As a paladin I find myself thinking some deep thoughts lately...
There are many religions, and their beliefs and practices are not compatible.
The faiths of the world cannot even agree on simple matters like what may I eat for lunch, to say nothing of the important stuff like harming others, what is harm, and what are my obligations to not harm/help others.
How can this be?
1 - Only one faith is correct. All others are screwed. Shouldn't have ordered the pork.
2 - There is no God and we're all screwed. Should've spent Sunday working on my golf game.
3 - There are many correct faiths, the differences I see are irrelevant or at least can be reconciled.
4 - God is a heckuva lot smarter than me and it all makes sense to him.
5 - God is really laid back and follows a basic 'don't hurt anyone and it's all good' rule. Course then those who follow an unusually strict religion and enforce it are in trouble for doing what their faith said is praiseworthy and we're back to option 1. Still leaves the vegetarian problem open.
If it's #1 then God is unusually cruel and harsh, especially to all those born before the age of global travel and communications. To say nothing of those born before some of those faiths were created. The Mormons have an interesting fix to that issue...
So unless the Mormons are right I'm kind of pissed.
I would think that 3 is the most sensible one. (mabye with a bit of 5 rolled in).
1 is quite plainly arrogant.
2 is fine if that's what you want
3 makes sense.
4 is just a lame excuse to avoid answering the question to be honest.
5 I think it's just like 3, except that we as human beings screwed up.
I'm not a religious person, and I have my reasons for that. I'm also open minded about the subject so if there were to be a God then my choice would be 4, the fact there are so many religions makes me believe that there would have to some underlying message that we are unaware of that all religions share.
I would suggest that it was being good to everyone and not harming one another, but considering we have wars of faith, it kinda blows that idea out the water a little. So yes, my choice is 4.
But thats only a if there were a god, otherwise my choice is 2
I personally go for option 2 - there is no god. Though in a wider context, I would want to imagine that option 5 is correct; with god being rather less uptight than most of those apparently dedicated to his name.
The golden rule in many religions is do unto others as you would have done unto you (after any rules about there is only 1 god and this is his religion, etc). So I am not sure where people are getting all this stuff about it being fine to take out anyone who does not beleive exactly the same as you do.
Kid_Kyoto wrote:As a paladin I find myself thinking some deep thoughts lately...
If it's #1 then God is unusually cruel and harsh, especially to all those born before the age of global travel and communications. To say nothing of those born before some of those faiths were created. The Mormons have an interesting fix to that issue...
So unless the Mormons are right I'm kind of pissed.
Since you bring the Mormons into it by name, I'll just say that we don't believe God throws people into a burnibg Hell or condemns them in any way if they don't get a chance to accept him. They'll get the chance after death and even then if they don't they won't be sent to a burning Hell.
It was something I could never really square myself with growing up, the thought of an all loving God creating a race of feeling, thinking creatures and then either throwing them into flames if they were in the least way didn't do what he wanted or sit in a green field somewhere as a pampered pet if they were living like he wanted. We don't really believe in a burning Hell, but an absence of any kind of glory that onlythose who have had a full and undeniable knowledge of God will be subject to. There's not a heck of a lot of people with that kind of knowledge, and in my entire life I've never met one that I know of.
To put it simply we don't believe God plays games of chance with his children.
Seeing as everyone here is into Warhammer, then if there is a ---- insert suitable deity here ----- then we will probably all burn in ---- insert suitable bad place here ---- for consorting with false gos such as Khorne and the Emperor
lol, true, except for Space Marines, pretty much every Chapter regards the Emperor as a great man and not a God IIRC, so I'm safe from ---- insert witty comment ----
hellsguardian316 wrote:lol, true, except for Space Marines, pretty much every Chapter regards the Emperor as a great man and not a God IIRC, so I'm safe from ---- insert witty comment ----
I had this same dilema when I was searching for truth before I was saved.
I recomend that you actually do a comparative religion study and find out what the differences are. You will see that all religions are "basically" the same, except one. And then you will be left to ask yourself, why is that one religion different?
It is one of the few religions with no god figure, and it promotes peace and harmony in all things, including not attempting to convert others against their will.
So there are several differences right there to virtually all other organised religions...
[Note: Not meaning to belittle your faith, or the faith of anyone else... I am just pointing out that from my point of view there is little difference between most religions, nor is there much merit in them]
It is one of the few religions with no god figure, and it promotes peace and harmony in all things, including not attempting to convert others against their will.
So there are several differences right there to virtually all other organised religions...
[Note: Not meaning to belittle your faith, or the faith of anyone else... I am just pointing out that from my point of view there is little difference between most religions, nor is there much merit in them]
I'm not going to get into debating the differences between religions in this thread. If you noticed, I purposely avoided doing that. I am encouraging Kyoto to do that himself.
I can think of other religions that promote peace and harmony. But I can also think of practitioners of those religions that don't. There are many principles taught by a faith that many of their practitioners get wrong or don't bother to practice at all.
generalgrog wrote:I'm not going to get into debating the differences between religions in this thread. If you noticed, I purposely avoided doing that. I am encouraging Kyoto to do that himself.
However, you imply that there is only one religion worth following and that all others are not as good than this single religion. You also imply that it is in some way different to other religions.
Hence my suggestion that it might be Buddhism, since that is perhaps the most unique religion that I can think of. Though I think it is probably a good idea not to start debating the differences between religions too much, as far too much of it is subjective anyway.
I can think of other religions that promote peace and harmony. But I can also think of practitioners of those religions that don't. There are many principles taught by a faith that many of their practitioners get wrong or don't bother to practice at all.
Here I agree with you entirely. Jerks come in all sizes, sexes, colours and faiths, as do heros.
Panic wrote:yeah,
Need a place to go when you die? Pay up.
I think religion was invented by evil men to control the vulnerable and the weak when they need help most.
Panic...
You're right. Jesus and Buddha were evil scumsuckers. How dare they teach those concepts of peace and love your neighbor. Bastards. Clearly they were working for the Man.
Panic wrote:You assume Jesus and Buddha exist/existed.
My brother-in-law is a Dr of Ancient History and he seems to think that there is quite a lot of evidence for the existance of Jesus (as a man, regardless of any superpowers he might have had). He is a non-believer as well, so I am more inclined to trust his word than I might otherwise be.
Panic wrote:You assume Jesus and Buddha exist/existed.
My brother-in-law is a Dr of Ancient History and he seems to think that there is quite a lot of evidence for the existance of Jesus (as a man, regardless of any superpowers he might have had). He is a non-believer as well, so I am more inclined to trust his word than I might otherwise be.
Not to mention non-religious records India has that Siddhārtha Gautama actually existed.
Not to mention the four Gospels, Flavius Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Gaius Suetonius Tranquilus, Mara Bar Sarapion. These were authors or authored by contempories or at least within a generation of Jesus. There is no "assuming" that Jesus existed. It is a historical fact.
yeah,
It's a historical fact... In your opinion.
We have people in this country with all it's record keeping that can't find out who their Great Grandfather was, or where a soldier who died 50 years ago is buried.
Historical facts have all the details of what Jesus got for his birthday, names of people he met, extensively documented discussions he held and accounts of the things he did what he had for his tea a few nights before he died? 2000 years ago....
Or is it more likely that people who make money from these gigs tell you these are facts? Finding truth for themselves and others where there is none?
in my opnion religions leaders offer no more hope of a better life than a email from a Nigerian banker.
You're approaching this from a different standard than Grog is. You're questioning the veracity of the accounts of Jesus' life. He's simply saying that the breadth of available accounts indicates that he existed, regardless of the explicit truth of the accounts written.
For what its worth, I agree with him. This isn't some random person who can't discover who his grandparents were. This is a figure that inspired a religion with a 2000 year history. If you're going to question his existence you may as well question the existence of the Roman Emperors of the same period.
yeah,
I don't think we are approaching this from all that different a angle. I'm saying that all the evidence that indicates that Jesus ever lived is propaganda belonging/ originating from a company pushing it's product...
No one ever asks about Bob the tailor... WHY!!! Bob the tailor was just as significant to our current interpretation of fabrics... but NOOOOOOO... no one pays attention to Bob... damn whippersnappers.
Panic wrote:yeah,
I don't think we are approaching this from all that different a angle. I'm saying that all the evidence that indicates that Jesus ever lived is propaganda belonging/ originating from a company pushing it's product...
Panic...
Pics or it didn't happen suits this just fine... yes... just fine. Retort with the assumed line of dialogue... wait for it... NOW!!! GO GO GO!!!
Wrexasaur wrote:No one ever asks about Bob the tailor... WHY!!! Bob the tailor was just as significant to our current interpretation of fabrics... but NOOOOOOO... no one pays attention to Bob... damn whippersnappers.
Panic wrote:yeah, I don't think we are approaching this from all that different a angle. I'm saying that all the evidence that indicates that Jesus ever lived is propaganda belonging/ originating from a company pushing it's product...
Panic...
Pics or it didn't happen suits this just fine... yes... just fine. Retort with the assumed line of dialogue... wait for it... NOW!!! GO GO GO!!!
Despite your similar statements to mine you can't be my long lost brother, I mean I dealt with that situation a long time ago...er wait I said that out loud...nothing to see here...
BOB THE TAILOR, BOB FROM ACCOUNTING-IS THERE A COINCIDENCE?
Panic wrote:yeah,
I don't think we are approaching this from all that different a angle. I'm saying that all the evidence that indicates that Jesus ever lived is propaganda belonging/ originating from a company pushing it's product...
Panic...
That's not the angle you approached this from in your previous post. You can discount the veracity of any report of a person's activities without discounting the veracity of that person's existence.
I'd also be interested to know how you reconcile the existence of third party sources with your conspiracy position.
Frazz wrote:Despite your similar statements to mine you can't be my long lost brother, I mean I dealt with that situation a long time ago...er wait I said that out loud...nothing to see here...
And you thought you would never see these shoes again... WELL YOU THOUGHT WRONG PAL!!!
Dogma wrote:I'd also be interested to know how you reconcile the existence of third party sources with your conspiracy position.
Panic wrote:yeah,
It's a historical fact... In your opinion.
We have people in this country with all it's record keeping that can't find out who their Great Grandfather was, or where a soldier who died 50 years ago is buried.
Historical facts have all the details of what Jesus got for his birthday, names of people he met, extensively documented discussions he held and accounts of the things he did what he had for his tea a few nights before he died? 2000 years ago....
Or is it more likely that people who make money from these gigs tell you these are facts? Finding truth for themselves and others where there is none?
in my opnion religions leaders offer no more hope of a better life than a email from a Nigerian banker.
Panic...
Maybe I will touch this with a 10 ft pole now that its on to history... So are you suggesting that all of these authors, to whom we largely owe our knowledge of a great portion of the Ancient world, as being false? Now, despite my personal beliefs, there is no way you can say a man by the name of Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist. If you claim that then Caesar really is just a salad, and Pompey is really just a name we assigned to a dead city...not to mention a fabricated general...Your conclusions on this subject are decidedly cynical and unrealistic.
Panic wrote:yeah,
I don't think we are approaching this from all that different a angle. I'm saying that all the evidence that indicates that Jesus ever lived is propaganda belonging/ originating from a company pushing it's product...
Panic...
You do realize that excepting the gospel accounts, the other authors I pointed out weren't Christians? They were Roman and Syrian historians.
Flavius Josephus was a Jewish Roman citizen
Pliny the Younger was a Roman provencial Governor
Tacitus was a Roman historian
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus Roman historian
Mara bar Sarapion Syrian
All the above were hardly sympathetic to Christianity, indeed somewhat critical. So they were hardly coolaid drinking Christian fanatics. So regardless of whether you believe the New testament account, you would be in the extreme minority of historians that believe that Jesus of Nazereth was a myth, or didn't really exist.
Panic wrote:yeah,
I don't think we are approaching this from all that different a angle. I'm saying that all the evidence that indicates that Jesus ever lived is propaganda belonging/ originating from a company pushing it's product...
Panic...
Pliny the Younger was a Roman provincial Governor
GG
Haha, I remember reading Pliny when I was in college. He had as much a man crush on Trajan as Cicero did on Pompey or Frazzled has on Dogma. He would write to Trajan and ask him, "Why am I killing Christians again? They haven't really done anything wrong, but I am killing still just for good measure." Remember, there was no such thing as genocide to the Romans, they would simply declare it as, "Roma Victoria!"
yeah,
So your historical facts are that 2000 years ago someone by the name of Jesus existed? I'd take odds on that.
I'd even bet that there was one or two Jesus's out there that were popular...
Doesn't prove that
1) god exists and made the world... space... stuff... everything...
2) the son of god existed, was called Jesus and walked amonst men doing little more than spreading love, telling a few stories and drinking free wine.
I never claimed to know any of the authors you mentioned, but I'll acknowledge the fact they arn't known widely... maybe their text contains no evidence of magical doings that would help propagate the myth, and thus only stir the accepted notion that Jesus was a common name, so are for the most part ignored by the corporation.
I think that what people are trying to say is that it is silly to argue that Jesus didn't exist, as there is a wealth of evidence that suggests that he did exist.
There is also a wealth of evidence, or at least writings, claiming all sorts of things about Jesus. Whether any of that is true, who knows.
Panic wrote:yeah,
So your historical facts are that 2000 years ago someone by the name of Jesus existed? I'd take odds on that.
I'd even bet that there was one or two Jesus's out there that were popular...
It's more than that, as those historians I noted mention accounts of miracles and refer to Jesus as "sorcerer". So I don't know how many Jesus' were walking around performing miracles at the same time.
Panic wrote:
Doesn't prove that
1) god exists and made the world... space... stuff... everything...
2) the son of god existed, was called Jesus and walked amonst men doing little more than spreading love, telling a few stories and drinking free wine.
Now your moving the bar...and changing your burden of proof. You exclaimed that people were making assumptions that Jesus and Buddha existed. I am just merely pointing out the historical fact that a Jesus of Nazereth did indeed exist, and in fact there are WELL KNOWN (by historians anyway) 3rd party accounts of a Jesus, that had been reported to be the "King of the Jews" and had peformed miracles. These are historcal facts that any historian in any college would be able to point to, not to mention any scholar specializing in a study of Jesus.
Panic wrote:
I never claimed to know any of the authors you mentioned, but I'll acknowledge the fact they arn't known widely... maybe their text contains no evidence of magical doings that would help propagate the myth, and thus only stir the accepted notion that Jesus was a common name, so are for the most part ignored by the corporation.
Panic...
Panic wrote:yeah,
So your historical facts are that 2000 years ago someone by the name of Jesus existed? I'd take odds on that.
I'd even bet that there was one or two Jesus's out there that were popular...
Doesn't prove that
1) god exists and made the world... space... stuff... everything...
2) the son of god existed, was called Jesus and walked amonst men doing little more than spreading love, telling a few stories and drinking free wine.
I never claimed to know any of the authors you mentioned, but I'll acknowledge the fact they arn't known widely... maybe their text contains no evidence of magical doings that would help propagate the myth, and thus only stir the accepted notion that Jesus was a common name, so are for the most part ignored by the corporation.
Panic...
I have not claimed, nor has anyone else on this thread, that God does in fact exist, made the world, etc. YOU made that a point not any of us. Also those of us who are debating the point of Christ's existence are not trying, at least I am not, to imply that Jesus was anything more than a significant historical figure, although I will admit my private beliefs do. This point is again something YOU brought up, most are simply pointing out that there is no way to say that a man know as Jesus of Nazareth, notice I have conveniently omitted the title of "Christ", did exist. Just because you do not know the authors that we referenced, does not mean that they are not widely known. They are all monumental figures in terms of our own modern historical knowledge of the Late Roman Republic/Early Roman Empire. I would suggest to read up on them, as they are some of the most important historians of all time. While they do not make reference to any miracles performed by Christ, they do note the man as a specific person, especially Josephus and Pliny.
Flavius Josephus_from Testimonium Flavianum
"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and (he) was known to be virtuous and many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not desert his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders"
Tacitus_from his Annals
"Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius 14-37 at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular"
There are others but I don't have the time to write a book here.
Flavius Josephus_from Testimonium Flavianum
"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and (he) was known to be virtuous and many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not desert his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders"
Tacitus_from his Annals
"Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius 14-37 at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular"
There are others but I don't have the time to write a book here.
GG
My mistake, thanks for the correction. I am not perfect you know...unlike someone else.
It is strange that he claims that Josephus makes no reference to Christ at all. I have sitting right next to me my Loeb Classical Library edition of Josephus and am staring right at a passage where he does reference Christ. And just for the record, the LCL is published by Harvard University Press, not Right Wing Fake History Publishing Incorporated. I only use those sources when I want to disprove Obama's citizenship and religious preference.
I had heard from a friend of mine that had attended seminary that accounts of Jesus were that he would have been considered "ugly" by modern standards of the term ugly.
GG
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Wraithlordmechanic wrote:I find it a little funny that kyoto hasn't chimed in after starting this thread.
It's like he started a bar fight then quietly left while everyone was otherwise occupied...
Personally, I thinks it's been pretty well behaved.
I'll just butt in now and say how happy I am that it hasn't come to a fight yet...
It usually does.
I think that there is a God (yes that's singular) and due to this I'm a practicing Catholic. It is indisputable that Jesus Christ existed, under whatever name you prefer, and it is my personal belief that the things the Bible tells us are true. Some of you might not, that's your chocie and I guess when you die you'll turn into a tree. Or something. I don't know much of what others believe, or if you believe anything at all. Oh and for you atheists out there, I'm actually honestly quite curious, what do you believe happens to you when you die? I know a few people who say "nothing", but that seems a bit of a cop out to me and also kind of depressing.
Of course, there is no hard proof of God's existence, but no one has been able to prove that God doesn't exist either.
I won't state anything about science now, because we don't need this to get any more heated.
But I would like to say, for when it is brought up, that Christianity does not oppose the theories of evolution, and in fact, supports them here or there. just because you were an ape once doesn't mean that God didn't decide that. After all, a sculpted model goes through a variety of forms before the power armour is perfect... so I vote Yes there's a God.
