Our ability to conceive of the future tempts us to try to predict it, to believe, despite the lack of good evidence, that we are capable of doing so. Nowadays we seem to have a bit more modest attitude about it; we are more inclinded to regard our futuristic speculations as speculation.
Our ancestors were a bit more devout about the issue. Prophecy is a primary feature of many ancient texts and religious scriptures. The Bible speaks about the future with absolute certainty, so certain that the only possible explanation is that it was divinely inspired. But if anyone were actually able to predict the future, you would think that the predictions would be very specific and accurate.
The Bible, like Nostradamus, is couched in vague phrases, subject to a wide variety of interpretations. There is nothing in the Bible about the internet, space travel, or specific military and political events. In fact, everything in the Bible could have been written by a first century person with no knowledge of the future, except speculation.
Presumably the Bible could have given enormous assistance to its future readers; knowledge about medical science and agriculture, for instance, that could have spared humanity the terrible suffering which ensued.
The bible gives the value of the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter - a fundamental mathematical truth available to all - incorrectly. It says the ratio is three to one. Centuries before the Bible was written the Babylonians and Egyptians gave the correct value as 3.14 to one.
Thus the Bible not only fails to provide menaingful scientific, medical, and mathematical information; what it does provide is incorrect. Archimedes could have done much better, had he participated in the writing of the scripture; but he lived too soon.
God deemed it appropiate to provide information about how to buy and sell slaves and sacrifce animals in religious services, but not a word about how to cure cancer.The eventual cure will be generally explainable in a few pages.
Neither God nor Jesus Christ ever uttered a word opposed to slavery. The fact is, there is no sacred scripture on earth which was obviously written by anyone other than ancient human beings,, with, by our standards, very limited understanding of the world.
Thomas Jefferson was particularly unimpressed with the Bible. He described the book of revelation as "the rantings of a lunatic." At the time of america's founding, rejection of religion was commonplace among intelletcuals.
"It is beyond me how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books, and stories. If the world does not directly reveal itself to us, and if our hearts do not tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we will most assuredly not learn it from books, which at best are designed only to give names to our errors." (Goethe)
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Please scroll down for the other articles in this issue of The Truthless Reconciler. Thanks!
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