In confusing (read: passing off) what could be at best a Deistic concept of divinity, as the same as the highly anthropomorphous, interventionist, mythology- and superstition-laced concepts of divinity that the ancients developed?
Your concept of God clearly operates on a time scale. 7-day creation, et al. Do you dispute this? If you don't, then this feature alone causes even this version of divinity to have a finite existence - and therefore, inapplicability of the 'timeless' badge. How can this god, which, besides performing fantastic miracles that is impossible to conceive as possible in this day and age (living in fish for 3 days, talking animals, etc., vs. an amputee growing back a severed limb suddenly) be reconciled with the significantly non-anthropomorphous, sublime, formless divinity that's basically Deistic, barring an honest admission?
To me, it is evident that blurring these sharp contradictions to the point of obfuscation is what allows many to rationalise their superstitions.
Like scientists and laymen, the religious cover a wide area.
There are folks who are superstitious in all areas. And a magical worldview can be found among all types. There is bogus religion - and bogus science.
Religious texts go back thousands of years, oral even further. Of course they are written within their context. But man was not stupid back then, and wisdom is not something invented during the Age of Reason.
It is a mistake to denigrate all religions and religious as superstitious or ignorant.
True story: Many years back, I went to a retreat at a Jesuit seminary. In the hall was a small table with pictures and biographies of those who would be entering the seminary in the coming year. Of the five, two were physicists; one was a quite accomplished quantum physicist.
What became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe was first proposed by Georges Lemaître, professor of physics, astronomer at the University of Louvain - and a Roman Catholic priest and honorary prelate.
Science and religion, physics and metaphysics, are different areas, but not necessarily incompatible, and certainly not born enemies.
“Where the problem is” often, as I see it, is the category error of assigning all truth to religion - or to science - or to philosophy. The search for knowledge can occur, with many similar methods used, in all these spheres.
Another problem is that in order to communicate, we need some common base of knowledge which is very often lacking on one side or the other.
For more complete dialogue, we need to have even more knowledge of, and respect for, the fields of those with whom we discuss. Without both, the alternative is to limit ourselves to a smaller common ground, such as reason/logic - as I’ve tried to do on this thread.
thanks for your reply.
Your concept of God clearly operates on a time scale. 7-day creation, et al. Do you dispute this?
In my hopelessly limited concept, God affects the finite, temporal, causal universe. There's a difference.
The Bible was not written from within a modern world view, neither is it a science text. To use it for such, makes as much sense as using Feynman's Red Books to learn about the meaning of life.