Oh and for you atheists out there, I'm actually honestly quite curious, what do you believe happens to you when you die? I know a few people who say "nothing", but that seems a bit of a cop out to me and also kind of depressing.
I don't think anything happens to you when you die, at least not with regards with some continuing form of existence like a soul or similar.
I don't quite see how this is anymore of a "cop out" than people believing that they'll go to some wonderful afterlife where everything will be perfect. That seems a cop out to me.
Depressing ? Maybe, but it is ( so to speak) a fact of life so there's no point getting bent out of shape about it.
Christianity does not oppose the theories of evolution, and in fact, supports them here or there.
Indeed. I find the way the opposition to the idea baffling even on theological grounds. Even if you to the literal word of god angle, there's mention of the "corners of the earth" and I don't see people using this to argue that the earth isn't round.
...I'm about to be proven wrong here as flat/square earthers appear from nowhere aren't I ?
Obviously, the world is static, the fixed center of the Universe. The sun, planets and stars all revolve around it (although not necessarily in circular paths), in a plane level with the flat Earth.
Enlightend"crazyguyontheinternetmachine... wrote:Do you realize that a 4 corner square rotating 1/4 turn creates a full circle? A full rotated square will create 16 corners, 96 hours and 4 simultaneous 24 hour Day circles within only a single imaginary cubed Earth roation.
Okay... glad that was cleared up, I was beginning to worry that I would never understand that.
How did you find this dogma? Dude is assbonkers-funny-money-honey-bunny-nuts... and I have only scratched the surface of this site... which appears to be either a journal of some sort of schizo, or a very well done parody of the same thing...
I found this hilarious. Under Fighting the "Evidence"- Dispelling common myths about "proof" regarding round earth theory and Uncovering the conspiracy to withold the truth from the public:
<This page is currently under construction. Please come back when we have our act together.>
Additionally:
Water. Regardless of which train of thought you follow, it covers over seventy-five percent of our planet's surface. And the atmosphere, also a fluid, covers the entire surface. The difference is why. While flat-Earthers know that the ocean is really just a large bowl, (with great sheets of ice around the edges to hold the ocean back), and the atmosphere is contained by a large dome, the backwards "round-Earth" way of thinking would have you believe that all those trillions of gallons of water and air just "stick" to the planet's surface.
Conventional thinking would suggest that the water would just run down the sides of the Earth (to use the analogy again, like droplets running down the sides of a beach ball) and fall into outer space, while the air would dissipate. Using the earlier mentioned idea of "gravitational charge" gives some credibility to the theory. If the fluids were static, then exposure to the gravitational field for a long enough period of time would allow their molecules to align themselves with and be pulled in by the field.
But fluids are not static, especially not in the atmosphere and oceans. Great ocean currents run both at the surface and deep below, carrying water across huge basins, keeping the solution far from stagnant. Jet streams of air travel at hundreds of miles per hour through the atmosphere. And windblown rainclouds carry vast quantities of evaporated seawater across miles of ground, releasing their load far from its starting point. Water or air that (according to "round-Earth" theory) starts on one side of the planet could end up completely on the other side in a matter of only a few days. With all this turbulence and motion, if the world were round, the oceans should all fall "down" into the sky, leaving the planet dry and barren, and the atmosphere would simply float away. Why, just look at the moon. It is round, like a ball, and yet it has no atmosphere at all.
yeah,
I don't believe that everything wrote in a book is the truth. Books are just another form of media, except they are more easily distorted and baised with every word translated and re-wrote or omitted. I don't think that a dude called Jesus, son of God, walked on water and then died for us... my opinion. Just a story that got exagerated through time because it sold bibles and kept the corporations top-execs rich?
So while we are looking at religions.
Lets look at one of my favorites the End Timers. Basically these guys want the world to end so they, the true believers can all go to heaven. At that point the rest of us die and go to hell...
Their beliefs are based on the book of revelations... which is thought to have been wrote by a refugee hiding from the Romans on a greek island... filled with magic mushrooms.
The book is filled with wild horrible visons and text, most believe to be the rantings of mad man. but the end timers take these visons and texts very seriously. blood will boil etc... They believe that certain events must occure to bring about the end times. One such event is 'the destroyed Temple of Solomon must be rebuilt on The Temple Mount'.
That would be easy except at the moment that's where a massive Mosque has been built... this doesn't put off the End Timers thou. who fund fundamentalist Jews to plot about the destruction of the mosque.
So we go from a nutter eating toxic mushrooms while hiding from the romans, writing in his book while high... to Christians goading Jews to Fight Muslims?
Evil and Self-Serving?
Wait a minute... This website is a joke! It has to be, and I've been duped.
After spending over sixteen million dollars and using over 48 thousand yards of industrial strength strapping tape, we of the Flat Earth Society were able to construct an enormously powerful neurotransmitter that can implant suggestions directly into the brains of the nearby non-Flat Earthers. Having set it up just outside of the Russian Antarctic exploration post (Vostok), we are awaiting word that all three scientists and 174 penguins have been shown the light.
Panic wrote:yeah,
I don't believe that everything wrote in a book is the truth. Books are just another form of media, except they are more easily distorted and baised with every word translated and re-wrote or omitted. I don't think that a dude called Jesus, son of God, walked on water and then died for us... my opinion. Just a story that got exagerated through time because it sold bibles and kept the corporations top-execs rich?
So while we are looking at religions.
Lets look at one of my favorites the End Timers. Basically these guys want the world to end so they, the true believers can all go to heaven. At that point the rest of us die and go to hell...
Their beliefs are based on the book of revelations... which is thought to have been wrote by a refugee hiding from the Romans on a greek island... filled with magic mushrooms.
The book is filled with wild horrible visons and text, most believe to be the rantings of mad man. but the end timers take these visons and texts very seriously. blood will boil etc... They believe that certain events must occure to bring about the end times. One such event is 'the destroyed Temple of Solomon must be rebuilt on The Temple Mount'.
That would be easy except at the moment that's where a massive Mosque has been built... this doesn't put off the End Timers thou. who fund fundamentalist Jews to plot about the destruction of the mosque.
So we go from a nutter eating toxic mushrooms while hiding from the romans, writing in his book while high... to Christians goading Jews to Fight Muslims?
Evil and Self-Serving?
Panic...
I don't even know where to go with you anymore...Are you even reading the posts people put up?
Nightwatch wrote:Oh and for you atheists out there, I'm actually honestly quite curious, what do you believe happens to you when you die? I know a few people who say "nothing", but that seems a bit of a cop out to me and also kind of depressing...
yeah,
And that's just the point. when we die there is nothing.. how scary is that? but if you pop along to church once a weak, and fill the coffers you'll get a nice gold rosy after party! deal?
I think I'm a Existentialist although I'm not conviced, when I really think about it I don't think there is much point to anything, especially when people show you how small you are compared to a planet> a Star> a galaxay> the universe...
@Panic: While Jesus may not have been a supercharged/healing machine, or that 'Jesus' was even his name, I do think that he existed. (Although there is some evidence to suggest that he could very well a been a rebel, working against the Romans)
Just as much as the prophet Mohammed existed, Jesus existed. Sure, there may be much hyperbole over what they did and how they did it, but it is a historical fact that these charcters existed. To say that they never existed would be to say the Confucius or Socrates never existed.
Panic wrote:I don't believe that everything wrote in a book is the truth. Books are just another form of media, except they are more easily distorted and baised with every word translated and re-wrote or omitted.
You have to be joking at this point... or seriously out of touch with... something.
"I only get my information from the rain... the stars... and a silly little man who dwells on my shoulder."
Emperors Faithful wrote:@Wrexasaur: WTF?
GO TEAM BLUE!!! WOOT!!!
I am having an awful lot of fun with this thread... I just want to see what Panic's brain is made out of at this point to be honest. The elves are waiting in the operation room, please follow me there.
Wrexasaur wrote:
"I only get my information from the rain... the stars... and a silly little man who dwells on my shoulder."
Fool You get your info from the rain and stars. Everybody knows that they're also working for The Man.
(The silly little man on your shoulder is good though )
Most of life is like dealing with estate agents, they lie and twist things so that they are telling a version of the truth, but you don't have to take their words at face value.
Panic...
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warpcrafter wrote:Okay, the proverbial ten foot pole now has a point on it. ZEITGEIST
Life is a lie... so I sit and fry goldfish, and then I burn ants... yep, that is the way to go about it alright.
Panic-attack wrote:Most of life is like dealing with estate agents, they lie and twist things so that they are telling a version of the truth, but you don't have to take their words at face value.
Okay then... so life is like a guy in a suit, who has boat loads of jargon for you to swallow? That is a new one to me... interesting take though, I will admit. I always thought life involved a bit more than guys in suits trying to trick me into buying something... but hey, each to their own.
I guess it is more creative than life being like a box of chocolates, but chocolate tastes good, business men however... do not.
Wrexasaur, I choose what to believe.
Backwards time! YAY!!!
I would bet a dollar that you in fact do not... and being a pretty good betting man, I like my odds. Being an independent thinker, does involve listening to other sides of the debate, not just yelling when you feel extremely and profusely epically, and absolutely emphatically right... phew, that was a tough one.
Take life with a grain of salt, and have a nice frothy beer once in a while... hmmm, I want a beer now.
P.S.
If you can even understand what in the hell Zeitgeist is actually claiming, I do commend you, and I will keep a cookie on lay-away for you just in case my bet doesn't work out. Besides this point though, Zeitgeist is one sad attempt at outlandish claim having though, I will say that.
2500th post, I have to make this one epic. Would you mind if I broke you down Panic? I think I am gaining interest in your perspective.
Okie dokie then, I think another picture is needed... one that shows Icarus trying to swim after falling into the ocean... with his nubs, cute nubs too .
Pretty sweet eh? Every generation has their cult, and this one is most definitely no exception. If the 60's were not proof that most hippies moved on to better things, then I guess we can all get a second glimpse into the mind of a desperate attempt to reform reality as we know it. I like hippies, don't get me wrong, but angry AND smelly hippies... that is just too much, and a dichotomy to boot.
Oh and for you atheists out there, I'm actually honestly quite curious, what do you believe happens to you when you die? I know a few people who say "nothing", but that seems a bit of a cop out to me and also kind of depressing.
I don't think anything happens to you when you die, at least not with regards with some continuing form of existence like a soul or similar.
I don't quite see how this is anymore of a "cop out" than people believing that they'll go to some wonderful afterlife where everything will be perfect. That seems a cop out to me.
Depressing ? Maybe, but it is ( so to speak) a fact of life so there's no point getting bent out of shape about it.
Christianity does not oppose the theories of evolution, and in fact, supports them here or there.
Indeed. I find the way the opposition to the idea baffling even on theological grounds. Even if you to the literal word of god angle, there's mention of the "corners of the earth" and I don't see people using this to argue that the earth isn't round.
...I'm about to be proven wrong here as flat/square earthers appear from nowhere aren't I ?
haha
I guess you misunderstood me a little bit.
About the cop out, i was joking, i meant as in perhaps atheists have no imagination so, the response is "The end!" when you die. And actually, i dont believe in only a wonderful afterlife, if I'm a complete jerk and dumbass and do all the bad stuff, the "afterlife" as you put it, wont be so wonderful after all. Fire and pitchforks, and strangely enough, accordions, comes to mind. A fact of life? Only to you my dear sir, to me the fact is that death isn't the end.
As for literalism, particularly in the Bible, (and not just your quote here, but also others) the Bible, especially the Old Testament, isn't a history textbook. Most of it, and this includes the creation story, is myth or gilded facts. The stories of the Old Testament are about what the people thought of God at that time and are more to express the loving relationship between God and Man than to tell you that everything was made in 7 days. The 7 days is likely just textual flavoring. Also, it is interesting because before the genesis creation story, all creation myths in pretty much any religion or culture had to do with a bloody war of the gods, and earth is made of a severed elbow or something off the loser. This contrast between the jewish and other creation stories was to emphasize a difference, a more humane God rather than the bloodthirsty "play with the lives of men" kind that everyone else had.
Sorry for the little rant, just don't want anyone getting confused Oh yes, I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look back to who said it, but:
Atheistic Approach on afterlife is n/a
Religious Approach is that there is heaven, reincarnation, or other...
So, its safer to believe and practice religion, because if there is a God then you;re safe, if there isn't then it is wasted effort, but maybe you learned something.
I guess I'll pray for you so we can continue this debate in heaven, the phone connection isn't that great between heaven and hell, you blasphemous heretic!
Panic wrote:yeah,
Need a place to go when you die? Pay up.
I think religion was invented by evil men to control the vulnerable and the weak when they need help most.
Panic...
Common sophmoric view, it usually lasts until people see a religious-run orphanage, hospital, soup kitchen etc.
Blaming religion for the evil people do is silly, lots of evil throughout history lots of causes. Might as well say the same about government, philosophy, atheism, McDonalds...
Since you bring the Mormons into it by name, I'll just say that we don't believe God throws people into a burnibg Hell or condemns them in any way if they don't get a chance to accept him. They'll get the chance after death and even then if they don't they won't be sent to a burning Hell.
It was something I could never really square myself with growing up, the thought of an all loving God creating a race of feeling, thinking creatures and then either throwing them into flames if they were in the least way didn't do what he wanted or sit in a green field somewhere as a pampered pet if they were living like he wanted. We don't really believe in a burning Hell, but an absence of any kind of glory that onlythose who have had a full and undeniable knowledge of God will be subject to. There's not a heck of a lot of people with that kind of knowledge, and in my entire life I've never met one that I know of.
To put it simply we don't believe God plays games of chance with his children.
IIRC one of the unique beliefs of the Mormons is that living converts can ex post facto, convert their ancestors also granting them salvation. Solves the 'born too early' problem pretty well.
Since you bring the Mormons into it by name, I'll just say that we don't believe God throws people into a burnibg Hell or condemns them in any way if they don't get a chance to accept him. They'll get the chance after death and even then if they don't they won't be sent to a burning Hell.
It was something I could never really square myself with growing up, the thought of an all loving God creating a race of feeling, thinking creatures and then either throwing them into flames if they were in the least way didn't do what he wanted or sit in a green field somewhere as a pampered pet if they were living like he wanted. We don't really believe in a burning Hell, but an absence of any kind of glory that onlythose who have had a full and undeniable knowledge of God will be subject to. There's not a heck of a lot of people with that kind of knowledge, and in my entire life I've never met one that I know of.
To put it simply we don't believe God plays games of chance with his children.
IIRC one of the unique beliefs of the Mormons is that living converts can ex post facto, convert their ancestors also granting them salvation. Solves the 'born too early' problem pretty well.
Suppose reincarnation does that as well.
Wow...that's an interesting concept. I can't see how that would work though.
Since you bring the Mormons into it by name, I'll just say that we don't believe God throws people into a burnibg Hell or condemns them in any way if they don't get a chance to accept him. They'll get the chance after death and even then if they don't they won't be sent to a burning Hell.
It was something I could never really square myself with growing up, the thought of an all loving God creating a race of feeling, thinking creatures and then either throwing them into flames if they were in the least way didn't do what he wanted or sit in a green field somewhere as a pampered pet if they were living like he wanted. We don't really believe in a burning Hell, but an absence of any kind of glory that onlythose who have had a full and undeniable knowledge of God will be subject to. There's not a heck of a lot of people with that kind of knowledge, and in my entire life I've never met one that I know of.
To put it simply we don't believe God plays games of chance with his children.
IIRC one of the unique beliefs of the Mormons is that living converts can ex post facto, convert their ancestors also granting them salvation. Solves the 'born too early' problem pretty well.
Suppose reincarnation does that as well.
Wow...that's an interesting concept. I can't see how that would work though.
If I recall correctly you have to get baptised each time for each person down the line as far as you can go. Don't try to find a rational explanation. It is only rational if you believe it, if you don't, well...
Since you bring the Mormons into it by name, I'll just say that we don't believe God throws people into a burnibg Hell or condemns them in any way if they don't get a chance to accept him. They'll get the chance after death and even then if they don't they won't be sent to a burning Hell.
It was something I could never really square myself with growing up, the thought of an all loving God creating a race of feeling, thinking creatures and then either throwing them into flames if they were in the least way didn't do what he wanted or sit in a green field somewhere as a pampered pet if they were living like he wanted. We don't really believe in a burning Hell, but an absence of any kind of glory that onlythose who have had a full and undeniable knowledge of God will be subject to. There's not a heck of a lot of people with that kind of knowledge, and in my entire life I've never met one that I know of.
To put it simply we don't believe God plays games of chance with his children.
IIRC one of the unique beliefs of the Mormons is that living converts can ex post facto, convert their ancestors also granting them salvation. Solves the 'born too early' problem pretty well.
Suppose reincarnation does that as well.
Wow...that's an interesting concept. I can't see how that would work though.
To boill the concept down to it's simplest form, you get baptised in proxy for an ancestor and they have the option of accepting the ordinance or not.
Since you bring the Mormons into it by name, I'll just say that we don't believe God throws people into a burnibg Hell or condemns them in any way if they don't get a chance to accept him. They'll get the chance after death and even then if they don't they won't be sent to a burning Hell.
It was something I could never really square myself with growing up, the thought of an all loving God creating a race of feeling, thinking creatures and then either throwing them into flames if they were in the least way didn't do what he wanted or sit in a green field somewhere as a pampered pet if they were living like he wanted. We don't really believe in a burning Hell, but an absence of any kind of glory that onlythose who have had a full and undeniable knowledge of God will be subject to. There's not a heck of a lot of people with that kind of knowledge, and in my entire life I've never met one that I know of.
To put it simply we don't believe God plays games of chance with his children.
IIRC one of the unique beliefs of the Mormons is that living converts can ex post facto, convert their ancestors also granting them salvation. Solves the 'born too early' problem pretty well.
Suppose reincarnation does that as well.
Wow...that's an interesting concept. I can't see how that would work though.
