out that someone has made a factually erroroneous statement is not an insult. Nor is accusing them of ignorance, if the accusation is true (which it demonstrably is in this case).

Please, quote to me the part of my post that you believe to be insulting.

Oh no, not Brunswick, we mustn't insult him, of all people. The horror.

Honestly, even I thought bilby was a bit over the top.
Let that sink in. TomC thought bilby was being a little too acerbicly sarcastic.
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

Brunswick, you seem to be just another befuddled Christian who is very pleased with him or her self..

Statements like science is better at non living that living things says it all.

'Life' is beyond science?

We may never have a 'smoking gun' of abiogenesis, but through theory of evolution there is a tree of life going back to the earliest known forms of life. Genetics shows all living things are connected.

Native Americans have creation myths. They are refuted by genetics which shows their genetic path back to Europe and Asia.

There is no propose to life and no active agent creating life with a purpose.

Life and evolution are known chemical processes. Your thoughts are the result of chemical processes in your brain.

Through telescopes we see new stars and solar systems forming. All with possibility of life.

Evey where you go on Earth here is some form of life. A bacteria that lives on minerals from rocks were found in the deepest mines in Africa.


Take a look at videos of Black Smokers, deep sea volcanic vents. Creatures and organisms that evolved to live on chemicals toxic to us and without sunlight.

There is a fungus found at Chernobyl living in the reactor on radiation.

It is not 'science' that does not understand life, it is you who does not understand.

What we call life is a collection of inanimate atoms and molecules.

From repeating in Pakistani tribal Muslim areas kids are only taught is the Koran. No math or science like agriculture. Many Christians only see the bible and are largely ignorant of anything outside of it.

 

[Brunswick1954]

There's a lot to unpack here. Will it be alright if we agree to disagree on parts that are tangential and focus on those parts which are central to the discussion?

I think the first part to unpack is the Bible itself. I take it to be a collection of holy books, but not sacred in the sense that it is literally true. In fact, the fact that it was written by human agency and not by God himself is admitted in the Bible itself. Thus, the Bible is not so much a collection of books written by God but books about human encounters with God written by humans. The fact that it is freely translated and interpreted seems to suggest that we're supposed to see it that way.

Understood that way, the narrative in the Bible takes on a different nuance. For example, I'm rather amazed and impressed by how closely the Creation myth anticipates the Big Bang and evolution. Looking at other myths extant at that time, it's really quite amazing that someone much later after the birth of humankind could conceive such a concept. Perhaps, it came to the author as a vision or a dream. And if so, imagining seeing the unfolding of the Big Bang as a dream, the author might communicate it in human terms as they did. If so, indeed, perhaps the dream came from God, rather than their own imagination.

In those days, authorship wasn't as big a deal as it is now, and so even though Moses was ascribed as the author of the Pentateuch, he probably had a group of advisors and prophets who advised him, and what the Bible actually is, is a history of the Jewish nation and not an all out condemnation of the rest of humankind.

Does that make sense? I dread to anticipate the brilliant rebuttals to come, LOL. It's so way beyond my modest mind.

Appreciate your tone here—genuinely. And yes, I’m all for narrowing the discussion to focus on core claims. So let’s do that with what you’ve just laid out: the nature of the Bible, its authorship, and whether the Genesis narrative anticipates modern science.

First, your framing of the Bible as “books about human encounters with God written by humans” is far more theologically modest than many traditional Christian claims. That’s refreshing—and far more defensible. But the moment we admit that the Bible is human in origin, we’re in a different category. We’re no longer talking about divine revelation, but about subjective human interpretations of perceived spiritual experiences. And once we go there, those interpretations are no longer exempt from critique—they’re historical claims, and they compete with other cultural myths that make contradictory assertions.

Second, the idea that Genesis “amazingly anticipates the Big Bang and evolution” doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The Genesis narrative doesn’t describe a singularity, spacetime expansion, or billions of years. It gives a flat-earth cosmology: a firm dome (“firmament”) above, waters below, light before the sun, Earth before stars, humans made from dust, and plants created before the sun. Trying to retrofit modern cosmology into this text is like seeing nuclear physics in a fortune cookie—it only works if you squint hard and read into the text what isn’t there.

If the Genesis account came to someone in a dream, we still have no reason to conclude it came from God rather than imagination, culture, or guesswork. Humans dream all the time. Some dreams resonate. But resonance isn’t revelation. If we grant that some ancient person’s dream was divinely inspired because it sounds a little like modern science, why not grant the same to the Rigveda, or the Enuma Elish, or even Plato? Selective attribution doesn’t get us to truth—it just reinforces the worldview we already lean toward.

And finally, yes, authorship in antiquity was different. But that weakens the historical credibility of the text, not strengthens it. If the Pentateuch wasn’t written by Moses but compiled and edited over centuries (which critical scholarship supports), that doesn’t invalidate it morally—but it certainly reframes it as the evolving national mythology of a Bronze Age people, not a pristine revelation from outside time.

So yes—it makes sense that you interpret the Bible this way. It makes it more survivable in the modern age. But it also strips it of divine authority and places it back where it belongs: among the rich, flawed, fascinating mythologies of human history. That’s not a dismissal—it’s a reclassification. And from there, we can discuss it more honestly.

NHC

Good. I want to address your points directly. My argument here is that this "rich, flawed, fascinating mythologies of human history" is the reality of the ancient mind. They are not constructing mythology, they are expressing and explaining the world as they see it. Not only that, this "flawed" understanding of the world is in fact how we ourselves experience the world we live in today. It is our reality.

When we raise a child, it is still more important to raise them with an appreciation of art, beauty and values than to teach them science. When we are sad or happy, we still express ourselves and find comfort in song and stories than in science. We have art therapy and music as therapy and even story telling as therapy, we don't use science as therapy. Sure, we have medicine, but that heals the body, not the soul. I suggest that it is more important to teach our children about Santa Claus than it is to teach them physics. I suggest that not to believe in Santa Claus is to deprive ourselves of a deep, fundamental and important hope in life. And that this hope is the very essence that makes life worth living. This is not superstition. It is reality.

Our obsession with science has blinded us to what I see as the most glaring failure of science. It has not addressed anything of vital importance to how to live our lives. It is, I insist, about dead things not living things.

I suggest that to understand living things, we need to first see our world spiritually, the way our ancestors do. We need to revisit the world of emotions and of the soul. These things, the spirit and the soul, lie beyond science but are the very essence of life itself. To insist that life, even in ameobas, has been explained in science is, I suggest, so off the mark I can't even begin to discuss it.

To understand God, we need to step down from the pulpit of science and embrace the world we actually live in. A world that we experience through the moment of the present and through our senses and emotions and mind, and begin to understand that. A world that is captured through art and stories rather than scientific fact. I suggest that the very "superstition and mythology" that you reject is the very reality of life itself. And until we embrace and try to understand this reality, we don't understand life at all. Let alone God.

 

[DBT]

We experience the world, not God. Through our experience of the world, we learn not about God, but the world itself.