Common sense would possibly be a hindrance when writing about religion, if religious...
Presumably the only unbiassed texts on comparative religion should be written by true agnostics - who claim neither belief, nor active disbelief. An atheist might compare each fairly in itself, but would presumably take the view that all are equally false <g>
Unbiassed, however, need not mean the most authoritative. And if the bias is made clear, and the treatment given is still fair, then it could be worthwhile.
The error Greg makes - deliberately, I suppose - is in conflating the tested observations and explanations of science, reproducible and non-assumptive, with the faith-based non-empirical works of religious belief.
Much that is 'testable' in the Bible is demonstrably false, contradictory or 'miraculous' (as in, has never been observed, goes against science and knowledge as we now have it, and cannot be reproduced).
Some parts cannot be tested as such - for example, God speaking to Moses via a burning bush; they cannot be 'proven', either, since by definition they occur only in the Bible.
The testable parts which do appear to be true (have other corroboration via archaeology or other ancient writings, etc), strangely, do not require any miraculous happenings.
If anyone can come up with any independently attested or verifiably corroborated miraculous happening from the bible, I'd be fascinated. The bible does NOT count as its own proof.
<BTW, I think I've already made it clear I don't count any part of the 'life' of Christ as independently attested... the debates here showed two verifiable mentions of dubious reliability, and had no proof and barely even a mention of anything miraculous or supernatural in them. Christian writings proclaiming the resurrection do not count as independent... unless they have proof beyond belief!>
Some transitory writing - conversations of prophets, for example - cannot be tested as such. They are matters for belief, or not, but are as irrelevant to science as the words of any other book purporting to expound history. If they have morals, we may or may not agree, but these are not science.
Faith and revelatory writings are equally irrelevant. Again, you may choose to believe visions of the apocalypse as recorded in the Bible, or it can be treated as a metaphor, or ignored. It does go against nearly all we know of science, geology, cosmology and indeed the shape of the earth... but maybe this isn't a problem. |