If I recall correctly you have to get baptised each time for each person down the line as far as you can go. Don't try to find a rational explanation. It is only rational if you believe it, if you don't, well...
well if you want to go to the source there's always www.mormon.org
@kyoto sorry for the joke at your expense. I guess you have less free time than most of us.
Gak! Existentialism, I thought that at least all moderately intelligent people had done away with that horrid philosophy long ago.... I know I had to wash myself clean of its clingy, depressing tendrils.....
JEB_Stuart wrote:Gak! Existentialism, I thought that at least all moderately intelligent people had done away with that horrid philosophy long ago.... I know I had to wash myself clean of its clingy, depressing tendrils.....
You're correct. But, the hyper-intelligent were able to get their heads around it and stuck with it.
Anyone up for purging those who still cling to the discredited and disgusting philosophy of Existentialism? I know EF will be, as it makes the Emprah pathetic....
Lol, I am being a bit to harsh on existentialists, but I have largely rejected most of that philosophy. And don't even get me started on Transcendentalism.....
Cuz its fun I more reject the existentialist idea that human experience, which I have always interpreted their claim as cognizant human experience, is necessary to give meaning and value to the seemingly pointless world. I see children able to find wonder and joy, without it being pointless, in a world where they have no experience. In terms of philosophy, I find existentialism to be much more useful and realistic, but meaning does not have to be bound to so strict a thing. Of course, as I said, I have only rejected some of the philosophy, because you are right: you simply cannot reject all of existentialism. Nihilism, I sure as hell can reject.
The only reason I brought up Transcendentalism was just cuz, no real reason. I rejected those ideas long ago, and I have never really felt like having to justify my position. It has just always struck me as idiotic.
Its funny, as much as I love Nietzsche, I disagree with him so much. Same goes for Kierkegaard. Although, I never really thought of Nietzsche as much of a nihilist as some would claim....
JEB_Stuart wrote:Cuz its fun I more reject the existentialist idea that human experience, which I have always interpreted their claim as cognizant human experience, is necessary to give meaning and value to the seemingly pointless world. I see children able to find wonder and joy, without it being pointless, in a world where they have no experience.
You should look at Searle, or Rorty. They'll push your beliefs about Existentialism. At least I think they will.
JEB_Stuart wrote:
In terms of philosophy, I find existentialism to be much more useful and realistic, but meaning does not have to be bound to so strict a thing. Of course, as I said, I have only rejected some of the philosophy, because you are right: you simply cannot reject all of existentialism. Nihilism, I sure as hell can reject.
Certainly. I can't think of any, serious, philosopher who has embraced nihilism. I've always seen it as a form of limit, which no logical equation should approach.
JEB_Stuart wrote:
The only reason I brought up Transcendentalism was just cuz, no real reason. I rejected those ideas long ago, and I have never really felt like having to justify my position. It has just always struck me as idiotic.
I'm with you. Though I will say that,as I've studied more and more philosophy, the notion of a sort of 'bound' for possibility has begun to appeal in direct proportion. More simply, I don't think Kant was wholly off-base, merely lacking in statistical justification (and a reasonable theory of limited variance).
JEB_Stuart wrote:
Although, I never really thought of Nietzsche as much of a nihilist as some would claim....
Nietzche is one of those guys that encapsulates uncertainty so well that everyone loves his work, for vastly different reasons.
yeah,
Nihilism is perfectly valid when you concider how insignificant we are in the great scheme of the universe.
Mankind has had no impact at all... when you concider the universes billions of year of history all those human deaths and tears were honestly for nothing. But it's hard to understand true Nihilism because they shouldn't care that it's insignificant.
It's easier to think of being a existentialist with angst.
I can't remember who showed this here on dakka first, but it's cool... thanx.
Panic
perhaps atheists have no imagination so, the response is "The end!" when you die.
Hmm... not so - Atheists, being rationalists primarily would admit that they don't know for certain what happens after you die.
That pretty much goes for everything - there are no absolutes in science. However, we can say that there is ALMOST certainly no God.
And we can say that Jesus (or Yshua, to give him his real name) was ALMOST certainly not a miracle worker, because it is not physically possible to walk on water or heal the sick.
to me the fact is that death isn't the end
Again, not a fact - it's an opinion (and a borrowed one).
Most of it, and this includes the creation story, is myth or gilded facts.
'Of course, you aren't meant to take it literally....' I HATE this about religious people! You either believe it's the word of God or you don't. The bible does not support the idea of evolution at all - it explicitly states the age of earth (if you do the calculations) and how everything came into being. This is presented as the sacred word of God - if you are christian this is unavoidable. If you believe this, you have to be prepared to have it shot down, you can't qualify your faith by cherry-picking the believable bits and leaving out the unpalatable stuff (hating gays, virgin birth - don't get me started on that!)
Not being able to disprove something is not the same as proving something exists.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and awesome picture, Panic....
This is a pretty cool site, lots of interesting stuff. Life reflects, and life reflects, and life reflects, and life reflects... etc...
Maui Red
* Three sand grains from the red sand beach at Makena Point, Maui are heavily eroded, revealing their beautiful interiors.
Maui Sand Arrangement #2
* Maui Sand Grains appear to float on a black background. These spectacular grains of sand were selected from a thimble-full of Maui sand.
Truth be told, this type of subtle patterning is the closest thing I have to being religious. I am agnostic until dust starts to speak to me in english... at which point I check what is in my drink.
WAIT... this dust does speak in english... no... that is me talking now...
'Of course, you aren't meant to take it literally....' I HATE this about religious people! You either believe it's the word of God or you don't. The bible does not support the idea of evolution at all - it explicitly states the age of earth (if you do the calculations) and how everything came into being. This is presented as the sacred word of God - if you are christian this is unavoidable. If you believe this, you have to be prepared to have it shot down, you can't qualify your faith by cherry-picking the believable bits and leaving out the unpalatable stuff (hating gays, virgin birth - don't get me started on that!)
Except that many believe that there are stories in there that have the sole purpose of being cautionary tales or parables. Story told a lot of stories, but most are like aesop's fables and have a lesson in them. Do you think that there was actually a father who had two sons, one of which wasted his money and came back to receive a party thrown in his honor? Also, the bible wasn't written by the G-man, it was written by people who believed in him. The bible, like many other religious texts, aren't written by God, or related gods, but are the impressions created by men that heard him. Which is why there are 5 different versions of events in the bible told by different people(the gospel according to; John, Mark, etc.).
The old testament is the same as the new, there are stories that were meant to be taken literally and stories meant to be taken metaphorically.
generalgrog wrote:Personally, I thinks it's been pretty well behaved.
GG
Nevermind.
GG
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Panic wrote:yeah,
I don't believe that everything wrote in a book is the truth. Books are just another form of media, except they are more easily distorted and baised with every word translated and re-wrote or omitted. I don't think that a dude called Jesus, son of God, walked on water and then died for us... my opinion. Just a story that got exagerated through time because it sold bibles and kept the corporations top-execs rich?
...
I'm glad you pointed out that, that is your opinion, as we are pretty much getting the picture that you are highly opinionated. The internet is a great palcd where you can spout unsubstantiated claims and opinions, like Jesus didn't really exist, or the bible is "Just a story that got exagerated through time because it sold bibles and kept the corporations top-execs rich?"
Panic wrote:
The book is filled with wild horrible visons and text, most believe to be the rantings of mad man. ...
Who are the most? You mean the millions of Christians that actually believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God? or the small, yet vocal group of sceptics that like to spout unsubstantiated claims and opinions on the internet?
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Panic wrote:
And that's just the point. when we die there is nothing.. how scary is that? but if you pop along to church once a weak, and fill the coffers you'll get a nice gold rosy after party! deal?
Why am I not surprised that you show a complete lack of understanding of what it means to be a Christian.
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Cane wrote:Carl Sagan is my god:
He's done more for humanity than Geebus on a Buddha imo.
You mean like gets things mostly wrong? Wow you worship an errant false god. <-----litte g.
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frgsinwntr wrote:I don't think there is much difference at all between religions...
But I'll stay out now that I inserted my funnies.... I don't want to be the reason for locking EVERY religion thread
frgs are you trying to replace Gwar as the most offensive Religion hater on DAKKA?
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Panic wrote:I can't remember who showed this here on dakka first, but it's cool... thanx.
Panic
yeah,
That is cool and it goes to show how awesome God is. That he created this massive universe, and placed our planet in a privledged position that allows us to view the universe and study it and see his Glory. If our planet was located in another position, like say in a dust cloud, we wouldn't be able to see hardly any of the beautifull handiworkof God. Yet he chose to put Earth in a postition so that we can witness the awesomeness of power.
The old testament is the same as the new, there are stories that were meant to be taken literally and stories meant to be taken metaphorically.
Who decides that? You? I think you're veering into apologist territory here. The Jewish faith believes that the Torah, or Old Testament is the immutable word of YHWH and is a literal description of events. This is the same with many Christians (see GeneralGrog - whose commitment I can't fault, but whose reasoning I can) - this sort of Christian back-pedalling is a relatively modern development and symptomatic of the fact that the weight of evidence against the existence of God, miracles, angels etc. is mounting (that's putting it delicately).
I truly have no wish to offend anyone, and would not enter into this debate with the intentions of hurting anyone's feelings. However I don't believe that Religion should be immune to criticism on those grounds - I support Middlesbrough Football Club, who I believe are the finest team on earth. However, the weight of evidence is greatly against this - the facts don't bear out my claims, so I can't get angry if someone points that out.
And before you say 'that's not the same as believing in God!!' - you're right, it's not the same.
There is plenty of evidence for the existence of Middlesbrough FC.
Most of it, and this includes the creation story, is myth or gilded facts.
'Of course, you aren't meant to take it literally....' I HATE this about religious people! You either believe it's the word of God or you don't. The bible does not support the idea of evolution at all - it explicitly states the age of earth (if you do the calculations) and how everything came into being. This is presented as the sacred word of God - if you are christian this is unavoidable. If you believe this, you have to be prepared to have it shot down, you can't qualify your faith by cherry-picking the believable bits and leaving out the unpalatable stuff (hating gays, virgin birth - don't get me started on that!)
Not being able to disprove something is not the same as proving something exists.
This is quite an interesting statement, and your mostly right, except that real Christians don't "hate" gays. I too have a hard time with Christians who cherry pick what they believe about the Bible. Don't be wishywashy, either believe the whole thing or don't believe any of it.
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Albatross wrote:
The old testament is the same as the new, there are stories that were meant to be taken literally and stories meant to be taken metaphorically.
Who decides that? You? I think you're veering into apologist territory here. The Jewish faith believes that the Torah, or Old Testament is the immutable word of YHWH and is a literal description of events. This is the same with many Christians (see GeneralGrog - whose commitment I can't fault, but whose reasoning I can) - this sort of Christian back-pedalling is a relatively modern development and symptomatic of the fact that the weight of evidence against the existence of God, miracles, angels etc. is mounting (that's putting it delicately).
I truly have no wish to offend anyone, and would not enter into this debate with the intentions of hurting anyone's feelings. However I don't believe that Religion should be immune to criticism on those grounds - I support Middlesbrough Football Club, who I believe are the finest team on earth. However, the weight of evidence is greatly against this - the facts don't bear out my claims, so I can't get angry if someone points that out.
And before you say 'that's not the same as believing in God!!' - you're right, it's not the same.
There is plenty of evidence for the existence of Middlesbrough FC.
There is also plenty of evidence for God. See panics awesome post showing God's creative power. What evidence against the existence of God can you point to that isn't based on scientific assumption or bias? You can't.
I think this is starting to go the way of past threads, where we are starting to get into evolutionary debate. We have done that before, and I suggest using the search function on the DAKKA offtopic forum to see where we have gone before on the issue.
I'm bowing out of this thread because I know where it is going, and we've done this before. So I leave the last word to the sceptics. :-)
I'll certainly continue in pm's if anyone wants to. I still owe frigs some responces.
The old testament is the same as the new, there are stories that were meant to be taken literally and stories meant to be taken metaphorically.
Who decides that? You? I think you're veering into apologist territory here. The Jewish faith believes that the Torah, or Old Testament is the immutable word of YHWH and is a literal description of events. This is the same with many Christians (see GeneralGrog - whose commitment I can't fault, but whose reasoning I can) - this sort of Christian back-pedalling is a relatively modern development and symptomatic of the fact that the weight of evidence against the existence of God, miracles, angels etc. is mounting (that's putting it delicately)..
Actually I'd argue that it's really a fairly recent development that has seen people taking the Bible as a literal and infallible word from the big man himself. It seems mainly to have grown from a peculiarly American idea that seems to have spun out of/after the Scopes trials. Factor in the great depression and the sudden availability of cheap radio broadcasting time and it all seems to have grown from there. Sure at times the Xtian church has been notoriously oppressive and anti progress/science, but it has also at times been very forward thinking and accepting of science and its discoveries. There's a parallel here with Islam in many regards, but I think that'll open a whole new can o'worms/flamebait.
So, its safer to believe and practice religion, because if there is a God then you;re safe, if there isn't then it is wasted effort, but maybe you learned something
This view is more commonly known as Pascals Wager.
The thought behind is as follows:-
-If God does not exist, and I am an atheist, I get to have a little bit more fun and free time in my life.
-If God does not exist, and I am religous, at worst I'll have sacrificed one day a week sitting on my knees, and I'll have done some good in helping other people.
-If God does Exist, and I'm religous, I'll go to a wonderful happy afterlife.
-If God does exist and I'm an atheist, I'm screwed to burn for all eternity.
Therefore logic dictates that we should be religous, as the potential consequences for not being religous are far greater. It's not much of a sacrifice to make in hope of a massive payoff. As things stand, you have a 1 in 4 chance of eternal bliss after all. People gamble in the lottery on far worse odds than that. So we should believe in God.
Common problems with Pascals Wager:-
-How can you 'make' yourself believe something? Try and 'make' yourself believe that water is lava, or that computers produce chocloate if you press the power button ten times. It is impossible to force oneself to believe something one thinks is patently ridiculous.
-If God is really omniscient, he'll know that you're only believeing in him for selfish gain, rather than to be religous, and you'll still burn in hell forever.
-lolno.
Plus, if you don't have a reason to believe in God prior to the wager, you could just as easily hypothesize a second entity that will punish you for eternity if you worship God.
There is no God, because we can pretty clearly see where the idea comes from, and how it developed...and it it's just a human idea, then it isn't real. There was no "God" in ancient Sumer...there were "Gods," and it was from this pantheon of Gods that all the following Near Eastern civilizations and peoples, including the people who would become the ancient Jews, took their own pantheons of Gods. The Jewish people decided one day to believe in only a single God from their pantheon, who became the chief deity for all the Abrahamic religions.
In the East, the ancient Chinese had nature Gods and household Gods to begin with. Later Taoism and Buddhism developed...but it's interesting that if there is, indeed, one "God" that He/She never reared His/Her head in ancient China or India around the time He decided to pop into the Middle East...
Pretty much all belief in deity comes down to humans wanting answers for questions they can't have answers for. For primitive man, it's what's that big glowing thing in the sky? Oh, that's Ra. No, that's the sun actually, but you don't know that yet.
How do the seasons changes? Oh, those are nature gods. No, that's the Earth rotating around the sun, actually, but you don't know that yet.
What happens when we die?
...
We'll probably have some sort of God around for as long as people are asking that question and insisting that they need the answer. That's the long and short of religion - it's a source of succor for human beings because we're too smart for our own good, as far as Earth animal species go, anyway. Who knows what happens when we die, but do we really want to bother thinking about it? All the choices are bad...you either subscribe to a theory which may be entirely wrong but you live your life by whatever morality that theory subscribes to, in which case you may be making bad or stupid decisions accordingly your whole life and missing out on who knows what, or you can actually try to go it on your own and figure it out in which case you go crazy as a loon.
Now, I'm not saying that there is no sort of grand Truth to the universe or anything...nor am I saying that there's just nothing after we die...I'm saying "I don't know" to any and all questions of that ilk. Sometimes I have moments where I highly suspect that there's something after we die, but that might be cultural influence and nothing more.
Agnosticism is the way to go. Profession of ignorance is no shame when you're incapable of not being ignorant.
Cairnius wrote:The Jewish people decided one day to believe in only a single God from their pantheon, who became the chief deity for all the Abrahamic religions.
I can just so picture this image of all the ancient Jews getting around a table one day and going, 'Sod having a pantheon of them, let's just have one God!'
Albatross wrote:However, we can say that there is ALMOST certainly no God. And we can say that Jesus (or Yshua, to give him his real name) was ALMOST certainly not a miracle worker, because it is not physically possible to walk on water or heal the sick.
First of all, no, we can't. There is so much we don't know about the universe. What we do know is smaller then the picture of the Earth in your little chart, so I don't understand how you, as a self-proclaimed rationalist, can claim that we are so close to declaring that when we know so little. And this is information that is related only to our own dimension, physicists theorize there are at least 11 other dimensions besides our own.
Albatross wrote:'Of course, you aren't meant to take it literally....' I HATE this about religious people! You either believe it's the word of God or you don't. The bible does not support the idea of evolution at all - it explicitly states the age of earth (if you do the calculations) and how everything came into being. This is presented as the sacred word of God - if you are christian this is unavoidable. If you believe this, you have to be prepared to have it shot down, you can't qualify your faith by cherry-picking the believable bits and leaving out the unpalatable stuff (hating gays, virgin birth - don't get me started on that!)
Thank you for telling me how I am supposed to believe something, especially when you obviously don't know much about it. Who said anything about cherry picking? There are many, many elements to the Bible that are obviously metaphor, poetry, parable, etc. Just because we don't take it all literally doesn't mean that it was supposed to be that way.
Albatross wrote:
The old testament is the same as the new, there are stories that were meant to be taken literally and stories meant to be taken metaphorically.
Who decides that?
Actually this has been established Church doctrine since the times of St. Augustine and St. Athanasius, and probably before them.
