So me and a bunch of christian people (them eing the christians me being the Communist to balance htings out) and theyre discussing how "scientists" apparently (and in their voice completely mocking voice) how they try to explain how the plagues happen and how its harder to believe the explanations of scientists and attributing their hypothesis as "mysticism" and talk about how they apparently scientists cant explain the plague that kills off all the first born eqyptians.
I mention that assuming God exists he wouldve cretaed the Universe with the Scientific laws in mind and as such would not break his own laws to "show off lightning bolts" and that it is against obversbale physical laws for these plagues to have been simply the whims of some omnipotant diety.
One of the Christian girls in the room scoffs about "as if God cares about the laws of Scientists"
*sigh* what does the Hatrack community at large think of this? I am right hypothetically that he expert opinions of historical scientists (since I dont remember the proper name of the profession is it Anthropatholgy?) shouyldnt be discounted based on a whim?
Posted by Elmer's Glue (Member # 9313) on :
Sigh is right. Of course God is going to stay within the boundaries of the laws he created.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Don't argue with them. Bring your crowbar.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: theyre discussing how "scientists" apparently (and in their voice completely mocking voice) how they try to explain how the plagues happen
Given the absence of evidence, it seems like it would be easier for the "scientists" to simply assert that they never happened at all.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Tom, I agree.
... except that...
There are probably very few scientists who would care to venture an opinion. Those who might are likely to be either historical anthropologists or people who study some specialized aspect of biology.
It's not like there's ever been (afik) a cross-disciplinary scientific study of the plagues to see if there might be "natural" explanations for each one. The attempts at this I've seen are undertaken by relatively small numbers of people, usually with a fairly narrow specialty touching on, perhaps, one of the plagues and from that they draw conclusions.
It's pretty weak all around.
And besides, who cares? If you can offer a natural explanation of it, it doesn't mean that God didn't do it. If you can't offer a natural explanation, it could just mean we don't know enough yet about nature. Either way, it's just a mental exercise with no real bearing on faith. It could possibly have some bearing on science (issuing a challenge as to how the first born and only the first born might be killed systematically in the course of a single night for the entire population of rather large human settlement, for example, might be something for some scientist somehwere to ponder...)
Ah well. I don't mean to be a thread killer, but this kind of "discussion" of the relationship between science and religion has come to seem pretty shallow and pointless to me.
I can think of hundreds of ways of resolving the issue, and none of them are testable, so there's almost no point in the discussion.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
the first born one ive seen well explained actually, apparenlty because it is tradition for egyptian first bornes to sleep below the ground and thus as a result of the prev plague caused this field of posion fog (im not quit remeber what is it) to hang low on the gorund but above where the first borns sleep regardlkess of their age thus killing them off. The Hebrews were unaffected because of I think they had some kind of festivel going on that had most of them awake and I dont think they slept as the eqyptians do.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
it wasn't that they sleep below the ground, but closest to it. I saw the same program - it was really interesting. Apparently, that same gas release could turn water red when it comes in contact. It also would be associated with volcanic activity, like the Santorini volcano that darkened the sky.
It was a really interesting program, actually.
Edit: Also, the program clearly said it was not trying to disprove religion, but if anything to show that God used natural laws to affect his plagues.
Posted by Libbie (Member # 9529) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
I mention that assuming God exists he wouldve cretaed the Universe with the Scientific laws in mind and as such would not break his own laws to "show off lightning bolts" and that it is against obversbale physical laws for these plagues to have been simply the whims of some omnipotant diety.
Exactly.
quote: One of the Christian girls in the room scoffs about "as if God cares about the laws of Scientists"
Now that's just SAD. Wowee.
They must have seen the show on The History Channel. I found it interesting, personally. I find it easier to explain all the plagues as "just about every culture has their devastating-plague-sent-from-beyond story." Why bother with the scientific hows? Just use the anthropological one.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
So...did the first-born cattle also sleep separate???
quote:Exodus 12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Well, if they were still calves, according to that theory, they'd have been low enough to the ground to be asphyxiated. Their explanation was that a release of carbon dioxide gas that clung low to the ground spread throughout the region, much like the disaster at Lake Nyos in 1986 that killed many villagers and livestock.
It was a really neat episode, actually.
Posted by Mathematician (Member # 9586) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
I mention that assuming God exists he wouldve cretaed the Universe with the Scientific laws in mind and as such would not break his own laws to "show off lightning bolts" and that it is against obversbale physical laws for these plagues to have been simply the whims of some omnipotant diety.
I really don't understand your logic here. Let me see if I got it right.
1. Because God chose the laws, He must have chosen the specific laws we have for a reason 2. Because they are "best" (relative to whatever reason applied in part 1), God would not choose to break them ever.
