Greg the traditional Catholic: Why do atheists believe that revelation and science contradict each other?
Revelation and science do not, and cannot, contradict each other, for both are of God.
There may at times be an apparent conflict between faith and science; but this is only apparent, and never real. God cannot contradict Himself. He cannot lead us into error.
True Science is the handmaid of Religion. Science and the scientific method are means of arriving at the truth, and Religion is Truth. The greatest scientists have been Christians; a majority of outstanding leaders in science were Catholics, and many were priests. Only the shallow dabblers in science absurdly pretend that there is a conflict. The apparent conflicts arise from false interpretations, as when one takes for scientific truth what is false or not proved, or accepts as a doctrine of faith something not taught by the Church.
There can never be a real conflict between Revelation and Science, because they deal with entirely different spheres. Revelation is concerned with Faith and spiritual things; physical Science is concerned only with material things.
The Bible’s purpose is to teach salvation; but people make the mistake of considering it a treatise on Science. St. Thomas and St. Augustine taught that when the Bible describes some phenomenon of nature, it sets it down in terms of its appearances.
No scientific experiment or theory can dispense with the necessity of a Creator. Unless His existence is accepted, we can never explain: (a) the origin of matter, even the most elementary; (b) the origin of motion; (c) the origin of the very first living organism, and of the spiritual soul of man; and (d) the origin of the order and law so apparent in the universe.
The only difficulties found by some scientists in the Biblical account of the Creation are connected with the order or sequence of events followed in the Book of Genesis.
If we study the proper interpretation, even these difficulties will be found not to exist.
The account in the Book of Genesis is in logical, not chronological, order. The writer groups together similar works of creation, for the easier understanding of a primitive people.
The Church has not made any positive definition of the way in which the Biblical account of Creation is to be interpreted.
Catholics are free to accept the interpretation that they prefer, so long as they also accept the fact taught: that God created the whole universe and everything in it.
Neither Revelation nor Science gives a definite answer to the question concerning the age of the world. Geologists assert that long periods of time were necessary for the formation of the various strata of the earth’s surface. Astronomers assert that some stars are a million light-years from the earth.
A Catholic is free to hold on this point whatever he believes is a sound and scientific conclusion. The estimates of scientists vary.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Beletje_vos AM + VT
Since there is no evidence of god… your premise is FAIL.
I’ll make you a deal….when that seven headed dragon shows up I’ll agree.Answer by Tim Cooley
Define science, please.Answer by HTacianas
Because atheists seemingly suffer from the “herd mentality”. They hear something they like and they chase off after the group without ever researching or thinking for themselves.Answer by Mandy
I am sure this is very nice for you. I am glad you are smart enough to understand science without it threatening your faith. Science is not the reason I am an atheist though.Answer by hmmmFTW
your right, except god does contradict himself in the bible alot.
and atheists dont believe in god, thats why they dont think they are together. and let them believe what they want.
cause those converting tard Christians (like you seem to be) are the reason why people hate Christianity.
so thank you for ruining our religion.
Answer by EnglshGentleman“The account in the Book of Genesis is in logical, not chronological, order. The writer groups together similar works of creation, for the easier understanding of a primitive people.”
GASP You mean to say that the bible was in fact written by primitive men?! Which means that it can be false?! Which means none of it should be used as fact nor trusted.
“A Catholic is free to hold on this point whatever he believes is a sound and scientific conclusion. The estimates of scientists vary.”
Sure, he can believe that creation was from a drunken Flying Spaghetti Monster, that doesn’t make it true.
Answer by Crikey a Wild Ski BumI don’t care if they contradict eachother, you see there’s EVIDENCE for science. That’s what science IS, actually.
Evidence for god? Still waiting on that….
Answer by Soldier For SalvationAtheists don’t believe because they want to keep living their lifes in sin.Answer by Arthur Again
Hilarious!