Albatross wrote:The Jewish faith believes that the Torah, or Old Testament is the immutable word of YHWH and is a literal description of events. This is the same with many Christians (see GeneralGrog - whose commitment I can't fault, but whose reasoning I can) - this sort of Christian back-pedalling is a relatively modern development and symptomatic of the fact that the weight of evidence against the existence of God, miracles, angels etc. is mounting (that's putting it delicately).
Well Christians obviously aren't Jews, so we aren't bound by their theology, secondly most Jews don't believe that, only Orthodox Jews do, and even that's a stretch since it dooms them essentially without a Temple to sacrifice in. On the issue of back-peddling, I don't know how you got this idea. This whole "cherry-picking" idea as you put it isn't new. What is new is the idea of literal interpretation, which stems from post-Enlightenment philosophy and theology. The Church has largely been an adherent to the diversified Bible approach for nearly two millennium.
reds8n wrote:
Albatross wrote:
The old testament is the same as the new, there are stories that were meant to be taken literally and stories meant to be taken metaphorically.
Who decides that? You? I think you're veering into apologist territory here. The Jewish faith believes that the Torah, or Old Testament is the immutable word of YHWH and is a literal description of events. This is the same with many Christians (see GeneralGrog - whose commitment I can't fault, but whose reasoning I can) - this sort of Christian back-pedalling is a relatively modern development and symptomatic of the fact that the weight of evidence against the existence of God, miracles, angels etc. is mounting (that's putting it delicately)..
Actually I'd argue that it's really a fairly recent development that has seen people taking the Bible as a literal and infallible word from the big man himself. It seems mainly to have grown from a peculiarly American idea that seems to have spun out of/after the Scopes trials. Factor in the great depression and the sudden availability of cheap radio broadcasting time and it all seems to have grown from there. Sure at times the Xtian church has been notoriously oppressive and anti progress/science, but it has also at times been very forward thinking and accepting of science and its discoveries. There's a parallel here with Islam in many regards, but I think that'll open a whole new can o'worms/flamebait.
Thank you red, you are mostly right. The Literalistic movement though does predate the Scopes trial and was imported to America via English Dissenters.
Ketara wrote:
So, its safer to believe and practice religion, because if there is a God then you;re safe, if there isn't then it is wasted effort, but maybe you learned something
This view is more commonly known as Pascals Wager.
The thought behind is as follows:-
-If God does not exist, and I am an atheist, I get to have a little bit more fun and free time in my life. -If God does not exist, and I am religious, at worst I'll have sacrificed one day a week sitting on my knees, and I'll have done some good in helping other people. -If God does Exist, and I'm religious, I'll go to a wonderful happy afterlife. -If God does exist and I'm an atheist, I'm screwed to burn for all eternity.
Therefore logic dictates that we should be religious, as the potential consequences for not being religous are far greater. It's not much of a sacrifice to make in hope of a massive payoff. As things stand, you have a 1 in 4 chance of eternal bliss after all. People gamble in the lottery on far worse odds than that. So we should believe in God.
Common problems with Pascals Wager:-
-How can you 'make' yourself believe something? Try and 'make' yourself believe that water is lava, or that computers produce chocolate if you press the power button ten times. It is impossible to force oneself to believe something one thinks is patently ridiculous. -If God is really omniscient, he'll know that you're only believing in him for selfish gain, rather than to be religious, and you'll still burn in hell forever. -lolno.
Thanks for noting that problem with Pascal's logic. I love Pascal, and I see how this argument might entice people, but it has to be handled very carefully. I doubt Pascal would ever just suggest a simple lip service devotion, but it is easy to see why people think he does. I follow his logic as begging humanity to give God a chance to reveal himself to you, if only to avoid Hell.
Cairnius wrote:There is no God, because we can pretty clearly see where the idea comes from, and how it developed...and it it's just a human idea, then it isn't real. There was no "God" in ancient Sumer...there were "Gods," and it was from this pantheon of Gods that all the following Near Eastern civilizations and peoples, including the people who would become the ancient Jews, took their own pantheons of Gods. The Jewish people decided one day to believe in only a single God from their pantheon, who became the chief deity for all the Abrahamic religions.
Your attempts at anthropological history are horrifying....No respectable historian in the World would dare put this forward in a peer edited journal because it is unsubstantiated at best, fabricated at worst. We have no idea how the idea of god's came about, I prefer to stick to the religious texts on that one, it is all theorized, not proven. In terms of history, the Jews are the only people or religion, up to the arrival of Christ, that were monotheistic, and even as late as 63 BC Romans were puzzled as to how someone could be that way. Pompey himself went into the Inner Sanctum of the Temple just to see what was there.
This is my religion.
There are many like it, but this one is MINE.
My religion is my best friend. It is my life.
I must master it as I must master my life.
My religion without me is useless. Without my religion, I am useless.
I must fire my religion true.
I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me.
I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...
My religion and myself know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our bursts, nor the smoke we make.
We know it is the hits that count. We will hit...
My religion is human, even as I, because it is my life.
Thus, I will learn it as a brother.
I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel.
I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage.
I will keep my religion clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready.
We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God I swear this creed.
My religion and myself are the defenders of my country.
We are the masters of our enemy.
We are the saviours of my life.
So be it, until there is no enemy, but PEACE.
George Spiggott wrote:This is my religion.
There are many like it, but this one is MINE.
My religion is my best friend. It is my life.
I must master it as I must master my life.
My religion without me is useless. Without my religion, I am useless.
I must fire my religion true.
I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me.
I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...
My religion and myself know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our bursts, nor the smoke we make.
We know it is the hits that count. We will hit...
My religion is human, even as I, because it is my life.
Thus, I will learn it as a brother.
I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel.
I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage.
I will keep my religion clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready.
We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God I swear this creed.
My religion and myself are the defenders of my country.
We are the masters of our enemy.
We are the saviours of my life.
So be it, until there is no enemy, but PEACE.
I'm sorry, but I already did that a few pages ago.
Cairnius wrote:There is no God, because we can pretty clearly see where the idea comes from, and how it developed...and it it's just a human idea, then it isn't real. There was no "God" in ancient Sumer...there were "Gods," and it was from this pantheon of Gods that all the following Near Eastern civilizations and peoples, including the people who would become the ancient Jews, took their own pantheons of Gods. The Jewish people decided one day to believe in only a single God from their pantheon, who became the chief deity for all the Abrahamic religions.
Your attempts at anthropological history are horrifying....No respectable historian in the World would dare put this forward in a peer edited journal because it is unsubstantiated at best, fabricated at worst. We have no idea how the idea of god's came about, I prefer to stick to the religious texts on that one, it is all theorized, not proven. In terms of history, the Jews are the only people or religion, up to the arrival of Christ, that were monotheistic, and even as late as 63 BC Romans were puzzled as to how someone could be that way. Pompey himself went into the Inner Sanctum of the Temple just to see what was there.
This isn't a peer-edited anthropological history journal. It's a tabletop wargaming website called Dakka Dakka. Do you honestly believe that I'm going to present the kind of scholarship on this topic, for a posting on the Off-Topic Forum of a nerd website (and no, I don't think that's a bad word but there it is), that you seem to think I ought to?
You agree with me that there were no monotheistic religions in the Near East before the Jews...and the Jews developed from other, prior civilizations and cultures in the Near East who were polytheistic...which means that the progenitors of the ancient Jews were polytheistic...which means that at some point the ancient Jews decided to believe in only one of their Gods and that became the Abrahamic "God."
Which means that this "God" didn't always exist. A single, human culture brought it into existence. That means God is a human creation, not some sort of universal, eternal truth.
So...you're disagreeing with me by agreeing with me?
Albatross wrote:
Hmm... not so - Atheists, being rationalists primarily would admit that they don't know for certain what happens after you die.
That pretty much goes for everything - there are no absolutes in science. However, we can say that there is ALMOST certainly no God.
And we can say that Jesus (or Yshua, to give him his real name) was ALMOST certainly not a miracle worker, because it is not physically possible to walk on water or heal the sick 'Of course, you aren't meant to take it literally....' I HATE this about religious people! You either believe it's the word of God or you don't. The bible does not support the idea of evolution at all - it explicitly states the age of earth (if you do the calculations) and how everything came into being. This is presented as the sacred word of God - if you are christian this is unavoidable. If you believe this, you have to be prepared to have it shot down, you can't qualify your faith by cherry-picking the believable bits and leaving out the unpalatable stuff (hating gays, virgin birth - don't get me started on that!)
I bolded a couple of things you said here because I thought it interesting you first state there are no absolutes in science, then make a statement that is pretty absolute about physical laws. I'm not going to get long winded here, because you have your beliefs and a statement written here, no matter how well put or reasoned I think it to be is going to change your mind. I'd be a bit worried for you if it did, actually after reading what you wrote.
The science books are constantly being rewritten of what is true and what isn't. If I recall correctly piltdown man was evidence for 40 years or so of evolution and finally exposed as a hoax. Scientist were convinced for years that it was the real deal, though. People used to think it was not
physically possible to go more than a hundred miles an hour and survive. I could go on with what science accepted as possible and later proven wrong, just as you could throw back aspects of religion and bible writings you don't agree with. The main thing this thread proves is that no one here has absolute knowledge, but we are all passionate about what we hold to be true.
I always learn some interesting things on these threads that give me cause to research, and for that, I'm grateful to those that either believe in God or don't.
Here's the thing...one has to define what they mean by "God."
If you mean "the Abrahamic God," then most certainly it does not exist. We can trace the development of the concept quite plainly through a study of antiquity. We could point to where the concept of the Jewish "God" came into play on a timeline. Prior to that point, there was no "God," there were "Gods." The pantheons of the Near East all very plainly evolved from the Sumerian pantheon. The names changed, but what the Gods stood for, how they were described in mythology, it flows from one civilization to another. It's no different than the relationship between the Greek and Roman pantheons which most nerds have some passing familiarity with.
If you mean "any sort of extra-dimensional entity," then we don't know there's no God. We'll never *know* that in the scientific sense of the word. Atheism is not a rational belief in the least. It's just another form of faith. In this case, faith that there is no God - but most atheists I know couch their belief system so strongly in relation to Western religion rather than a general disbelief in any kind of spirituality whatsoever that it gives the game away. Atheism, as I've witnessed it, is mostly a reaction to Western religion and the God concept.
Agnosticism is the position that you don't know whether anything is true or false in the entire spiritual vein. That is a truly rational premise, because it's absolutely true. There is an utter and complete lack of physical evidence to support any sort of spiritual truth. We have stories, lots and lots of stories, some written, some verbal, about peoples' experiences and thoughts, but none of that is "truth." None of it is any kind of scientific evidence or proof one way or the other.
I'm not saying Agnosticism is better than Atheism, but to call atheism a "rationalist" system is entirely inaccurate. It is just as irrational to boldly proclaim the utter nonexistence of any kind of deity in theory as it is to boldly proclaim its existence.
Cairnius wrote: This isn't a peer-edited anthropological history journal. It's a tabletop wargaming website called Dakka Dakka. Do you honestly believe that I'm going to present the kind of scholarship on this topic, for a posting on the Off-Topic Forum of a nerd website (and no, I don't think that's a bad word but there it is), that you seem to think I ought to?
Whats bad about the word nerd? Who cares. Anyway, if you are going to present an idea of this magnitude you had better back it up with scholarship. I never just post random stuff on major points of history, philosophy, etc. without at least being able to write a substantial essay on it. That being said you shouldn't make such unqualified claims just because you can.
Cairnius wrote:You agree with me that there were no monotheistic religions in the Near East before the Jews...and the Jews developed from other, prior civilizations and cultures in the Near East who were polytheistic...which means that the progenitors of the ancient Jews were polytheistic...which means that at some point the ancient Jews decided to believe in only one of their Gods and that became the Abrahamic "God."
Which means that this "God" didn't always exist. A single, human culture brought it into existence. That means God is a human creation, not some sort of universal, eternal truth.
So...you're disagreeing with me by agreeing with me?
No, not at all. I am not gonna deny that the first recorded existence of monotheism is the Jews, but that doesn't mean the worship of one God, specifically the Judeo-Christian God, didn't exist beforehand. We don't have proof in writing that they did, but we know ancient man probably made bread and wine. Not having it in written history does not necessarily negate the possibility of somethings prior existence. You are jumping to extremes, and from an extremely cynical viewpoint might I add. You automatically throw out the remote possibility that there could be a God. Pagan ritual and religion surrounded gods living in the mountains, in the Earth (Hinduism, which is the only mainstream, modern pagan religion), etc. but that has all been disproved by science. The unique nature of the Jews, and what makes their circumstance so interesting, is the fact that nothing was attributed to God as everything was attributed to God. Their beliefs, as given to them by God, removes him from this physical world and gives us the context of his existence in the realm of the spiritual, thus never able to be disproven. God does not require our belief to exist, nor does He require us to believe in Him, this is a choice He leaves to us.
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Cairnius wrote:If you mean "the Abrahamic God," then most certainly it does not exist. We can trace the development of the concept quite plainly through a study of antiquity. We could point to where the concept of the Jewish "God" came into play on a timeline. Prior to that point, there was no "God," there were "Gods." The pantheons of the Near East all very plainly evolved from the Sumerian pantheon. The names changed, but what the Gods stood for, how they were described in mythology, it flows from one civilization to another. It's no different than the relationship between the Greek and Roman pantheons which most nerds have some passing familiarity with.
Again based on incomplete and inaccurate historical fact. Our records on this era are so sketchy it isn't even funny. Your idea that we can perfectly trace something like this is completely nonsensical and frankly not empirical in the slightest.
Cairnius wrote:If you mean "any sort of extra-dimensional entity," then we don't know there's no God. We'll never *know* that in the scientific sense of the word. Atheism is not a rational belief in the least. It's just another form of faith. In this case, faith that there is no God - but most atheists I know couch their belief system so strongly in relation to Western religion rather than a general disbelief in any kind of spirituality whatsoever that it gives the game away. Atheism, as I've witnessed it, is mostly a reaction to Western religion and the God concept.
So the Judeo-Christian God can exist, since it has always been believed that He resides in the realm of the spiritual...
Cairnius wrote:Agnosticism is the position that you don't know whether anything is true or false in the entire spiritual vein. That is a truly rational premise, because it's absolutely true. There is an utter and complete lack of physical evidence to support any sort of spiritual truth. We have stories, lots and lots of stories, some written, some verbal, about peoples' experiences and thoughts, but none of that is "truth." None of it is any kind of scientific evidence or proof one way or the other.
Except for the historical fact that many religious texts, especially the canonical Bible and its apocrypha refer to.
Cairnius wrote:If you mean "the Abrahamic God," then most certainly it does not exist.
Sorry... I couldn't stay out of it. I really tried..I really did.
But Cairnius is making a similar mistake as what panic was making, in that panic "assumed" that Jesus was a fabrication, much like what Cairnius is doing "assuming" that God is a fabrication. Nothing what Cairnius has said proves that an Abrahamic God "most certainly does not exist".
As JEB said, just becuase some historical timeline doesn't show monotheism until the Hebrews, doesn't mean that monotheism didn't exist before hand. In fact the book of Genesis talks about Abraham giving tithes to a king of Salem called Melchisedek who was a, "priest of the Most high God". (Gen 14:18 KJV) So the book of Genesis at least shows that there was a monotheistic priesthood before the Hebrews even existed.
Cairnius wrote:
If you mean "the Abrahamic God," then most certainly it does not exist. We can trace the development of the concept quite plainly through a study of antiquity. We could point to where the concept of the Jewish "God" came into play on a timeline. Prior to that point, there was no "God," there were "Gods." The pantheons of the Near East all very plainly evolved from the Sumerian pantheon. The names changed, but what the Gods stood for, how they were described in mythology, it flows from one civilization to another. It's no different than the relationship between the Greek and Roman pantheons which most nerds have some passing familiarity with.
You can also account for that effect via a combination of anthropological gaps, and the notion of progressive revelation. That's certainly enough to neuter the 'certainty' of your conclusion.
Cairnius wrote:
If you mean "any sort of extra-dimensional entity," then we don't know there's no God. We'll never *know* that in the scientific sense of the word. Atheism is not a rational belief in the least. It's just another form of faith. In this case, faith that there is no God - but most atheists I know couch their belief system so strongly in relation to Western religion rather than a general disbelief in any kind of spirituality whatsoever that it gives the game away. Atheism, as I've witnessed it, is mostly a reaction to Western religion and the God concept.
Of course it is. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in God. It literally cannot be a reaction to anything else.
Cairnius wrote:
Agnosticism is the position that you don't know whether anything is true or false in the entire spiritual vein. That is a truly rational premise, because it's absolutely true. There is an utter and complete lack of physical evidence to support any sort of spiritual truth. We have stories, lots and lots of stories, some written, some verbal, about peoples' experiences and thoughts, but none of that is "truth." None of it is any kind of scientific evidence or proof one way or the other.
Agnosticism overlaps with both Atheism and Theism. There is a case to be made that one cannot be purely Agnostic. Though that may be the most relevant descriptor.
Cairnius wrote:
I'm not saying Agnosticism is better than Atheism, but to call atheism a "rationalist" system is entirely inaccurate. It is just as irrational to boldly proclaim the utter nonexistence of any kind of deity in theory as it is to boldly proclaim its existence.
That's not what Atheism does. Revisit the definition of the word.
JEB_Stuart wrote:Whats bad about the word nerd? Who cares. Anyway, if you are going to present an idea of this magnitude you had better back it up with scholarship. I never just post random stuff on major points of history, philosophy, etc. without at least being able to write a substantial essay on it. That being said you shouldn't make such unqualified claims just because you can.
They're not unqualified - I'm just not going to, during a break from work, find citations for you. Most of the time when I post about something I'm working off of readily-available information on a given subject which someone else can just look up quickly to find for themselves. This falls under that category. Monotheism evolved from polytheism, and the Jewish culture evolved from previous, earlier cultures. Unless you're asking me to prove those two basic truths about human history I'm not sure where the complaint lies.
