I realize that I may have offended many of you who believe that the Bible is the word of God and you believe it implicitly. (That means without question.)
But therein lies the paradox and the problem.
If God did indeed place you and I on this Earth then he, or she, did so with our brains and the power to question all things in and even out of our universe. And since God gave us our brains it would therefore appear to be a sin not to use them. And if you further believe that God is all powerful and all knowledgeable then he placed almost each and every one of us on this Earth with our brains intact and in working order.
Scientists are constantly experimenting on ways to cure diseases such as Alzheimer's and other disorders. If one of the ways they can cure the pain and suffering of a fellow Human Being is to utilize stem cells then I say God speed. And to prevent science from pursuing this noble endeavor would be to promote the Devil's work.
If we use our brains and realize that evolution is a fact then the Bible, as good as it is, is merely a great fiction and a guideline to a peaceful contented way of life. It is a wonderous book written through the centuries by very learned men and possibly women who used their brains to put on paper or commit to memory stories and parables to help us live.
But the Bible is not the only path to a full and meaningful way of life. Helping other people, and I mean all people live their lives the way they wish to live is therefore divine. We may feel pity for those who do not live their lives the way we would like them to live or the way we live ours but we are not God. If someone has a different way of feeling for other human beings, be they of a different religion or the same sex then that is their choice. And their choice, as long as they do not attempt to make the rest of us do the same is and should be heaven blessed.
Helping the environment so that all the creatures of the Earth can live in peace and harmony is also divine.
And questioning all things in the hopes of making the world a better place in which to live must therefore most assuredly be divine. If we do not believe in these things and strive to fulfill our brains' potential then we are all committing heresy.
God gave us brains and the ability to question God. God help us if we do not.
2 comments:
Being a man of science and a man of weak knowledge in the area of my religion, I am not worthy or qualified to discuss the topic that you raised. Only to say that the Bible and evolution or stem cell research are not incompatible. My lunatic fringe belives that the bible was written by men under divine inspiration. The problem with that is that means I believe in prophets. Examples are Moses, Samuel and Abraham. That means I put my trust in people who said that they talked to G-d. So how can I then say that these modern day "prophets" did not talk to G-d as well. The ones that denounce science that is proven by what we call evidence. I choose to selectively repudiate what these modern day "prophets" say and cannot myself find anywhere in the Bible (the 5 Books of Moses, the old testament prophets, and the additional writings (Esther and Ruth) that indicates that it is against the Bible to believe in evolution or stem cell research. That is why many in my lutanic fringe believe that unqualified individuals such as myself should not study Bible but should study the Talmud, which is the Book of Law written by man and gives a person a good idea how to live a good and righteous life. It is encouraged to discuss and debate its contents. I believe that many seminaries require their students to learn the Talmud rather than taking a chance attempting to learn Bible and taking a chance on commentating upon it and becoming another unqualified individual who bends the Bible to meet their own needs
Me thinks you doth protest too much. Obviously you came to bury Caesar not to praise him.
However all I can add to your personal rant is Well Said.
But when you say you are not qualified I must argue that we are all qualified since no one is more so when it comes to discussing something about which none of us know. There is no smoking gun and currently no burning bush.
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