> I think it’s highly likely with lots of circumstantial evidence that life is an evolutionary emergent phenomenon where inorganic material reactions create life
Out of curiosity, if you reject religion, what other possibilities are there?
Also: I have easy access to a few pipe organs (mostly small, but not all of them), so if anyone has questions feel free to ask; general organ questions are also welcome, of course.
As someone who is both an organ nerd and... I'll say very religiously conservative (although that's only relevant to some points), a couple things people in this thread might find interesting:
- If you're looking for pipe organs and are in the US, check out https://pipeorgandatabase.org/ . It's very comprehensive, has stoplists for most organs, and has pictures for many of the larger ones.
- I see quite a few people calling organ music boring, particularly in association with church music, and I'd like to challenge that assumption. Off the top of my head, a handful of things that come to mind:
(1) Hymns are meant to be sung with, usually by people who are not trained singers. That leads to significant limitations for the accompaniment. That said, there is a lot more variation in preludes, postludes, etc.
(2) Organ is hard. Being able to play boring hymns well with a week or two of preparation can easily take 2-3 years of daily practice, even with previous background on piano.
(3) Many recordings fail to capture the full magnitude of organ music. To repeat something that I think is a bit oversaid, but is accurate nonetheless: the building is the instrument. The building is the instrument.
(4) One thing that it's hard for me to tell is how much of the difference of opinion is that I have unusual tastes in music, and how much is that a lot of people haven't had the opportunity to hear good organ music played by a good organist.
(5) Yes, you can be expressive on organ. Yes, it's hard. Depending on the song (and the composition itself plays a big role here - don't think that a composer can't be expressive) that may come across in rubato, opening/closing the swell box (and potentially others), articulation, manual changes, etc. (I've heard just a few pieces with people one foot on the swell pedal for most of the song. They were very impressive, although I suppose a lot of that comes from the perspective of an organist. It's also very hard. See point 2.) Also:
(6) Choosing registration in and of itself is kind of an art (and a lot of fun, especially on big organs). There are so many different timbres you can get on an organ that it's really beyond comparison to most other instruments; using this alone it's easy to express everything from mournful to bombastic fanfare.
That became more of a jumbled mess than I intended, but hopefully there's something of interest to some of you.
I've had the same experience (although I don't remember if it was specifically the melody being claimed). I don't always bother to dispute them (in my understanding, most of them just claim ad revenue, and we don't run ads), but sometimes it annoys me enough that I do. (The organist and people singing are pretty clearly pictured, and I get especially annoyed when it's a capella.)
I suppose maybe I'm missing something, but this seems a bit on the vague side. Furthermore, I am far from an expert on the history of biblical texts; to be quite frank there's a general text (okay, maybe two) that's accepted by every Christian church I know of. I'll try to answer your point regardless. While over several millenia there certainly may have been some minor changes to the text, I would like to break this down into two major points:
1. The Bible is has (to my knowledge) by far the largest corpus of ancient texts compared to pretty much anything prior to the invention of the printing press. The existence of so many ancient texts (both directly, translations, and quotations in other materials) spanning so far both geographically and temporally with fairly minor differences is rather compelling evidence for the accuracy of many biblical manuscripts. A similar interplay is found within the Bible itself. I can think of numerous other passages commonly used to support the doctrine of the trinity from both the Old and New Testaments. Similarly, there are several accounts of as well as numerous prophecies of Jesus' resurrection. The adultress in Mark is actually found in a significant portion of ancient manuscripts; that it is not found in all is noted in most translations I've seen.
2. I stated this somewhere below, but put simply: God isn't going to let the Bible change contradictory to its original meaning (cf. Isaiah 55:11, although I could probably find a better reference for this).
Indeed, some points were a bit unclear. This is literalism in the sense of "God is real, created the world, Jesus lived and died to save you from your sins", not "there is no figurative language in the bible" or "the Bible is a bunch of stories about how to be a good person."
One important phrase in interpreting Scripture is "let Scripture interpret Scripture." (cf. 1 Cor 1:18f, Romans 11:33-35, 2 Cor 10:5 - our reason is not capable of fully understanding God, so we interpret it as his Word says and leave it at that.)
I should point you toward the Council of Jerusalem for part of the early history of the church, and I'm not really sure where you're coming from with the rest.
As for the rest (mostly about the history of biblical manuscripts), could you please put what I missed into a couple more clear questions?
Thank you for making this point. It is important to recognize that the Bible does make use of a variety of literary techniques (eg. psalms, parables, etc. especially). However, there are vast swathes of history throughout; it isn't just a book of fictional stories.
Looking through the top few, most appear to be intentional misinterpretation, one has to do with much of the Old Testament law not applying in the New Testament (see above or below somewhere), different focuses (i.e. something being mentioned somewhere but not somewhere else doesn't mean it didn't happen, the other may have just had a different focus), etc.; if you have anything specifically you want me to take a look at I can, but it generally seems to be a combination of poor understanding of the Bible, failure to let Scripture interpret Scripture, trying to use the human mind to understand the full mind of God, etc.
2a. "Verbal inspiration" - while the words were written by people and they certainly did recount their experiences in their own styles (perhaps involving consulting others who had been there), but God (through the Holy Spirit) breathed into them the words they were to write (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16). Basically God's not going to be like "eh oh well whatever if the Bible just goes away."
2b. Translation is, inherently, inexact. This is why it's good for pastors to learn Greek and Hebrew; but there are two main points I'd like to make here. The first is that while not all of the meaning may be conveyed perfectly, there is a lot of effort that has been put into ensuring that the essence will remain there. The second is that, when the meaning may be initially unclear, let Scripture interpret Scripture.
2c. As for which books are included and which are not, I haven't researched this enough to give a thorough answer.
3. Laws are divided into three categories: civil, ceremonial, and moral. Civil is laws to govern the nation of Israel, which don't apply today. Ceremonial laws related to the worship life of Israel. Jesus is, in essence, the fulfillment of these laws (cf. Romans 10:4, Acts 15); as such, we are no longer required to follow them. This leaves the moral law, God's will for believers. Most of the 10 commandments fall into this category (as summarized further by Jesus saying "love God and love your neighbor"). Anyway (as pointed out below), Jesus kept the entire law because we, with our sinful nature, cannot.
4. I'm lucky enough to have a church that believes what I believe near me; regular bible studies and a few online devotions that I follow also help.
This was a but rushed to finish; sorry. Feel free to follow up.
But as (in the words of the at-present top comment) a fundamentalist adhering to scriptural literalism (aka a conservative Lutheran) [addendum: who does not hate everyone], I feel compelled to offer to answer questions anyone might have for me, so AMA.
I don't really want to individually respond to everything throughout the rest of the comments, but I will begin by saying that most churches have either very little by way of actual bible-based doctrine, or very little by way of in-depth theology. (Prosperity gospel/megachurches fall in the latter, a decent portion of other churches - eg. the Roman Catholic Church - fall in the former.)
Responses will be sporadic throughout the day, I'm a bit busy at the moment, but I'll do my best to get to it.