JEB_Stuart wrote:No, not at all. I am not gonna deny that the first recorded existence of monotheism is the Jews, but that doesn't mean the worship of one God, specifically the Judeo-Christian God, didn't exist beforehand. We don't have proof in writing that they did, but we know ancient man probably made bread and wine. Not having it in written history does not necessarily negate the possibility of somethings prior existence. You are jumping to extremes, and from an extremely cynical viewpoint might I add. You automatically throw out the remote possibility that there could be a God. Pagan ritual and religion surrounded gods living in the mountains, in the Earth (Hinduism, which is the only mainstream, modern pagan religion), etc. but that has all been disproved by science. The unique nature of the Jews, and what makes their circumstance so interesting, is the fact that nothing was attributed to God as everything was attributed to God. Their beliefs, as given to them by God, removes him from this physical world and gives us the context of his existence in the realm of the spiritual, thus never able to be disproven. God does not require our belief to exist, nor does He require us to believe in Him, this is a choice He leaves to us.
Look, clearly you're a religious person, and believe it or not I can respect that in theory. Whether I respect someone's religious beliefs is decided by whether or not they follow the tenants they profess to believe in...but you can't use religious dogma to defend religious belief in a conversation where you're also asking for "anthropological scholarship." Either you want to have this conversation from a scientific point of view, which reduces the Bible and all other religious writings from any religion as texts written by humans and interesting pieces of cultural heritage to read and study but not truth, or you can have this conversation from a religious point of view which holds the Bible as truth because the religion says it's true, which is as unscientific as you can get.
We DO have a great deal of information on Near Eastern history from the Sumerians forward, more than enough to say that if there was a monotheistic deity called "God" that existed in the Near East prior to the development of the Jewish faith, I believe some 2,000 years of history prior to that, that we'd have SOME evidence of it, even if ONE piece of evidence.
We don't. Nada. Zilch. Zero. That's as empirical as it gets. The evidence doesn't exist.
What you're doing is making an unscientific proposition, that just because we don't have evidence of something doesn't mean it wasn't there (I mean, come on, you're really going to say this after attacking "my scholarship?"), and using that proposition to attack a scientific truth regarding lack of evidence.
No offense, but you don't sound like you have a clue what you're talking about. The history of relationship between the Greek and Roman pantheons isn't sketchy in the slightest. Again, I'm not going to do scholarly work for you here, but don't listen to me - go to your local library.
JEB_Stuart wrote:Except for the historical fact that many religious texts, especially the canonical Bible and its apocrypha refer to.
Have you ever studied history at the university level, Jeb?
Religious texts are not "historical fact" the way you mean it. They're just not. Not from a scholarly point of view.
The Bible says that the Earth was created in six days. That's not true. We know it's not true. Anyone who believes it is true is either ignorant and hasn't learned better yet, or understands the science of things like carbon-dating but willingly chooses to remain ignorant.
The Bible is extremely useful for locating cities of antiquity. It is an supremely-important cultural document...but it's not "historical fact." David and Goliath is not historical fact. Noah is not historical fact. Even Jesus is not historical fact. They're all stories in a book which some people choose to believe in, but they do so through faith, not evidence.
And that's fine - but don't pretend that there's any science in their thinking. Just be honest about it. Couching religious belief in science is the worst kind of scholarship.
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generalgrog wrote:
But Cairnius is making a similar mistake as what panic was making, in that panic "assumed" that Jesus was a fabrication, much like what Cairnius is doing "assuming" that God is a fabrication. Nothing what Cairnius has said proves that an Abrahamic God "most certainly does not exist".
As JEB said, just becuase some historical timeline doesn't show monotheism until the Hebrews, doesn't mean that monotheism didn't exist before hand. In fact the book of Genesis talks about Abraham giving tithes to a king of Salem called Melchisedek who was a, "priest of the Most high God". (Gen 14:18 KJV) So the book of Genesis at least shows that there was a monotheistic priesthood before the Hebrews even existed.
Okay, I think I get it.
People who believe in Abrahamic religions believe that their God always is, always was, always will be.
If that's the case, I find it exceptionally difficult to believe, from any scientific and rational point of view, that no evidence of Him as Him, as the same God we can recognize from Jewish to Christian to Muslim faith, had no kind of references to it whatsoever for over 2,000 years of human history, or more specifically through all the physical evidence we have from those 2,000 years.
When it comes to history, the only thing that is "true" is that which we can "prove," GG. So, if a historical timeline doesn't show monotheism until the Hebrews, then historically it makes it a reasonable proposition that monotheism didn't exist until the Hebrews.
And scientifically, it is very odd to be able to look across the rest of the planet at the ancient Chinese, at the Mayans, later at the American Indians, to see all these cultures that developed in relative isolation (at the time the ancient Chinese were sailing around exploring these wasn't much to see, really - they were so much more advanced than other civilizations and not many people seem to know that, it's fascinating - they could have conquered the world by sea but didn't bother because there was nothing around better than what they had in plenitude back home) and again see NO reference to this "God" the Jews believe in, and who then was worshiped by the Christians and Muslims who also developed in the same part of the world.
Science is a bitch. You have to go with the hypothesis which makes the most sense...and for better or worse, I tend to take that which holds the most water as "truth" until it's proven otherwise, or unless "the most water" is still pretty thin.
There's an awful lot of fact to suggest that God didn't exist prior to the Jews because there's no evidence of him anywhere, across the entire planet Earth, prior to the Jews proclaiming he was around. If that's not a human construction, I don't know what is.
Oh, on that Biblical quote, GG - "Most high God" doesn't necessarily mean "Judeo-Christian God," taken out of context. Most pantheons had a "top of the God food chain," and also don't discount the authors of the Old Testament doing a little historical editing and making the assumption that Melchisedek was a priest of their God and not someone else's.
No one should need a lesson on how religious texts get edited and altered to suit the purposes of those who are using them to thier own advantage *cough*Council of Nicea*cough*
So - no, you're right. I don't KNOW in the truest sense of the word that there was not a single human being in history who did not say or think the word God and mean PRECISELY what JEB means when he says or thinks "God," which is what he is arguing may be true.
I also don't KNOW, in the truest sense of the word, that the universe doesn't actually exist in a marble being held by a big green alien like at the end of Men In Black, but if someone were to write a book that said this was the case and then say that someone wrote that book 4,000 years ago and the BOOK said that the universe existed in a marble being held by a big green alien like at the end of Men In Black, would I really be out of line to suggest that this isn't the way the universe actually was?
So, come on, get real. No one believed in the Abrahamic God prior to the Jews because they DEFINED what "God" IS the way we think of it today. If you're asking for 100% validated truth you can't prove that...but you have to be a believer to suggest that it's an outrageous proposition to accept on the weight of the evidence that this is the case.
History and anthropology are soft sciences at heart, but they're still sciences...
Cairnius wrote:They're not unqualified - I'm just not going to, during a break from work, find citations for you. Most of the time when I post about something I'm working off of readily-available information on a given subject which someone else can just look up quickly to find for themselves. This falls under that category. Monotheism evolved from polytheism, and the Jewish culture evolved from previous, earlier cultures. Unless you're asking me to prove those two basic truths about human history I'm not sure where the complaint lies.
So in otherwords your allowed to come on here and make statemements without backing them up? How convenient.
Cairnius wrote:
We DO have a great deal of information on Near Eastern history from the Sumerians forward, more than enough to say that if there was a monotheistic deity called "God" that existed in the Near East prior to the development of the Jewish faith, I believe some 2,000 years of history prior to that, that we'd have SOME evidence of it, even if ONE piece of evidence
We don't. Nada. Zilch. Zero. That's as empirical as it gets. The evidence doesn't exist.
..
Lets just say for a minute that your statement is true about no evidence before the Hebrews. That's still a leap of faith on your part to proclaim that there was no monotheism before the Hebrews. Again another assumption on your part.
Cairnius wrote:
What you're doing is making an unscientific proposition, that just because we don't have evidence of something doesn't mean it wasn't there (I mean, come on, you're really going to say this after attacking "my scholarship?"), and using that proposition to attack a scientific truth regarding lack of evidence...
You mean like the people that believe in macro evolution? The whole theory is propogated without a lack of scientific(fossil) evidence, but I am willing to bet that you ascribe to it.
Cairnius wrote:
The Bible says that the Earth was created in six days. That's not true. We know it's not true. Anyone who believes it is true is either ignorant and hasn't learned better yet, or understands the science of things like carbon-dating but willingly chooses to remain ignorant. ...
Again, according to macro evolutionsts it's not true. And no WE don't know it's not true, since macro evolotionist theory is based on more assumptions like the ones you are making concerning the lack of belief in One God, pre Hebrew times. Carbon dating is hardly the "answer" your looking for. Since carbon-14 has been found in diamonds, and we all know that diamonds are some of the oldest rocks in existence. How can we be finding carbon-14, with a 1/2 life of thousands of years, in a rock that is supposed to be millions of years old?
Rather than talking about the Abrahamic God and the like, a nice phrase I came across in Philosophy once was the 'God of classical theism'. It refers to the idea of a omnipotent, omniscient God that is shared between all the major religions.
@Ketara: I believe that this 'God of classical theism' is sometihng along the lines of 3 or 5 no?
Automatically Appended Next Post: @generalgrog: There is some sort of theory that the creation of the earth in six days actually represented six periods of creation (over millions of years).
Day 1 = Big Bang
Day 2 = Earth in it's molten volcanic state
Day 3 = Earth calming down and giving rise to oceans.
Cairnius wrote:
They're not unqualified - I'm just not going to, during a break from work, find citations for you. Most of the time when I post about something I'm working off of readily-available information on a given subject which someone else can just look up quickly to find for themselves. This falls under that category. Monotheism evolved from polytheism, and the Jewish culture evolved from previous, earlier cultures. Unless you're asking me to prove those two basic truths about human history I'm not sure where the complaint lies.
It seems the level of proof you require from others is not equal to your own....
Cairnius wrote:Look, clearly you're a religious person, and believe it or not I can respect that in theory. Whether I respect someone's religious beliefs is decided by whether or not they follow the tenants they profess to believe in...but you can't use religious dogma to defend religious belief in a conversation where you're also asking for "anthropological scholarship." Either you want to have this conversation from a scientific point of view, which reduces the Bible and all other religious writings from any religion as texts written by humans and interesting pieces of cultural heritage to read and study but not truth, or you can have this conversation from a religious point of view which holds the Bible as truth because the religion says it's true, which is as unscientific as you can get.
Again, the Bible, among other religious texts, has been used to support historical arguments. Not ALL of it certainly, but a great many parts have been.
Cairnius wrote:We DO have a great deal of information on Near Eastern history from the Sumerians forward, more than enough to say that if there was a monotheistic deity called "God" that existed in the Near East prior to the development of the Jewish faith, I believe some 2,000 years of history prior to that, that we'd have SOME evidence of it, even if ONE piece of evidence.
Again, we don't have that much evidence concerning Sumeria, at least not written evidence. We have found a bunch of their buildings and statues, but the written evidence that we do have is either hard to impossible to translate or it is younger and more closely related to Egyptian structure.
Cairnius wrote:What you're doing is making an unscientific proposition, that just because we don't have evidence of something doesn't mean it wasn't there (I mean, come on, you're really going to say this after attacking "my scholarship?"), and using that proposition to attack a scientific truth regarding lack of evidence.
It is wholly different to declare something from nothing than it is to acknowledge the possibility of something existing because of the unknown. You declare that there was no such thing as monotheism, thus the Judeo-Christian God doesn't exist, on limited information. I merely pointed out that such a declaration was extremely unsubstantiated, and examined the possibility based on our lack of evidence. I never said it was certain, despite my personal beliefs, but I never said it couldn't be that way either.
Cairnius wrote:No offense, but you don't sound like you have a clue what you're talking about. The history of relationship between the Greek and Roman pantheons isn't sketchy in the slightest. Again, I'm not going to do scholarly work for you here, but don't listen to me - go to your local library.
How do you jump from 5th Century BC to 700 BC and equate them as relevant comparisons? The records we have, especially primary sources, is in a far greater abundance than we had for Sumer. Rome isn't even a distinct regional power for another 400 years, I am only referring to the end of the Ancient Greek Dark Age. The plethora of information we have on the Classics is found in infinitely higher quantity and quality, thanks in no small part to the Roman Catholic Church. While I am no expert on ancient Sumer, I do know an incredible amount of ancient Rome and Greece, and have done significant research on the Late Roman Republic especially.
Cairnius wrote:Have you ever studied history at the university level, Jeb?
Yes, I studied at Baylor University, and graduated, and did some work in residence at Oxford. I am also going into my PhD program shortly.
Cairnius wrote:Religious texts are not "historical fact" the way you mean it. They're just not. Not from a scholarly point of view.
So when the apocrypha detail Pompey's conquest of Israel and Judah that isn't historical fact? Or the fact that the Gospels and the historical elements of the NT detail several important items about Roman magistracy, that isn't historical fact?
Cairnius wrote:The Bible says that the Earth was created in six days. That's not true. We know it's not true. Anyone who believes it is true is either ignorant and hasn't learned better yet, or understands the science of things like carbon-dating but willingly chooses to remain ignorant.
No one has brought up the Creation story except you.
Cairnius wrote:And that's fine - but don't pretend that there's any science in their thinking. Just be honest about it. Couching religious belief in science is the worst kind of scholarship.
So are aggressive declarations that aren't substantiated by fact.
The Bible says that the Earth was created in six days. That's not true. We know it's not true. Anyone who believes it is true is either ignorant and hasn't learned better yet, or understands the science of things like carbon-dating but willingly chooses to remain ignorant.
With all respect, I know quite a few doctors, engineers, professors, etc. that very much believe this. Hardly ignorant or unlearned types in the least. As far as carbon dating goes, humans of the highest learning have proven themselves fallible in all things, so perhaps the information about dates is not totaly perfect. As I said earlier, piltdown man had the scientific community totaly convinced it was prime evidence of evolution until decades later it was proven a fraud. In the scriptures it says one day to God is like a thousand years to us. Hardly significant when talking of a world being created according to best scientific knowledge, but I thought I'd help you with timelines a bit.
It comes down to a faith based thing. If you believe in an omnipotent being that created an entire universe, then putting a planet together in a few millenia, is not a great leap.
The Bible is extremely useful for locating cities of antiquity. It is an supremely-important cultural document...but it's not "historical fact." David and Goliath is not historical fact. Noah is not historical fact. Even Jesus is not historical fact. They're all stories in a book which some people choose to believe in, but they do so through faith, not evidence.
Once again, it comes down to faith. One of the big problems here is that the bible went through a number of translations turning it into a kind of "whisper game". Hence the many flavors of Christian belief. The underlying concept, however is sound for believers.
Oh, on that Biblical quote, GG - "Most high God" doesn't necessarily mean "Judeo-Christian God," taken out of context. Most pantheons had a "top of the God food chain," and also don't discount the authors of the Old Testament doing a little historical editing and making the assumption that Melchisedek was a priest of their God and not someone else's.
One of the 10 commandments is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me". People worshipped a lot of gods, no denying it, The Jews even started worshipping a golden calf while Moses was on the mountain, but according to the bible, these were false Gods. Once again, it comes down to faith in the biblacle concepts.
History and anthropology are soft sciences at heart, but they're still sciences
How many different scientists disagree on things and establish camps of thought?
@JEB and Cairnius: Actually, the romans adopted and incorperated many Greek innovations into thier own work. (And the similiarites between dieties are simply too strong to ingnore.
As for religeous texts as historical evidence, they should most certainly be scrutinised like any source, but they should not be simply thrown out the window becuase the are religeous. In fact, many religeous texts act as both a bible AND a history book for thier people.
Automatically Appended Next Post: (This thread is so on it's way to lockage)
Anywho, saying that the King david never existed is quite simply foolish. Even from a non-religeous point of view, the jewish communities can trace back their familes for many generations. To say that he did not exist would be like saying Alexander the Great did not exist, nor did Rameses II. There is simply too much evidence to dispute this characters existence. (The details is where it gets scketchy)
He actually called Jesus "Hobbit-sized"? I ask because I want to know if you are para phrasing here. In any event, it says volumes about the power of his ministry to have created an enduring system of belief world wide that has survived millenia of persecution. Especially if the description of him is true, because people were definitely not drawn to him by his looks.
This could also explain why some of his closest followers didn't recognize him after his ressurection. He appeared to them in his perfected form.
generalgrog wrote:
Lets just say for a minute that your statement is true about no evidence before the Hebrews. That's still a leap of faith on your part to proclaim that there was no monotheism before the Hebrews. Again another assumption on your part.
His statement is false. Zoroastrianism was essentially monotheistic (the broad categories we utilize to classify the various religions are not possessed of specific accuracy), and quite likely planted the concept in Israelite culture.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JEB_Stuart wrote:Again, we don't have that much evidence concerning Sumeria, at least not written evidence. We have found a bunch of their buildings and statues, but the written evidence that we do have is either hard to impossible to translate or it is younger and more closely related to Egyptian structure.
Approaching this from a different angle: Judaism was not founded as a monotheistic faith, so utilizing it as an indicator of the concept's age is foolish.
JEB_Stuart wrote:Again, we don't have that much evidence concerning Sumeria, at least not written evidence. We have found a bunch of their buildings and statues, but the written evidence that we do have is either hard to impossible to translate or it is younger and more closely related to Egyptian structure.
Approaching this from a different angle: Judaism was not founded as a monotheistic faith, so utilizing it as an indicator of the concept's age is foolish.
Agreed, utilizing it to be the sole basis of the concept is far too simplistic. As far as its founding, I believe otherwise, but I do not deny that the Jews moved back and forth between monotheism and polytheism. Haha, do I need to make a new portrait of you on this thread too Dogma?
JEB_Stuart wrote: As far as its founding, I believe otherwise, but I do not deny that the Jews moved back and forth between monotheism and polytheism. Haha, do I need to make a new portrait of you on this thread too Dogma?
This is absolutley true, as much of the Old Testement is full of situations where the Isrealites fell away from the God of Abraham and started to worship other gods. Many stories of prophets warning and chastizing the Hebrews for this very thing.
