Was the Bible Meant to be Taken Literally? - Guy Consolmagno
Complete video at: fora.tv Astronomer, author and Jesuit brother Guy Consolmagno discusses the creationist theory of the origin of life, arguing that this theory rests on a literal interpretation of the bible that is not practical. —– Brother Guy Consolmagno discusses “God’s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion.” With wry humor, Brother Guy Consolmagno shows how he not only believes in God but gives religion an honored place alongside science in his life. His …
Tags: Literally, Meant, Consolmagno, Bible, Taken
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@Wanda4DecentValues The bible says to kill homosexuals in Leviticus and kill Non-believers in Luke, yet Thou shall not kill?
It has to make sense to be literal
WOW. An atom has NEVER been seen. And it will never be. Because the light particle is is too big to bounce off an atom. Yet from calculations science PROVED it existed, split it and blew up Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
pseudo-intellectual…
Ur kind of odd
same here
Have you ever read anything written by the Church Fathers of the first century, or Jewish interpretations which predated Christianity? If you have, then you’ll know that what you said is not true. In fact, biblical literalism is an emergent interpretation that had it’s beginnings in the mid 1800’s in America and didn’t fully take root until the early 1900’s.
yet another christain excuse to try and maintain christianities dominance on earth….why was it taken so literally back in the days it was written?…and now it is not.. because man has gotten smarter and things in the bible don’t make sense anymore..so ‘churches’ need to find alternative interpretations to follow with the changing times…so now they say the bible wasn’t meant to be literally taken. so I geuss God was just a riddle master and left the true meanings hidden in the text..yeah ok
If he thinks “The Odyssey” should be interpreted just like the bible… than why doesn’t he take “The Odyssey” seriously as well, along with the koran, hadith etc…
“Science describes, it doesn’t prove”
“i believe in absolute truth that creation…just as described in the bible”
By your logic…the bible describes therefore it doesn’t prove, however you believe in the bible therefore in your mind it proves.
As Hitchens has said “simply White Noise!”
The Bible should be taken literally in its entirety. However, this does not mean literalistically, which is different. Taking the Bible literally does mean taking it literally, as well as metaphorically, analogically, and some others that I can’t remember at the moment.
Isn’t not reading it literally just an excuse to continue believing?
I had the pleasure of watching his lecture when he came to Cornell University and talked to him briefly afterward. The Guy (no pun intended) is absolutely brilliant, plus he really knows his science (MIT grad).
love reading youtube comments everyone on it is an expert and knows everything about everything
just because the bible is 3000 years old does not make it fact.
It is contrived and hypocritical and is used to control and instill fear in the masses and very profitable way of selling a dream. The best MLC multi level company i have ever witnessed. fucking wake people wake up. g
od exists but not the way the assholes on earth represent god. they has bastersized the bible and its interpretaations, removed parts of it that would empower you.
this guy ios trying to compare the bile and einstien.
yeah right what a twat.
creationists are delusional fucking idiots,
Fantastic point. Aligns with lots of psychological studies on predictable irrationality. People who live with blinders, totally focused on their little world of personal experience, will interpret everything else through that lens.
watch this clip: atWoYsoTA4M
Typical of Bible critics - Genesis nor any other book in the Bible, never says the earth is flat.
Islam - 1
Chritian - 3 in 1, not 3 but 1, not 1 but 3 in 1, 1 in 3 and 3 in 1.
The choice is in your hand.
So, whether someone worships something they cannot define, I don’t care. Where I care is when they seek to make me worship it too. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry….The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
I find that all gods are poorly defined. I think the term god refers to a concept. I have my concept of what their god is, they have their own. This is fine with me unless they attempt to make me believe in their definition of god. I agree some people could call evolution god, or atoms god, or themselves god, but to me, god does not exist. These other things have a clearly defined explanation and I choose to rely on that definition.
Of course. My beef is with the idea that a very good understanding is *required*. I personally reject a variety of gods for a variety of reasons.
Some are incoherent, some unsupported, some contradict what we see. Some understanding is required for these, but there are gods so poorly defined there’s nothing I could accept if I wanted to. Not believing in such a god is almost forced upon me. And then there are the gods I simply know nothing about. I disbelieve precisely because I know nothing.
I doubt atheists object to the claim they reject things when there is no proof. Most atheists indeed reject god because they DO understand what they are rejecting, the literal interpretation of god. I, as an atheist have studied what it is I don’t find rational.
I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. I don’t recall a court ever “proving” someone guilty, just “finding” them as such (at the risk of devolving into semantic word games). I’m inclined towards the mathematic idea of a “proof” myself, though. ;)
I was shocked, though, when he called the common believer a pagan. Though I agree with most of what he meant by it, I don’t think he has any authority to call their Christianity false and his true. I would argue that he’s a pagan as well, in fact even more so.
And by getting atheism wrong (by claiming that it requires an understanding of what the god is that’s being rejected), I don’t see him making too many friends on either side. Similarly in what he said about engineers, its truth regardless
I assume you watched the entire video given in the link…
I’d say he’s just a subscriber to liberal theology. That brand of theology is certainly not winning too many lay Christians over, but it has long been popular amongst priests, theologians and religious scholars. What he mentioned–God not existing, rather being the grounding of existence, and being suprapersonal rather than personal–remind me of Tillich. Claiming Jesus as symbol and taking his existence as irrelevant would complete it.