I don’t even know where to start…Answer by Glee
Total BS, buddy. As there is no logic behind, evidence for or need of any god whatsoever, there is no way to conclude rationally what you have concluded here. Paint your delusion anyway you like and it will still never be based on anything but indoctrination and your desire to believe it.Answer by Sparx
which science are you comparing the revelation fairy tale to? psychology, biology, what? I’ve never seen a dictionary that would define religion as truth, in fact it’s the absence of truth, leaving you with faith. I don’t understand the thinking behind “there has to be a god”. can you explain that 1 for me?Answer by Photographer
You are quite mistaken, science had no need of christianity or religion at all for that matter. Many civilizations were scientifically advanced without the christian god being in the picture. (Greeks, Romans, Egyptians)
Science is based on the scientific method, not a religious one. In fact scientists such as Galileo were imprisoned by the catholic church for their discoveries.
Engles “ON THE HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY”
demonstrates that christain revelation is nonsense:
“But this heavenly paradise does not open to the faithful by the mere fact of their death. We shall see that the kingdom of God, the capital of which is the New Jerusalem, can only be conquered and opened after arduous struggles with the powers of hell. But in the imagination of the early Christians these struggles were immediately ahead. John describes his book at the very beginning as the revelation of “things which must shortly come to pass ; an immediately afterwards, I, 3, he declares “Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy … for the time is at hand.” To the church in Philadelphia Christ sends the message: “Behold, I come quickly.” And in the last chapter the angel says he has shown John “things which must shortly be done” and gives him the order: “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.” And Christ himself says twice (XXII, 12, 20) “I come quickly.” The sequel will show us how soon this coming was expected.
The visions of the Apocalypse, which the author now shows us, are copied throughout, and mostly literally, from earlier models, partly from the classical prophets of the Old Testament, particularly Ezekiel, partly from later Jewish apocalypses written after the fashion of the Book of Daniel and in particular from the Book of Henoch which had already been written at least in part. Criticism has shown to the smallest details where our John got every picture, every menacing sign, every plague sent to unbelieving humanity, in a word, the whole of the material for his book; so that he not only shows great poverty of mind but even himself proves that he never experienced, even in imagination the alleged ecstasies and visions which he describes.
The order of these visions is briefly as follows: First John sees God sitting on his throne holding in his hand a book with seven seals and before him the Lamb that has been slain and has risen from the dead (Christ) and is found worthy to open the seals of the book. The opening of the seals is followed by all sorts of miraculous menacing signs. When the fifth seal is opened John sees under the altar of God the souls of the martyrs of Christ that were slain for the word of God and who cry with a loud voice saving: “How long, 0 Lord, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” And then white robes are given to them and they are told that they must rest for a little while yet, for more martyrs must be slain.
So here it is not yet a question of a “religion of love,” of “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,” etc. Here undiluted revenge is preached, sound, honest revenge on the persecutors of the Christians. So it is in the whole of the book. The nearer the crisis comes, the heavier the plagues and punishments rain from the heavens and with all the more satisfaction John announces that the mass of humanity will not atone for their sins, that new scourges of God must lash them, that Christ must rule them with a rod of iron and tread the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, but that the impious still remain obdurate in their hearts. It is the natural feeling, free of all hypocrisy, that a fight is going on and that — ? la guerre comme ? la guerre……For the interpretation of these prophecies, as far as they refer to events of that time, we are indebted to German criticism, particularly Ewald, Lücke and Ferdinand Benary. It has been made accessible to non-theologians by Renan. We have already seen that Babylon, the Great Whore, stands for Rome, the city of seven hills. We are told in Chapter XVII, 9-11, about the beast on which she sits that:
The seven heads” of the beast “are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even. he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
According to this the beast is Roman world domination, represented by seven caesars in succession, one of them having been mortally wounded and no longer reigning, but he will be healed and will return. It will be given unto him as the eighth to establish the kingdom of blasphemy and defiance of God. It will be given unto him
…to make war with the saints and to overcome them…. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb…. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. (XII, 7-18.)
We merely note that boycott is mentioned here as one of the measures to be applied against the Christians by the Roman Empire — and is therefore patently an invention of the devil — and pass on to the question who this Roman emperor is who has reigned once before, was wounded to death and removed but will return as the eighth in the series in the role of Antichrist.
Taking Augustus as the first we have: 2. Tiberius, 3. Caligula, 4. Claudius, 5. Nero, 6. Galba. “Five are fallen, and one is.” Hence, Nero is already fallen and Galba is. Galba ruled from June 9, 68 to January 15, 69. But immediately after he ascended the throne the legions of the Rhine revolted under Vitellius while other generals prepared military risings in other provinces. In Rome itself the praetorians rose, killed Galba and proclaimed Otho emperor.