JEB_Stuart wrote:Agreed, utilizing it to be the sole basis of the concept is far too simplistic. As far as its founding, I believe otherwise, but I do not deny that the Jews moved back and forth between monotheism and polytheism.
Early Jews were Henotheists; worshiping one god while accepting the existence of others (Polytheism without the pantheon). Over time that belief system evolved into true Monotheism (believing in the existence of only one God).
JEB_Stuart wrote:
Haha, do I need to make a new portrait of you on this thread too Dogma?
None of this proves or disproves the existence of God.
The burden of proof is on the believer, the person who tells you to live your life and behave in a certain way based on the rules and laws set out in a book of 'fables and parables' that apparently weren't meant to be taken literally.
Atheism does not mean you deny God - that would require a faith position - it just means you don't worship that for which there is not a single shred of evidence.
I have a feeling that the more intelligent of the posters here who still consider themselves religious do so out of a sense of tribalism - and use their considerable intellects to try and pick holes in the scientific arguments against God. Yes, we know science is fallible - but are you honestly saying a book written thousands of years ago is more reliable as proof of god's existence? There might be a slight possibility that A god could MAYBE exist (although it's not likely). But the Abrahamic God? A personal God?
The answer is NO.
I'm leaving it there, I reckon - Atheists will stay Atheists, God-botherers will stay God-botherers (JOKE!). This argument will just run and run, and to be honest I have to read enough essays as it is!
Relapse wrote:
He actually called Jesus "Hobbit-sized"? I ask because I want to know if you are para phrasing here. In any event, it says volumes about the power of his ministry to have created an enduring system of belief world wide that has survived millenia of persecution. Especially if the description of him is true, because people were definitely not drawn to him by his looks.
This could also explain why some of his closest followers didn't recognize him after his ressurection. He appeared to them in his perfected form.
Ask... and you shall most definitely receive... an... INTERNET UPPER(0)_(o)CUT HADUKEN STRIKE/FALCON PUNCH!!!
At this point... I think the thread is officially mine... pay your homage on the way out, thank you very much. I also like blueberries and stuff, so if anyone knows how to make pancakes... by all means, please do. Chocolate chips too.
Albatross wrote:None of this proves or disproves the existence of God.
The burden of proof is on the believer, the person who tells you to live your life and behave in a certain way based on the rules and laws set out in a book of 'fables and parables' that apparently weren't meant to be taken literally.
Atheism does not mean you deny God - that would require a faith position - it just means you don't worship that for which there is not a single shred of evidence.
I have a feeling that the more intelligent of the posters here who still consider themselves religious do so out of a sense of tribalism - and use their considerable intellects to try and pick holes in the scientific arguments against God. Yes, we know science is fallible - but are you honestly saying a book written thousands of years ago is more reliable as proof of god's existence? There might be a slight possibility that A god could MAYBE exist (although it's not likely). But the Abrahamic God? A personal God?
The answer is NO.
I'm leaving it there, I reckon - Atheists will stay Atheists, God-botherers will stay God-botherers (JOKE!). This argument will just run and run, and to be honest I have to read enough essays as it is!
The thing is, God didn't just leave it at a series of books written thousands of years ago.
@Albatross: I believe you just described an agnostic. Anyhow I find it funny how you say there is no evidence either way, but then you say that science is 'better-er'. I don't understand how you're coming to the conclusion that the existence of A God is unlikely. How is it much more likely that the Universe was created by accident out of nothing?
Also, when it comes to the Abrahamic God, that could easily just be THAT cultures experience with this 'God creature'. What I'm trying to say is, the possibility of a
'personal god' is quite unlikely compared to a 'god of all'.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I'm of a mind that in a lack of evidence, it is safest to assume something does not exist. Hence I'm not the most Religious person you will ever meet.
However, no one can agree as to what is "evidence."
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:However, I do believe I can sum up the efforts of every single religion into five little words....
If you mean "the Abrahamic God," then most certainly it does not exist. We can trace the development of the concept quite plainly through a study of antiquity. We could point to where the concept of the Jewish "God" came into play on a timeline. Prior to that point, there was no "God," there were "Gods." The pantheons of the Near East all very plainly evolved from the Sumerian pantheon. The names changed, but what the Gods stood for, how they were described in mythology, it flows from one civilization to another. It's no different than the relationship between the Greek and Roman pantheons which most nerds have some passing familiarity with.
That's some really backwards thinking there.
If you mean 'gravity' then it certainly does not exist. We can trace the development of the concept quite plainly...
If you mean 'relativity' then it certainly does not exist. We can trace the development of the concept quite plainly...
If you mean 'human rights' then they certainly do not exist. We can trace the development of the concept quite plainly...
The Abrahamic religions all agree that we have learned more about God over the centuries from different prophets. God always existed, always will, but we have learned more over time.
Now this does raise the problems about the poor sods who died too soon but there are work arounds for that. DO I remember right that Jesus spend several days in Hell and or Limbo liberating the righteous souls born before he came? Sorry I'm a bit rusty on that, and I think it came later not in the Bible...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ketara wrote:Rather than talking about the Abrahamic God and the like, a nice phrase I came across in Philosophy once was the 'God of classical theism'. It refers to the idea of a omnipotent, omniscient God that is shared between all the major religions.
I think the Hindus might be upset with that idea.
And if there is one God shared among major faiths he's a darn two faced liar!
I return to a simple question I posed early on, what may I have for lunch today?
Meat?
Pork?
Beer?
Cheeseburger?
And that's a simple one, and yeah a lot of these are later add-ons by humans not necessarily the word of God but that's just my simple example. For more complex once think about war, abortion, necessity of rites, premarital sex, homosexual sex etc, etc...
Sure there's a general 'be a good person' vibe but major faiths and even sects with in faiths have fundimental differences in how they define being a good person and where the red lines are that make you a bad person.
That's why I can never get on the unitarian bandwagon.
Emperors Faithful wrote:@Wrex: ...This thread is SO locked.
Does midget-Jesus not please you? I thought this picture was... well... made of pure win? As in the refined type that you can only find after years of searching in the jungle... while being hunted by cannibals, but fighting them off with a whip... then finding that sexy lady, and having a nice "rest"... followed by an epic ending, filled with dinosaurs and lasers... oh, and that thing that you were looking for... the pure win, that is it.
Kid_Kyoto wrote:[Now this does raise the problems about the poor sods who died too soon but there are work arounds for that. DO I remember right that Jesus spend several days in Hell and or Limbo liberating the righteous souls born before he came? Sorry I'm a bit rusty on that, and I think it came later not in the Bible...
You have somewhat of an idea of what Mormons think on the question of people that died without knowing of God or children that died without baptism, so I won't go into that in great detail here.
In Luke 23:43, Jesus told one of the thieves being crucified with him that on that day, he would be with him in Paradise, however, in John 20:17, after his ressurection, he says touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my father.
It is an LDS belief that he was continuing his ministry on the other side of the veil.
Here is an interesting clip with Thunderf00t, interesting guy, and he caught me off guard with his delivery (style really, and a good amount of it) on more than one occasion.
The whole interview/debate is rather good, but it is quite long. Worth the watch I would say.
Wrexasaur wrote:Here is an interesting clip with Thunderf00t, interesting guy, and he caught me off guard with his delivery (style really, and a good amount of it) on more than one occasion.
The whole interview/debate is rather good, but it is quite long. Worth the watch I would say.
its kinda like watching a college professor lecture a 4 year old who believes in fairy tales...
when it comes down to it... here is the flowcharts that kinda show what their arguments are based on...
I would like to point out that both of our posts were actually very clear, and not particularly offensive in any way.
If you take offense to a calm conversation (something we rarely have on here given this subject's "personal" nature), and a very concise explanation following... well, I would think that is a personal thing, rather than one based in your religious/scientific beliefs.
Wrexasaur wrote:Here is an interesting clip with Thunderf00t, interesting guy, and he caught me off guard with his delivery (style really, and a good amount of it) on more than one occasion.
The whole interview/debate is rather good, but it is quite long. Worth the watch I would say.
its kinda like watching a college professor lecture a 4 year old who believes in fairy tales...
when it comes down to it... here is the flowcharts that kinda show what their arguments are based on...
To me, your graphs are extremely flawed since there are differences in what constitutes credible evidence to any person in question.
Lawyers and scientists both make bank on assembling or discrediting evidence.
For me, there is a great deal of evidence to prove God's existence.
Relapse wrote:To me, your graphs are extremely flawed since there are differences in what constitutes credible evidence to any person in question.
Your definition of faith seems to vary a great deal from mine. To be entirely fair here though, you can take the road of "What is evidence", or more clearly, "What do you define as such?".
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=faith wrote:...(n)faith, trust (complete confidence in a person or plan etc) "he cherished the faith of a good woman"; "the doctor-patient relationship is based on trust"
This is not to say that you cannot have both faith and science to a degree, but that is one awfully hard lot to juggle.\
Lord-Loss wrote:1N B3f0r3 Ta L0ck!
Not entirely necessary, I do not see a reason to shut the thread down all of a sudden. There is no flame war here.
Relapse wrote:To me, your graphs are extremely flawed since there are differences in what constitutes credible evidence to any person in question.
Your definition of faith seems to vary a great deal from mine.
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=faith wrote:...(n)faith, trust (complete confidence in a person or plan etc) "he cherished the faith of a good woman"; "the doctor-patient relationship is based on trust"
This is not to say that you cannot have both faith and science to a degree, but that is one awfully hard lot to juggle.\
Lord-Loss wrote:1N B3f0r3 Ta L0ck!
Not entirely necessary, I do not see a reason to shut the thread down all of a sudden. There is no flame war here.
Seriously, this has been one interesting thread so far.
To be entirely fair here though, you can take the road of "What is evidence", or more clearly, "What do you define as sufficient evidence?". More or less.
Meant to add that here...
Wrex wrote:Your definition of faith seems to vary a great deal from mine...
Wrex needs to learn to make his points, and clarify BEFORE editing .
Relapse wrote:To me, your graphs are extremely flawed since there are differences in what constitutes credible evidence to any person in question.
Your definition of faith seems to vary a great deal from mine. To be entirely fair here though, you can take the road of "What is evidence", or more clearly, "What do you define as such?".
A fair question. What I construe as evidence might be dismissed by someone else,ie. feelings, agreement with what I read in scripture, changes in my life for the better when I started living according to a code of religious ethics. The fact that we are here at all and what my faith teaches me that squares with our purpose here is more evidence to me as well as the orginization and way my religion is run.
Is that evidence in the classical sensewith hard facts and figures? Not really but the results of living the tenants of that faith are clear to me.
I find evidence of God, or what have you, in many things and this comfort does help somewhat. As you said though, what is for one, may not be so for another.
The results of hard work are present indeed, and I would be a fool to say that religion does not continue to benefit a large portion of humanity. When I look at the relative "youth" of Science in comparison to Religion (faith really), and compare the amount of good done by either, I do see a rather exponential growth in the effectiveness of Science; but in comparison to Faith, there is a bit of a seniority situation.
There are monks that I would consider more scientific than many scientists, but comparing the two on an individual level lacks any impact. I do think that is because the individual experience is one that may never be fully understood, if not for it's vast complexity, surely for it's lack of a pre-conceived form.
I have absolutely no way of knowing that a person is actually anything until they tell me so. I can theorize, and even with "their" information, finding a solid ground to work from together is nigh impossible. Stable is a natural place to be, but when you get deep into another persons "mind", solid is not even achievable.
The lack of a thought without a thought is not but a thought at all...
Wrexasaur wrote:I find evidence of God, or what have you, in many things and this comfort does help somewhat. As you said though, what is for one, may not be so for another.
The results of hard work are present indeed, and I would be a fool to say that religion does not continue to benefit a large portion of humanity. When I look at the relative "youth" of Science in comparison to Religion (faith really), and compare the amount of good done by either, I do see a rather exponential growth in the effectiveness of Science; but in comparison to Faith, there is a bit of a seniority situation.
There are monks that I would consider more scientific than many scientists, but comparing the two on an individual level lacks any impact. I do think that is because the individual experience is one that may never be fully understood, if not for it's vast complexity, surely for it's lack of a pre-conceived form.
I think science has been around as long as religion, though. In my view, it was science just learning to make fire under different circumstances, learn what berries wouldn't be poison, herd animals, etc. The scientific method had to be applied in all of those situations. True, it might have been crude by our standards, but for then I think it was as revolutionary and cutting edge as space travel.
I would tend to corral that kind of crude science into faith, mainly because it took so much to get there, and eat that berry .
Science has been extremely crude for a very long time, whereas logic (Which in essence is crude science, though to what degree is debatable. Perhaps scientific method vs. faith based method would frame this well.) has been a function of man for our entire civilized history.
Rock smash, fire burn, meat good... wait... Rock smash meat, furn burn meat, meat taste better... not kill so much anymore. Not exactly science, but certainly logic.
Wrexasaur wrote:I would tend to corral that kind of crude science into faith, mainly because it took so much to get there, and eat that berry .
Science has been extremely crude for a very long time, whereas logic (Which in essence is crude science, though to what degree is debatable. Perhaps scientific method vs. faith based method would frame this well.) has been a function of man for our entire civilized history.
Rock smash, fire burn, meat good... wait... Rock smash meat, furn burn meat, meat taste better... not kill so much anymore. Not exactly science, but certainly logic.
But if someone used the method of observation to watch animals eat different berries and do well on it, does that not stray into science? Noticing that cooked meat lasts longer would lead to experiments in making jerky eventually. These discovories progressively pile one on top of the other, accelorating the learning curve and scientific method.
I have to leave now, but I hope to continue this later.
Wrexasaur wrote:This is not to say that you cannot have both faith and science to a degree, but that is one awfully hard lot to juggle.
That seems like a rash thing to say. I have met plenty of scientists who have a devout faith in God. How can you say that one is mutually exclusive to another, especially if you reach a certain point? For example, my best friend's father is literally a rocket scientist who works for Boeing, and is heavily involved in the NASA shuttle launches. He is undoubtedly one of the most devout Christians I have ever met. Unless I am reading your post wrong you are stating that : only the less educated and simplistic are religious, people who are smarter and know more shouldn't can't believe in God. That is both incredibly arrogant and offensive to people who are educated, because you are in essence demeaning their intellect, not to mention the elitism that your argument reeks of toward those who haven't had the benefit of higher education.
A fair question. What I construe as evidence might be dismissed by someone else,ie. feelings, agreement with what I read in scripture, changes in my life for the better when I started living according to a code of religious ethics. The fact that we are here at all and what my faith teaches me that squares with our purpose here is more evidence to me as well as the orginization and way my religion is run.
Is that evidence in the classical sensewith hard facts and figures? Not really but the results of living the tenants of that faith are clear to me.
Wrexasaur wrote:This is not to say that you cannot have both faith and science to a degree, but that is one awfully hard lot to juggle.
That seems like a rash thing to say. I have met plenty of scientists who have a devout faith in God. How can you say that one is mutually exclusive to another, especially if you reach a certain point? For example, my best friend's father is literally a rocket scientist who works for Boeing, and is heavily involved in the NASA shuttle launches. He is undoubtedly one of the most devout Christians I have ever met. Unless I am reading your post wrong you are stating that : only the less educated and simplistic are religious, people who are smarter and know more shouldn't can't believe in God. That is both incredibly arrogant and offensive to people who are educated, because you are in essence demeaning their intellect, not to mention the elitism that your argument reeks of toward those who haven't had the benefit of higher education.
JEB a very good point. At my Church we have a few PhD's and one of them is a physicist that studies/teaches astronomy at Virginia Tech. He is a very devout Christian yet, unlike frigs, he is able to balance both his religion and science. The guy is quite literally one of the most brilliant people on earth.
I would really like to see frigs come up with an original thought, besides copying and pasting what other sceptics have done.
Frankly.... some athiests are just as guilty as being sheeple as some religious people are.
I'm not sure why so many people took offense to the flowchart
"its kinda like watching a college professor lecture a 4 year old who believes in fairy tales...
when it comes down to it... here is the flowcharts that kinda show what their arguments are based on... "
it pretty much is his argument and if you look at the arguments of both people that is pretty much what is going on.
The guy Thunderf00t argues with is lacking in knowledge of any kind. I personally would love to see professor Behe of Lehigh University (writer of darwins little black box) debate with Thunderf00t...
turns out protocells bond readily with other organic compounds, since at that point they are very few molecules at all in the grand scheme of things... and the evolution of flagellum has already been explained (http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html). It just needs to be tested in a lab.
I hope this thread doesn't get locked. As much as I disagree with some of the views here, I've gained a lot of respect for those I disagree with because of this thread. I took no offense to the chart, but I disagree with it.
Relapse wrote:I hope this thread doesn't get locked. As much as I disagree with some of the views here, I've gained a lot of respect for those I disagree with because of this thread. I took no offense to the chart, but I disagree with it.
It's just a matter of time before it gets locked. We've had a couple of other threads on religion, some of them that went on for dozens of pages. Invariably someone that doesn't take the time to read the entire thread will "jump in" with an offensive post and get it locked. It's just the nature of the internet.
generalgrog wrote:JEB a very good point. At my Church we have a few PhD's and one of them is a physicist that studies/teaches astronomy at Virginia Tech. He is a very devout Christian yet, unlike frigs, he is able to balance both his religion and science. The guy is quite literally one of the most brilliant people on earth.
I think astronomy has one of the highest percentages of religious belief. Not just among scientists, among all careers. Probably gets beaten out by, like, Pastors, but not much else. It makes sense, you spend all that time looking at the heavens, you’re likely to take on some kind of spiritualism.
generalgrog wrote:JEB a very good point. At my Church we have a few PhD's and one of them is a physicist that studies/teaches astronomy at Virginia Tech. He is a very devout Christian yet, unlike frigs, he is able to balance both his religion and science. The guy is quite literally one of the most brilliant people on earth.
I think astronomy has one of the highest percentages of religious belief. Not just among scientists, among all careers. Probably gets beaten out by, like, Pastors, but not much else. It makes sense, you spend all that time looking at the heavens, you’re likely to take on some kind of spiritualism.