I disagree with BOTH sentiments.
For 1, maybe God invented mathematics (don't you think He should do this first, anyway ;-) ), then decided to see if a given collection of "natural laws" could support a decent universe. Then, He invents the hat, paper, and a writing utensil of some sort. He then writes something down for each of the viable universes, puts them in, and draws one out. So, today we have our universe.
Now, even assuming 1, I think 2 is flawed. Hidden in 2 is the assumption that the set of laws that is "best" set of laws generally is neccesarily the best at each and every specific moment. Without this assumption, the occasional rule breaking (i.e. miracle) is certainly justified.
In fact, the Judeo-Christian belief is that God does choose to violate them specifically to reveal His existance (among other things). To consider the Christian religion individually, suppose some guy comes up to you and says, "Yo, dawg, I'm God". Do you believe him?
What if the same guy walks up to you and says "Yo, dawg, I'm God. And just to prove it, I'm gonna break a few physical laws." Now, assuming you can demonstrate that this guy isn't just some good magician, I'd say you have a much better reason to believe him (though there are still issues like establishing the fact that you can trust him, etc).
Now that that's established, I want to look at your comment that "it is against obversbale physical laws for these plagues to have been simply the whims of some omnipotant diety". I'm gonna tackle this from the generality of "miracle" instead of the specificity of the plagues.
By definition, a miracle is something which goes against physical law. Thus, saying "miracle's can't happen because they go against observable law" simply affirms the definition. Because of this, the question is not whether or not miracles CAN happen (by definition, they "can't"), but DID they happen?
Beyond even this, science cannot PROVE that the laws of science are the same at all times (though this is a fundamental assumption, and certainly neccesary to do any real science). In otherwords, is it possible that tomorrow gravity cease to exist? Sure, why not? (though, clearly, no one is banking their life on this occuring)
Do you have a scientific reason for thinking the laws of science are the same at all times? If not, it's entirely possible that for whatever reason, the "observable laws" were slightly different at exactly the point in time of a given miracle.
So, specifically for the plagues, can you scientifically prove that the laws of science were all the same at the time of the plagues? If not, you can't hands down rule out "miraculous" behavior.
In the end, however, I agree with Bob Scopatz, we can argue different "what if's" till we're blue in the face, but the fact is, we'll never know. The point, however, is that because these other avenues are open, you can't just totally dismiss those you were arguing against. I'm not saying I agree with the way they handled their side. What I am saying is your blanket dismissal of miracles is as irrational as their blanket acceptance of them.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
I just want to interject a few things.
First, I don't believe the Bible to be a factual account of history. I know many on this board do feel that way, but I am not one of them.
Second, I do feel that ancient religious writings have some root in fact, e.g. there had to be some great flood for so many disparate religions to have a flood myth.
That said, it is interesting to me, as a nonreligious layperson, that the seemingly fantastical (from a nonbeliever point of view) plagues of Egypt could have some scientific explanation, lending them more credence as possible historical events that we're getting a version of in the Bible.
I never once believed that the water turned to blood. However, if in a volcanically active period gases were released into the Nile that reacted to turn the water red, I could see that being interpreted as such. It lends, for me, some more weight to the bible as interpretation of real events rather than simply being parable and fable.
Does this mean scientific fact rules out the existence of God? Not to me. Does it mean God is working using scientific laws? No. But, if nothing else, it makes me *more* likely to accept the possible existence of such a deity.
Those who reject that there could possibly be scientific explanations for miracles baffle me. A "miracle" doesn't have to break physical laws, in my opinion.
If someone is drowning in the ocean, and a life jacket happens to float by after falling off a cruise ship days earlier... could that not be considered miraculous, and God's will that the life jacket happened to be there at that time when you most needed it?
In my world, that's an amazingly fortunate coincidence, but I could understand how the drowning person could see that as divine intervention. I just see that as an example of God's will not needing to break physical laws.
Just because there is a scientific explanation for the plagues of Egypt does not then prove that God had nothing to do with them happening. Scientific explanation and God's will are not mutually exclusive.
Could carbon dioxide gas have killed Egypt's first born? It's possible. Does that mean it wasn't God who triggered the release of that gas, knowing full well that the Egyptian first born males would be primarily affected? Not at all.
If anything, I'd figure religious folks would be happy to have some further evidence that supports such things happening. It would give them something to point out to the skeptics who think it's all fiction.
That's just my take on it, though.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
sounds reasonable ^^ one person in there agreed with me only to the point where if the existence of a God was proven 100% beyond a reasonable doubt it would destroy eligion as we know supposedly.