From this we see that our Revelation was written under Galba. Probably towards the end of his rule. Or, at the latest, during the three months (up to April 15, 69) of the rule of Otho, “the seventh.” But who is the eighth, who was and is not? That we learn from the number 666.
Among the Semites — Chaldeans and Jews — there was at the time a kind of magic based on the double meaning of letters. As about 300 years before our era Hebrew letters were also used as symbols for numbers: a=l, b=2, g=3, d=4, etc. The cabbala diviners added up the value of each letter of a name and sought from the sum to prophesy the future of the one who bore the name, e.g., by forming words or combinations of words of equal value. Secret words and the like were also expressed in this language of numbers. This art was given the Greek name gematriah, geometry; the Chaldeans, who pursued this as a business and were called mathematici by Tacitus, were later expelled from Rome under Claudius and again under Vitellius, presumably for “serious disorders.”
It was by means of this mathematics that our number 666 appeared. It is a disguise for the name of one of the first five caesars. But besides the number 666, Irenaeus, at the end of the second century, knew another reading — 616, which, at all events, appeared at a time when the number puzzle was still widely known. The proof of the solution will be if it holds good for both numbers.
This solution was given by Ferdinand Benary of Berlin. The name is Nero. The number is based on xxx xxxx Neron Kesar, the Hebrew spelling of the Greek Nerôn Kaisar, Emperor Nero, authenticated by means of the Talmud and Palmyrian inscriptions. This inscription was found on coins of Nero’s time minted in the eastern half of the empire. And so — n (nun)=50; r (resh)=200; v (vau) for o=6; n (nun)=50; k (kaph)=100; s (samech)=60; r (resh)=200. Total 666. If we take as a basis the Latin spelling Nero Caesar the second nun=50 disappears and we get 666 – 50 = 616, which is Irenaeus’s reading….What was there to be astonished at in the fact that among the Christians, against whom Nero had begun the first great persecution, the view spread that he would return as the Antichrist and that his return and the intensified attempt at a bloody suppression of the new sect that it would involve would be the sign and prelude of the return of Christ, of the great victorious struggle against the powers of hell, of the thousand year kingdom “shortly” to be established, the confident expectation of which inspired the martyrs to go joyfully to death?
Christian and Christian-influenced literature in the first two centuries gives sufficient indication that the secret of the number 666 was then known to many. Irenaeus no longer knew it, but on the other hand he and many others up to the end of the third century also knew that the returning Nero was meant by the beast of the Apocalypse.”
Answer by Think before followingGod cannot contradict himself?!?!
Have you read the Bible?
Lets keep it simple – thou shall not kill – agree this is in there?
Now let me think…doesn’t God kill children in 2 Kings 2 : 23-24? You may have an insane belief that God is allowed to kill…so lets go to direct contradictions.
Kill non believers, gays, and people who work on the Sabbath.
Need the verses? Just Ask, I will be more than happy to educate you on the child killer you worship.
Also were the animals created before or after Adam and Eve? Read Genesis and you may find another contradiction…there are loads of them.
Oh…and God of the gaps is an illogical and ignorant argument. Adam and Eve have been proved wrong with facts and evidence of evolution!
Answer by LocadakotaI knew this super religious guy and he was always trying to get me saved. One day we looked at the moon in a slim crescent moon phase. He said that it was the earth’s shadow that causes a crescent moon. I didn’t call him a liar, because he was not lying. He was just not smart enough in that aspect of science. And I could not get him to see it any other way.Answer by Ms. Taurus ¤Blackhoof Buccaneer¤
Not quite sure what you are doing here… Are you trying to find a comfortable fit between them because you believe both, or are you trying to do like Creationists do and try to steal it away and twist it for your own use…Answer by William
I have a better question. Why do Christians always feel the need to heedlessly attempt to persuade people with different viewpoints to see things THEIR way? Can Christians not simply accept that other people have different beliefs than they do and move on. We do not all need to be “saved”.Answer by igottawhopper.MASSIVE
I’M SORRY BUT UR DELUDED END OF MESSAGE
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