Its ironic that people would then equate knowledge with disbelief in a personal God. I don't understand why there is this false barrier that says, "Right then, all of you lads who believe in God you get over there. And all of you who are smarter then them you get over there. Very good, now everyone is separated quite nicely. Wait, whats this!?!? You say you believe in God AND you are a smart and proper scientist? Hmmm, Gerald! Fetch a saw and cut him an armhole in this fence, that way he is kind of in both camps!"
I think much of the confusion arises from the fact that religion, in general, isn't something one commonly studies actively. So you get theoretical physicists who can do multivariate calculus without any serious effort, while lacking any understanding of the difference between religion and theism. Obviously the inverse is also true in that most theologians can't do calculus, but their inability to perform in that regard functionally prevents them from making any claim to mathematical knowledge; whereas anyone who speaks English will have at least a vague notion of what the word religion means (even if that notion has little to do with reality).
I am a bit perplexed at the direction that this has taken, but forward and upwards.
People are people, and in essence, none is much different than another. What does separate them however, is (in general) their understanding of the world.
What I would ask of a scientist that believed in God, would be no different in anyway to that I would ask of a person who is not of such an educated "stature". This, is all I would ask, and furthermore, no less should be asked, out of clear and common sense.
JEB_Stuart wrote:Its ironic that people would then equate knowledge with disbelief in a personal God. I don't understand why there is this false barrier that says, "Right then, all of you lads who believe in God you get over there. And all of you who are smarter then them you get over there. Very good, now everyone is separated quite nicely. Wait, whats this!?!? You say you believe in God AND you are a smart and proper scientist? Hmmm, Gerald! Fetch a saw and cut him an armhole in this fence, that way he is kind of in both camps!"
Declaring oneself part of the 'rational, scientific community' and thinking that suddenly gives you greater knowledge seems to me very strangely similar to the people who thinking being Christian automatically makes you more moral.
In both cases it's just a cheap way to claim superiority without doing the hard work needed to actually be more knowledgeable or more moral.
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dogma wrote:I think much of the confusion arises from the fact that religion, in general, isn't something one commonly studies actively. So you get theoretical physicists who can do multivariate calculus without any serious effort, while lacking any understanding of the difference between religion and theism. Obviously the inverse is also true in that most theologians can't do calculus, but their inability to perform in that regard functionally prevents them from making any claim to mathematical knowledge; whereas anyone who speaks English will have at least a vague notion of what the word religion means (even if that notion has little to do with reality).
It's weirder when you look at a guy like Dawkins. There were a lot of numpties out there spouting drivel about evolution, armed with no knowledge on the subject at all, just a firm commitment that evolution was wrong. Dawkins, an excellent evolutionary biologist, got understandably frustrated and addressed many of the more common creationist claims.
But then he went on, and started attacking religion. Now, despite being a very clever man, Dawkins has no theological training, and his lack of scholarship really shows. All of a sudden he was the guy writing books attacking a field of research he didn't really understand.
sebster wrote:Declaring oneself part of the 'rational, scientific community' and thinking that suddenly gives you greater knowledge seems to me very strangely similar to the people who thinking being Christian automatically makes you more moral.
In both cases it's just a cheap way to claim superiority without doing the hard work needed to actually be more knowledgeable or more moral.
I completely agree. I am tired of the assumption that Christian=Superior that is found so often in the Church. As a devout Christian I maintain that humility, not arrogance, is one of the key factors that is essential to our faith. I do not presume to judge people on whether they go to Heaven or Hell, whether they are immoral or not, etc. That is between them and God, and that is the way it should be. I know plenty of immoral Christians and plenty of moral Atheists. Morality is never exclusive to religious people, but neither is knowledge exclusive to those of a less religious persuasion. My own meager attempts at acquiring knowledge are done out of pure enjoyment, not a drive to prove anything, and I find it to be completely compatible with faith.
sebster wrote:But then he went on, and started attacking religion. Now, despite being a very clever man, Dawkins has no theological training, and his lack of scholarship really shows. All of a sudden he was the guy writing books attacking a field of research he didn't really understand.
As always sebster you point out how the problem swings both ways.
sebster wrote:
But then he went on, and started attacking religion. Now, despite being a very clever man, Dawkins has no theological training, and his lack of scholarship really shows. All of a sudden he was the guy writing books attacking a field of research he didn't really understand.
Dicky...angers me. I can excuse people like Hitchens and Harris (though Harris' level of stupidity is quite amazing), but Dawkins really gets under my skin. Probably because his scientific credentials tend to artificially inflate his credibility (I have a similar opinion of Chomsky, so that's not overly surprising). Watching otherwise rational people dismiss knowledge as irrelevant because they feel it pertains to something lacking in veracity is really quite illuminating; especially with regard to the religious tendencies of scientists as a whole.
Relapse wrote:But if someone used the method of observation to watch animals eat different berries and do well on it, does that not stray into science? Noticing that cooked meat lasts longer would lead to experiments in making jerky eventually. These discovories progressively pile one on top of the other, accelorating the learning curve and scientific method.
I have to leave now, but I hope to continue this later.
Very true, and I wonder to what extent this was the case. We see a very strong pattern and we tend to take that information as literal. This is not to say that all patterns are so simple, but moving along.
In many ways the scientific method has been around long since humankind. You can see it in all facets of life regardless of your perspective on religion and what have you. At what point does science become itself though? This is a bit of a contrived question, mainly due to the fact that the subject itself is based on a variable that can take many forms. This, however, is simply not the case for faith; and in many ways, that is where it's strength lies.
When you compare the two "modes of thought/ ultimate meaning in the box", there is an obvious gap between the two. What I find to be interesting, is the fact that the gap is seemingly variant by many means. You can be different because of x,y, and zed; but what could these differences actually entail? How do these differences mean anything for that matter? Could it be that the difference is what brings truth to the form? The sandwich is of no form until the process is complete.
In this difference, I see a similarity, roughly taking the shape of stubbornness (on both sides most often), precisely taking the form of misunderstanding. I would be hard pressed to call many things science, but most often than not, trial and error is the core of such an endeavor. With these mistakes and misunderstandings, you can draw parallels that were not clear before. With the parallels that you can draw from this, you can create the basis for an entirely new view, or perspective to be precise.
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:
If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."
dogma wrote:Dicky...angers me. I can excuse people like Hitchens and Harris (though Harris' level of stupidity is quite amazing), but Dawkins really gets under my skin. Probably because his scientific credentials tend to artificially inflate his credibility (I have a similar opinion of Chomsky, so that's not overly surprising). Watching otherwise rational people dismiss knowledge as irrelevant because they feel it pertains to something lacking in veracity is really quite illuminating; especially with regard to the religious tendencies of scientists as a whole.
I once heard of Hitchens described as 'reliably silly', which sums up just about everything that needs to be summed up about him. I haven't read Harris, and from what I've heard I haven't wanted to - if I wanted to sink my time into reading crap, I'd pick more famous crap.
But I don't mind Chomsky. I don't agree with all his points, and agree with almost none of his conclusions, but he challenges my views sometimes. And it doesn't make me as angry reading his stuff, because everyone knows Chomsky is a wingnut.
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halonachos wrote:I bring you science AND religion:
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."
It's a great story, but unfortunately not true. snopes.com (http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp) dates the story back to a humour piece from the 1920s that argued heaven was hotter than hell.
I think the science versus faith debate really comes down to religion. When religious dogma conflicts with proven science, very often religion will cling to its dogma for fear of being proven wrong and thus having other tenants questioned, which loosens their control over the flock. This is when you get into "the dangers of faith," but really it's the danger of faith in a religion, not "faith" in its purest form.
Also, it's important to separate an ignorant person with faith and an educated person with faith. An ignorant person with faith may not believe in evolution because the Church says the world was created in a different way than what science suggests. An educated person with faith may understand the Big Bang theory and evolution, but have faith that somehow God played a hand in setting all of that into motion.
As I started to watch this video, I was amazed at the amount of subliminal emotional visions that are presented. I made it to about 15 minutes in and had to stop because the video had already made some outrageous claims especially when trying to compare Jesus Christ to the ancient Egyptian god Horus. This same thing was propogated in Bill Mahrs movie religulous. I got to this part and I said…wait a minute what am I dealing with here. I thought this was a legitimate movie, but it turns out be nothing more than a politically motivated conspiracy movie aimed at linking the government with the 9/11 attacks. In that aim it made up a bunch of stuff, including trying to make a connection between Horus and Jesus.
The Zeitgeist movie makes these claims about the Egyptian god Horus:
• He was born on December 25th of a virgin (Isis Mary) No mention in any egyptian literature ties isis with he name mary. In Egyptian literature Isis was not a virgin when Horus was born. She was the widow of Osirus, who conceived Horus with Isis. Horus was supposedly born during the month of Khoiak oct/nov (not decemeber). Besides the bible never claims that Jesus was born on December 25th. This just happens to be the day his birth is celebrated.
• A star in the East proclaimed his arrival No mention of a star ion the east in Egyptian literature..this was blantantly made up.
• Three kings came to adore the new-born “savior” 3 kings didn’t come to visit Horus..another blatant,desperate lie.
• He became a prodigious teacher at age 12 Again nowhere is this to be found in Egyptian literature
• At age 30 he was “baptized” and began a “ministry” • Horus had twelve “disciples”
The only account of Horus and water is of him being cut up into 14 pieces, then scattered throughout the earth. Then isis found the pieces snad floated them in the nile. (No baptism)Horus had 4 semigods and 16 human followers (not 12)
• Horus was betrayed Another flasehood
• He was crucified Another falsehood, indeed crucifixion didn’t exist in 3,000 BC
• He was buried for three days
• He was resurrected after three days More fabrication’s Horus was supposed to have been killed and brought back to life in the underworld by Isis, nothing points to a 3 day burial and physical resurrection.
It appears he got most of his info from sources that have been discredited before
Anyway it took me way to long to research and write all the above.
Cairnius wrote:I think the science versus faith debate really comes down to religion. When religious dogma conflicts with proven science, very often religion will cling to its dogma for fear of being proven wrong and thus having other tenants questioned, which loosens their control over the flock. This is when you get into "the dangers of faith," but really it's the danger of faith in a religion, not "faith" in its purest form..
Again if your talking about macro evolution and or big bang theory as "proven science" you would be wrong and "clinging" to scientific dogma.
Cairnius wrote:
Also, it's important to separate an ignorant person with faith and an educated person with faith. An ignorant person with faith may not believe in evolution because the Church says the world was created in a different way than what science suggests. An education person with faith may understand the Big Bang theory and evolution, but have faith that somehow God played a hand in setting all of that into motion.
It's also important to point out that educated people with faith, completely understand the modern interpretation of big bang and macro evolution, yet are able to see the assumptions and pitfalls in both theories.
generalgrog wrote:
Again if your talking about macro evolution and or big bang theory as "proven science" you would be wrong and "clinging" to scientific dogma.
Just because no religion thread would be complete without this exchange:
Both are proven science. Claiming otherwise shows a certain level of ignorance with regard to the nature of proven science; especially with respect to the necessary veracity of such claims.
generalgrog wrote:
It's also important to point out that educated people with faith, completely understand the modern interpretation of big bang and macro evolution, yet are able to see the assumptions and pitfalls in both theories.
Assumptions aren't intrinsically bad. Human activity turns on assumptions. That's simply the way of epistemology.
generalgrog wrote:
Again if your talking about macro evolution and or big bang theory as "proven science" you would be wrong and "clinging" to scientific dogma.
Just because no religion thread would be complete without this exchange:
Both are proven science. Claiming otherwise shows a certain level of ignorance with regard to the nature of proven science; especially with respect to the necessary veracity of such claims.
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance. At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact". And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".
generalgrog wrote:
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance. At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact".
Proof, belief, and assumption are all related tangentially. They aren't rigidly separated concepts. I believe my keyboard will allow me to type this message. This is based on the assumption that its previous ability to do so will carry forward into the future. The fact that my belief, and assumption, are proven correct repeatedly serves to strengthen my conviction. Anyway, that's why we have scientific theories; containing both uncertainty, and an element of rational proof.
generalgrog wrote:
And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".
Not really, but that's only (well, partially, there's certainly some observation to underpin the Big Bang/Evolution) because science isn't the rational series of facts that we often assume it to be. Fact is part of science, but not the whole of it. You should look in to the Kuhn v. Popper debate. It explains a lot.
Cairnius wrote:I think the science versus faith debate really comes down to religion. When religious dogma conflicts with proven science, very often religion will cling to its dogma for fear of being proven wrong and thus having other tenants questioned, which loosens their control over the flock. This is when you get into "the dangers of faith," but really it's the danger of faith in a religion, not "faith" in its purest form.
Also, it's important to separate an ignorant person with faith and an educated person with faith. An ignorant person with faith may not believe in evolution because the Church says the world was created in a different way than what science suggests. An education person with faith may understand the Big Bang theory and evolution, but have faith that somehow God played a hand in setting all of that into motion.
This is undoubtedly the best post I have read from you Cairnius. You are right, that the Church has been afraid of science in the past. But most of the organized churches no longer have this fear of science, ie the Anglican Church, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, etc. Rather it is the more loosely organized and independent fundamentalist churches in the US and elsewhere around the globe that still fear the possibilities of science. I grew up in just such a household, but while attending a Baptist university I somehow converted to the Anglican Church while I was studying abroad in the UK. My parents didn't care for this at all, and my dad even told me that I let my head get in the way of my faith. To which I responded, "Galileo, a great man of God, declared that he did not believe that God had given him his intellect if he hadn't planned on him using it." Religion can be very dangerous, you will never hear me argue otherwise, but it isn't always the case. As far as the second half of your post, you are right again. Although the educated person who is religious doesn't tend to see God as having a hand in the Big Bang, but rather He is the instrument that sets it in motion. Thanks for a good post.
halonachos wrote:I bring you science AND religion:
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."
It's a great story, but unfortunately not true. snopes.com (http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp) dates the story back to a humour piece from the 1920s that argued heaven was hotter than hell.
Yeah, I was looking it up to put it on here and lo and behold snopes came up saying that it was never written by a student, I still put it up here though, because its funny.
Although religion has created science, the catholic church once wanted it to be that souls had no mass and were instead vacuums, although vacuums get filled or have attempted fillings, souls were the only vacuum that went against science.
@Cairnius, I agree.
I believe in evolution and the big bang theory, but I believe that God set them into motion. Unlike alabama, where questions can be answered by "God did it or Because God made it so."
There's a long and well established and approved scholarly approach to this and indeed many other comparisons between Xtianity and other religions.
I suspect part of what might be confusing you is the many versions of Horus that are generally all rolled into one mass and this just isn't true at all. Best way i had it described to me was it being like Superman : ie you get the movie version, the many cartoon versions, the comic books and so on. All of them are about the same guy, with minor changed details here and there, but as to which is THE real version....
few other points you make..
crucifixion didn’t exist in 3,000 BC
pfft.. we don't know that one way or the other. There's references in the Torah (.. and Deut. ? ) about people having been secured to trees and left to die, but, be honest, i's not hard an idea to come up with is it. And we have always excelled at finding new ways to feth people up horribly.
AS to the blog spot you link to...
hmm.. sorry, he talks more BS than a Fox anchor.
and explaining Christianity on the basis of a 'religions geschichte' sort of argument, which is to say a history of religions argument (this religion derived from that religion which derived from that religion
Whether you think it a myth or not is irrelevant, it IS a mixture of one building on the other.
we have no ancient sources on Zoroaster
hmmmm.. not quite. Pliny and his contemporaries were well aware of it, it was well established and well know. It does pre date Xtianity. I wonder if your guy might be mixing this up with the Cult of Mithra perhaps ? That is an oddly similar version of "the truth " ( which the Catholic church once declared a plot by Satan to lure people to sin) in a lot of ways and is from about the same time.
stress that Jews were not on the whole a myth-making people.
hmm.. say what now ? Crap of the highest order. Of course they are, there's whole books of it,
And when they used mythological images (like e.g. the image of the great sea monster Leviathan) they used them in historical ways.
..wait.. so now they ARE a myth using people. That's pathetic, shooting down your own argument scant sentences later.
Finally, you will notice as well that Mr. Joseph has not bothered to consult any expert
something about glass houses comes to mind here.
Frankly that post made about as much sense as this golden oldie
As for myself, I believe that science has proved that there has to be a creator (The best mathematicians, physicists, biologists, astronomers,etc all admit they cannot explain how the DNA data gets into each cell/gene and can only be put there by intelligent design. But a campaign of disinformation from the atheist scientific communtity was exposed on British TV (I have the documentary), that proves that even the atheists admitted in secret scientific unpublished journals that all organic life in the universe had to come from a designer creator, and cannot appear randomly. The documentary exposed these findings and carried the atheist scientists through to their final statement and conclusion (which was pretty weak) that all artificial intelligence can appear randomly, but they admit that all organic life has to have a creator. THAT WAS THE COVER UP! THIS WAS EXPOSED AND THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY WERE INFILTRATED BY OCCULT SECRET SOCIETIES AND PAID TO NOT PUBLISH THEIR FINDINGS. (MOSTLY HIGH RANKING FREEMASONS, ROSICRUCIANS, ORDER TEMPLAR ORIENTALIS,ETC). tHE DOCUMENTARY PART 2 STATES THAT 90% OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY DO NOT BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION BUT AGREE WITH CHRISTIANS SCIENTISTS THAT NATURAL SELECTION IS A CORRECT THESIS, BUT THEY CANNOT ADMIT THIS, BECAUSE THEIR FUNDS WILL BE STOPPED BY POWERFUL INSTITUTES CONTROLLED BY THESE OCCULT FREEMASONS/BUSINESSMEN WHO OWN MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS
which gets emailed round again every 3 months. I think it might be to do with sunspots.
I've no evidence to support that but that's how i feel and you CANNOT tell me I'm wrong !
