It is shocking to me that I would even need to address this point, but recent troll activity on my blog has made it necessary. Any atheist will probably be bored just reading the title to this post, but that’s OK, because they can go have fun reading some of the recent comments on a couple of my posts [1] [2]. For those atheists and others not already entirely bored by a post on an obvious subject, please read on.

Religion

Though there are certainly many different “interpretations” of religious works, one thing is certain: the religious texts were either the product of a supernatural consciousness or they were not. If one believes in the God of Abraham, then we must also attribute the following qualities to this “Being”: 1) Omnipotence, 2) Omniscience and 3) Omni-Benevolence. It is in thinking of this god that I write and in particular I will speak about the Bible.

The Bible is claimed by some to be the “Word of God.” This text is then thought to be either the literal Word of God or the figurative Word of God. If the the text is the figurative Word, then it is left open to massive variations of interpretation. If it is the literal Word, then it must be taken literally. If it is figurative, it could be that it was “inspired” by God, but written by man and thus it could be flawed, in which case one would actually need to interpret the word and decide which aspects are “true” and which are not. One would be driven to interpret what God “really meant” from what God “actually” said. This, of course, allows revisionist to then say that past interpretations that were thought to be true were actually mistakes in interpretation, not mistakes by God, but mistakes by Man. This slippery slope argument, of course, means that no interpretation can be said to the definitive interpretation. Anyone who claims to know the “proper” interpretation of what God “meant” is simply offering their own world view justified through a selective reading. In this way, it is very similar to a “Marxist critique” of a work of literature in which a Marxist critiques the work and discovers exactly what he set out to prove. The conclusion precedes the interpretation. Thus it is with a theist who claims to know what God really meant when he said to stone people to death. “He didn’t really mean to stone people to death, he meant to throw metaphorical stones at the sin of the people. After all, we should ‘hate the sin and not the sinner.’” Any reading of the Bible will show that this is an interpretation that runs contrary to what the Bible actually says, but since the revisionist thinks that the Bible is figurative and past interpretations are flawed, he thinks that he can safely interpret it on his own and be correct. There are three things to note here:

1. Such a person, who thinks he can properly interpret what God really meant, and who thinks that God needed to speak in metaphors in order for us lowly humans to “get it,” is extraordinarily arrogant and prideful (I recommend that such a person read up on what the Bible has to say about pride).
2. If God is unable to communicate with us lowly humans without using metaphor and thus opening himself to “gross misinterpretations,” which, being omniscient, he most certainly knew were going to happen, then he isn’t omnipotent, as even most journalist are able to convey what they really mean without having to use metaphors, analogies and similes, but even when they do, they are sure to let us know, such as when I say, “God is like a Unicorn.” Furthermore, if God is capable of writing in clear concise language that even us lowly mortals are able to understand, but he chose not to, then he clearly isn’t omni-benevolent, since he will now have to punish many of us in Hellfire Damnation. Of course if one believes that whatever God does is “good,” including when he lies, causes pain and is a proven hypocrite, then there is no objective “goodness” and one is only following God’s path because he perceives God to be all-powerful and wants to stay on the Almighty’s good side. If that is the case, then “might makes right” and one is completely justified in rounding up those who disagree and slaughtering them without batting an eye. Do it right, as the Christian have historically, and you will end up with a new set of values spread throughout the world and indoctrinated into the children to come. Some of you may be worried that God will look poorly upon you for this, but there is no need to worry, as God is fickle and the latest interpretation of “His Word” will fit very nicely into the world in which everyone is scared to disagree with you.
3. If the Bible is open for interpretation, it is not a source of “Truth” and it is not in itself “True.” Therefore, it is no code to live-by unquestioningly and once the questioning begins, all aspects of the Bible are open to debate and question, including its very source. If the Bible is not True then it cannot be Proof of God. Of course, God could exist regardless of the Bible, but the Bible quickly becomes irrelevant.

So there are two ways to look at the Bible: it is True or it is Not-True. Literal interpretations will make the Bible True. Figurative interpretations will make the Bible Not-True. Literal interpretations, therefore, cannot be revised, because to revise the interpretation is to say that God was wrong and therefore the Bible is Not-True. For the Literalist, the switch is either on or off. For the Figuratively Minded (i.e. Apologist), there are many shades of grey, but all those shades are Not-True, in the same way that John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is Not-True; it is fiction. Now this is not to say that it is necessarily False in all aspects. One could say that the Bible’s standard of “Do Unto Others” is a “good” moral standard, but they cannot say that it is a “True” moral standard. One also cannot say that the Bible was written by God simply because the Bible says so. This is what you call circular reasoning, “I know the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true.”

Furthermore, if one finds “Truth” in an interpretation of the Bible, it is not the Bible that reveals this “Truth,” but the person himself. Here’s an example (for the metaphorically, figuratively and otherwise indirectly-minded): Red is not a quality of any object, in that it is not an inherent quality of any object. An Apple, in any literal sense, is not “red.” The apple has certain characteristics which absorb light and what we are perceiving is not the “redness” of the apple, but the red light that is not absorbed, but reflected. If one is to change the color of the light, the color of the apple will change as well. Bring the apple to the bottom of a 60 foot lake and the apple (as well as the surrounding environment) will appear more green, than anything else. And so it is with the Bible. The Bible itself does not stand as a “True” work, which is why Christians, eager to have their world view validated, will interpret the Bible in order to make it fit the contemporary world. And so it is with the Marxists, as well. The interpretations that they come up with however, are wholly dependent upon the person doing the interpreting, just as the apple is dependent on the light in order to appear “red.” Indeed, these interpretations tell us more about the person than they do about the book.

Truth, however, is not dependent upon the person. If gravity is true, it is true for all and it is consistently true throughout history. Gravity did not take hold when it was named. Its existence precedes our naming it, measuring it and explaining it. Some will take the above sentences and replace “gravity” with God. They will claim that God preceded our naming Him (It/Her/Whatever), but they will fall short on the other answers. We cannot measure God. We cannot explain God. God is “felt” in our hearts. God “explains” everything, but is inexplicable Himself, since He has “always existed.” However, once one posits the Bible as an explanation or evidence of the existence of God, then the Bible itself needs to be scrutinized. This is where the revisionist views of the Bible lose any justification whatsoever. The only reason the Bible is still studied as a the “Word of God” is because it has been accepted as being the Word prior to this. To then change the evidence to fit the circumstance means that the evidence is shoddy or the explanation is shoddy. If I say that Mr. X murdered Mr. Z with the knife in the library and I know this to be true because Mr. X’s fingerprints were on the knife and Mr. Z’s blood was on the blade, I cannot still use this evidence to come to the same conclusion when it turns out that Mr. X’s prints are not there, but Mr. P’s are and Mr. Z’s blood is not there, but Mr. Q’s is. If Mr. P’s prints are there with Mr. Q’s blood, it would be absurd to “re-interpret” the evidence to still come to the conclusion that Mr. X murdered Mr. Z by using the same piece of evidence. Surely, Mr. X may still have killed Mr. Z, but I would need to look for new evidence.

That is the short and sweet explanation of the failings of Biblical Revisionist readings.

Science does not have such problems.

Science

Question: How do we know that the Bible is incorrect about the age of the Earth?

Answer: Science has revealed that the Earth is much older than 6,000 years.

Question: How do we know that the Sun does not orbit the Earth?

Answer: Science has shown us that the Earth actually orbits the sun and it has much, much, much empirical evidence to back this finding.

Question: How do we know that Semen is not comprised of evil spirits?

Answer: Science has shown us that semen is composed of spermatozoa, which has no “other worldly” qualities.

Question: When “Science is wrong,” how do we know that Science is wrong?

Answer: To be clear, Science is not proven wrong. Scientific Theories are proven wrong… through Science.

That’s the biggest difference to note between religion and science. Science can be wrong without losing any validity at all. Is Global Climate Change a Truth? No. Could it be proven to be wrong? Yes. How will it be proven wrong? Through science. That is the beauty of science. Science demands to be tested. Scientific theories are held up and tested and re-tested and even one legitimate test that proves the scientific theory to be wrong will mean that the scientific theory is wrong, dead, end of story. The same is not true of religious theories. Religion will posit an idea, but when the idea is proven wrong, it will simply spin the idea to fit the new evidence. In science, the evidence is everything. Our entire understanding of the world– actual understanding– requires that we base knowledge on empirical evidence. The evidence precedes the claim of “Truth” and even after the label “True” is slapped on a theory or idea, it can easily be removed by proving it wrong in a scientific experiment. That is the difference. Science is not “Truth.” Science is a means to arrive at “Truth.”

So, when one argues for the existence of God because of the “failures” of Science, he is fighting a false battle. Scientific theories are not correct because Religious theories are wrong. Scientific theories are correct or incorrect independent of religious theories. Science could be wrong one hundred percent of the time without religion being any closer to correct than it was when we started the inquiry. The same applies in reverse.

At the end of the day, however, planes fly on theories and laws arrived at through the scientific method. Religion can claim no such accomplishments outside of the mind (inside the mind I’m sure there are many a-flyin’-nun).

Here's my guess. If the economy goes up, Obama's rating will too. If the economy goes down, so will Obama's rating. Now let's watch it right here. It may not happen immediately, but it will usually follow.

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