I'm getting a headache, perhaps we could have an abridged portion where we skip facts and citations and just blurt out beliefs? That would make this funner.
halonachos wrote:I'm getting a headache, perhaps we could have an abridged portion where we skip facts and citations and just blurt out beliefs? That would make this funner.
halonachos wrote:I bring you science AND religion:
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:
If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."
generalgrog wrote:
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance. At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact". And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".
Proven science = preponderance of evidence, GG. Science does not require 100% evidence because there's no such thing, like history can never perfectly recreate past events, it can only get as close to the truth as possible by constantly looking for more information and revising current understandings.
Evolution and the Big Bang theory are not based on assumptions. Hypothesis aren't assumptions, they are theories which are then tested against evidence, and if the evidence doesn't hold up, the hypothesis is disproven.
In the case of these two theories, the evidence holds up. It's proven science.
JEB_Stuart wrote:This is undoubtedly the best post I have read from you Cairnius.
It's funny how one's perspective on a post changes with how much one agrees with it.
All my posts are excellent. Most are just much more full of muckrake than that one you enjoyed. *grin*
generalgrog wrote:
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance.
:( Assumptions that are unprovable? Like assuming there is a god? This is not provable at all.
generalgrog wrote:
At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact". And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".
Or how about "proven faith"? Shouldn't you say therefore that god may not exist and that the holy spirit is not a fact by that point? (the only sin according to that bible that is not forgivable?)
halonachos wrote:I bring you science AND religion:
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:
If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."
generalgrog wrote:
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance.
:( Assumptions that are unprovable? Like assuming there is a god? This is not provable at all.
generalgrog wrote:
At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact". And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".
Or how about "proven faith"? Shouldn't you say therefore that god may not exist and that the holy spirit is not a fact by that point? (the only sin according to that bible that is not forgivable?)
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.
Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)
All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.
GG
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reds8n wrote: I'm going to have to disagree GG with your arguments about Horus and Jesus.
I'll read up on your stuff and get back with you later.
It's becoming a full time job refuting you people. :-)
edit...that religious tolerance link you gave is relying heavily on a book written by a Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ; Recovering the Lost Light,"
generalgrog wrote:I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.
Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)
All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.
I respect the fact that you have found within yourself.
For me, even if there was a beginning (which I am not sure there was, in a literal sense at least), and there was a force that sparked that beginning, I see no reason that "being" would be around anymore. Perhaps in one form God is, and in another God is not, just like a void being there, a space being there, only when you are there with it.
I see depth in nothing, and through this I do identify with a "higher power", but I know I am in a universe comprised of many things that inevitably carry more of an impact than I do. Perhaps God is only what you define as such, perhaps not. I am not sure, and as I mentioned before, this question can vary quite a bit from person to person, individual to individual, and most definitely from group to group.
generalgrog wrote:
edit...that religious tolerance link you gave is relying heavily on a book
heavily, but not entirely. And surely you must see there are similaritires between god X/T/U of whatever faith.
To clarify : I'm not for one moment claiming that jesus et al is some Brownesque meets the X files cover up as such, merely that anything out of that region and schools of thought is inevitably going to be a bit of a .. er... "blend" isn't quite the right word but it'll have to do for now, of all the various factions and idealogies.. Just like Xtiniaty fodled existing pagan dates and ceremonies into its structures at a later date.
generalgrog wrote:
edit...that religious tolerance link you gave is relying heavily on a book
heavily, but not entirely. And surely you must see there are similaritires between god X/T/U of whatever faith.
To clarify : I'm not for one moment claiming that jesus et al is some Brownesque meets the X files cover up as such, merely that anything out of that region and schools of thought is inevitably going to be a bit of a .. er... "blend" isn't quite the right word but it'll have to do for now, of all the various factions and idealogies.. Just like Xtiniaty fodled existing pagan dates and ceremonies into its structures at a later date.
On the other hand I believe it was the Pagans that folded a corrupted knowledge of God into their religious systems, since I believe he and his teachings existed from before the beginning of the world.
generalgrog wrote:
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.
Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)
All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.
GG
what do you mean by a personal relationship? Do you get calls at night? Are there voices in your head? Are you simply attributing things to a higher power that can be explained in simpler logical ways? I'm not sure what you mean here and would like some clarification on what this relationship entails.
there can't be an attempt to disprove god. Not sure you understand Arkhams razor, but since it can't be tested, it is disregarded as a possible explanation. However, If you are so inclined, then go ahead and prove his existence in a testable way.
The proof of his/her existence is your job being the person who claims it to be true.
generalgrog wrote:
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.
Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)
All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.
GG
what do you mean by a personal relationship? Do you get calls at night? Are there voices in your head? Are you simply attributing things to a higher power that can be explained in simpler logical ways? I'm not sure what you mean here and would like some clarification on what this relationship entails.
there can't be an attempt to disprove god. Not sure you understand Arkhams razor, but since it can't be tested, it is disregarded as a possible explanation. However, If you are so inclined, then go ahead and prove his existence in a testable way.
The proof of his/her existence is your job being the person who claims it to be true.
This would become a case of picking holes in each others evidence to prove or disprove God's existence. I have scriptures, prophecies from these scriptures that have come true, personal feelings and experiences in my life and witnessing his influence in other people's lives that prove God's existence to me.
It comes down a lot to faith, and there is a saying that "faith preceeds the miracle". I can see where you're coming from because I was there and not long ago would have been writing the same things you are and gotten genuinly pissed at what I saw as willful ignorance of religious people.
I don't know how much Bible reading or exploring of religion you've done, but if you haven't, I'd say give it a go with an open attitude and try it for a month or so by way of experiment. The open attitude is the key, because if you go into it with a pre-concieved outcome, the experiment is already hosed.
Another thing to remember is not to let what you percieve as hypocrites influence you. Just because people are jacked doesn't mean God is.
God is (by various definitions) above people and their "pettiness". There is no real need to attribute human aspects onto such a form. Comparing the two seems relatively unnecessary to me.
Clouds are also above me, in many more ways than the obvious. I see no reason to compare myself to them, and I feel the same way about faith. Faith is, and that is enough for me. What intrigues me though, is the varying degrees and form that faith takes.
I practice faith by getting out of bed every day, although this is the first step among many that I take. Keep in mind that although I have faith, I do still view myself as agnostic.
Relapse wrote:
This would become a case of picking holes in each others evidence to prove or disprove God's existence. I have scriptures, prophecies from these scriptures that have come true, personal feelings and experiences in my life and witnessing his influence in other people's lives that prove God's existence to me.
It comes down a lot to faith, and there is a saying that "faith preceeds the miracle". I can see where you're coming from because I was there and not long ago would have been writing the same things you are and gotten genuinly pissed at what I saw as willful ignorance of religious people.
I don't know how much Bible reading or exploring of religion you've done, but if you haven't, I'd say give it a go with an open attitude and try it for a month or so by way of experiment. The open attitude is the key, because if you go into it with a pre-concieved outcome, the experiment is already hosed.
Another thing to remember is not to let what you percieve as hypocrites influence you. Just because people are jacked doesn't mean God is.
I'm genuinely interested tho in this personal relation ship... I'd like to know what it was.
as far as my experience? 12 years of catholic school reading the bible every year since i was able to. I've listened to lectures by many people on the topic. I have had classes on both eastern and western faiths. And I have had classes in Physics/Astronomy/Chemistry/Biology. I have a Degree in Environmental Science (Geology) and Physics.
Could these personal experiences and feelings be attributed to other events that are not divine is the question i am really asking you tho Relapse. If they can then we should really assume the simplest explanation is the true one and can be reproduced... therefore are not god and not evidence
generalgrog wrote:
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.
You're assuming that you haven't been deluded by either yourself, or some other being which is not God. This is a reasonable assumption as it correctly regards the absence of evidence against a principle as distinct from evidence for that principle.
generalgrog wrote:
Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)
Respectfully, that's an exceptionally disingenuous stance to take given your history of dismissing evolution, the big bang, et al due to their reliance on the very type of assumptions that you've plainly made.
generalgrog wrote:
All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.
GG
No one, that I'm aware of, has ever made any attempt to disprove the existence of God (no one reputable anyway). Rather, the dialectic has emanated from the absence of empirically verifiable evidence for the existence of God.
Wrexasaur wrote:God is (by various definitions) above people and their "pettiness". There is no real need to attribute human aspects onto such a form. Comparing the two seems relatively unnecessary to me.
Clouds are also above me, in many more ways than the obvious. I see no reason to compare myself to them, and I feel the same way about faith. Faith is, and that is enough for me. What intrigues me though, is the varying degrees and form that faith takes.
I practice faith by getting out of bed every day, although this is the first step among many that I take. Keep in mind that although I have faith, I do still view myself as agnostic.
I had a college professor for "Religions of China" say this every day : )
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dogma wrote:
generalgrog wrote:
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.
You're assuming that you haven't been deluded by either yourself, or some other being which is not God. This is a reasonable assumption as it correctly regards the absence of evidence against a principle as distinct from evidence for that principle.
generalgrog wrote:
Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)
Respectfully, that's an exceptionally disingenuous stance to take given your history of dismissing evolution, the big bang, et al due to their reliance on the very type of assumptions that you've plainly made.
generalgrog wrote:
All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.
GG
No one, that I'm aware of, has ever made any attempt to disprove the existence of God (no one reputable anyway). Rather, the dialectic has emanated from the absence of empirically verifiable evidence for the existence of God.
Albeit textbook like, that was more clearly stated than i could ever do myself. +1
Orkeosaurous has earned a bonus point. I saved that picture to show harry potter fans who hate starwars.
frgsinwntr wrote:what do you mean by a personal relationship? Do you get calls at night? Are there voices in your head? Are you simply attributing things to a higher power that can be explained in simpler logical ways? I'm not sure what you mean here and would like some clarification on what this relationship entails.
there can't be an attempt to disprove god. Not sure you understand Arkhams razor, but since it can't be tested, it is disregarded as a possible explanation. However, If you are so inclined, then go ahead and prove his existence in a testable way.
The proof of his/her existence is your job being the person who claims it to be true.
Actually it's not really my job to "prove" anything. It's my job to bring the good news (Gospel) of Jesus Christ. God is the one that reveals himself. It's your job to accept or reject him. I think I have testafied that at one time in my life I was much like you frigs, an athiest and a sceptic.
As far as me describing my relationship with God it would be like trying to explain to you what it feels like to fly an airplane or to perform a parachute jump. If you haven't really experianced it, you would never fully undertstand it.
I do experiance the leading of the Holy Spirit, which has been described as "the still small voice of the Holy Spirit". You could call it a quickening or a soul stirring of sorts. Those are my less than adequate attempts at tryng to explain something so profound it defies description.
The bottom line is you can "experiance" God. Christianity is not blind faith, it is faith based on fact and relationship.
As I'm reading the stuff about Horus et.al just goes to prove to me more than anything that people will make up anything to sell books (Tom Harpur) or sell movie tickets (Bill Marr).
Actually it's not really my job to "prove" anything. It's my job to bring the good news (Gospel) of Jesus Christ. God is the one that reveals himself. It's your job to accept or reject him. I think I have testafied that at one time in my life I was much like you frigs, an athiest and a sceptic.
As far as me describing my relationship with God it would be like trying to explain to you what it feels like to fly an airplane or to perform a parachute jump. If you haven't really experianced it, you would never fully undertstand it.
I do experiance the leading of the Holy Spirit, which has been described as "the still small voice of the Holy Spirit". You could call it a quickening or a soul stirring of sorts. Those are my less than adequate attempts at tryng to explain something so profound it defies description.
The bottom line is you can "experiance" God. Christianity is not blind faith, it is faith based on fact and relationship.
As I'm reading the stuff about Horus et.al just goes to prove to me more than anything that people will make up anything to sell books (Tom Harpur) or sell movie tickets (Bill Marr).
GG
If you aren't taking the stance of proving God, you can't therefore argue he exists now can you? To do so would be like saying Santa Claus exists, yet never offering evidence.
And yes, I reject a concept of God that doesn't stand up to testing. No I am not an Atheist. I prefer Agnostic, Open to the idea, but not ready to believe the first Story with out evidence : )
generalgrog wrote:
As I'm reading the stuff about Horus et.al just goes to prove to me more than anything that people will make up anything to sell books (Tom Harpur) or sell movie tickets (Bill Marr).
I'm not really sure why you consider Harpur's claims to be so offensive. He's simply arguing that the story of Jesus has a lot in common with ancient mythology. This shouldn't be surprising as mythology is ultimately a way of dressing up the human condition. Two cultures with a common heritage are quite likely to reference similar ideals using words with a common etymological heritage. That fact does nothing to delegitimize a religious claim. Unless you're stuck on the notion that only Christianity could possibly serve as the origin point for those prescriptions which it has co-opted.
frgsinwntr wrote:If you aren't taking the stance of proving God, you can't therefore argue he exists now can you? To do so would be like saying Santa Claus exists, yet never offering evidence.
And yes, I reject a concept of God that doesn't stand up to testing. No I am not an Atheist. I prefer Agnostic, Open to the idea, but not ready to believe the first Story with out evidence : )
generalgrog wrote:
As I'm reading the stuff about Horus et.al just goes to prove to me more than anything that people will make up anything to sell books (Tom Harpur) or sell movie tickets (Bill Marr).
I'm not really sure why you consider Harpur's claims to be so offensive. He's simply arguing that the story of Jesus has a lot in common with ancient mythology. .
No he's not. He is arguing, or I should say he is rehashing old ideas from the 19th and early 20th century which tried to claim that the story of Jesus was a myth constructed from the Horus story.
He has done a lot more than imply commonality. He is really making a claim of myth.
there are a lot that shows up GG... that are similiar in other cultures... here are some examples of virgin birth.
Christianity
Jesus: The central figure of the Christian faith was conceived, according to the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, in the virgin Mary without a father through the Holy Spirit (see virgin birth of Jesus). This virginal conception is often confused with Mary's Immaculate Conception, a belief held by Roman Catholics as defined by the dogma in which the Blessed Virgin was conceived without 'the stain of original sin' from her parents.
Hinduism
Virgin births are a common theme in Hinduism.
It is widely believed that the avatars taken by Vishnu on earth were virgin "births".
In the Mahabharata epic, Karna was born to Queen Kunti by the god Surya, before her marriage to King Pandu.[1] Because she called him, the god of the Sun gave her a child, but took care not to breach her virginity, as she was as yet unmarried. After marriage, Kunti's husband, King Pandu, was cursed by a childless Brahmin, who declared that if the King were to embrace either of his two wives, then he would die. Kunti called upon the charm she had used to bear Karna in order to call other gods to her and her co-wife. In this way, the Pandavas were bestowed upon them by the gods. The implication, then, is that all six of these heroes (the five Pandavas and their brother Karna, the tragic antihero) were the results of pure, virgin births.
Many centuries later, the poet Kabir was also said to have been born of a virgin widow (a Brahmin), through the palm of her hand. Like Karna, Kabir was sent down the river in a basket; he was found and adopted by a family of Muslim weavers, downstream.[2] [3] Presumably, this (presumably posthumous) account—which depicts Kabir as secretly descended from Brahmins—was intended to legitimise Kabir's religious authority in the eyes of the Hindu population who venerated his works. This story is absent from Muslim and Sikh accounts of Kabir's work.
Assyrian and Babylonian mythology
Zoroaster:[1] The story of Zoroaster's Virgin Birth originates in the common era and is a much later interpretation, possibly to compete with the stories concerning Jesus[citation needed]
Greco-Roman mythology
Mars[2][3]
Perseus: Perseus was the son of Danaë. She was locked away while a young girl, to prevent her having children, but Zeus came to her in the form of a shower of gold and impregnated her. The shower of gold has from ancient times been interpreted as a reference to bribery of those in charge of keeping her. The Greek Anthology has the following: ZEUS, turned to gold, piercing the brazen chamber of Danae, cut the knot of intact virginity.
The flood one was interesting, especially if there was also one in the Epic of Gilgamesh (considering how bad flooding was in Mesopotamia that's not surprising).
I can see the similarities between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and Pandora's Box also.
The rest of the connections were pretty weak, though. Of course the same things were created in both stories, those things exist, they must have been created. Of course both are going to have a lot of stories about war and kings, both civilizations were monarchies for most of the time, and frequently at war. Saying that's evidence of the Jewish stories having been stolen from Greek stories was silly.
The flood one was interesting, especially if there was also one in the Epic of Gilgamesh (considering how bad flooding was in Mesopotamia that's not surprising).
I can see the similarities between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and Pandora's Box also.
The rest of the connections were pretty weak, though. Of course the same things were created in both stories, those things exist, they must have been created. Of course both are going to have a lot of stories about war and kings, both civilizations were monarchies for most of the time, and frequently at war. Saying that's evidence of the Jewish stories having been stolen from Greek stories was silly.
generalgrog wrote:
No he's not. He is arguing, or I should say he is rehashing old ideas from the 19th and early 20th century which tried to claim that the story of Jesus was a myth constructed from the Horus story.
The dismissal of Jesus' existence is at best a minimal component of the text. I took the general claim to be one of absence with regard to direct, extant evidence of that fact. This makes sense given that the book itself was written as sort of love letter to gnosticism.
generalgrog wrote:
He has done a lot more than imply commonality. He is really making a claim of myth.
A claim of myth isn't necessarily a claim of falsehood. The story of Jesus is a legendary tale with many supernatural elements, pretty much the definition of mythic.
generalgrog wrote:
No he's not. He is arguing, or I should say he is rehashing old ideas from the 19th and early 20th century which tried to claim that the story of Jesus was a myth constructed from the Horus story.
The dismissal of Jesus' existence is at best a minimal component of the text. I took the general claim to be one of absence with regard to direct, extant evidence of that fact. This makes sense given that the book itself was written as sort of love letter to gnosticism.
generalgrog wrote:
He has done a lot more than imply commonality. He is really making a claim of myth.
A claim of myth isn't necessarily a claim of falsehood. The story of Jesus is a legendary tale with many supernatural elements, pretty much the definition of mythic.
generalgrog wrote:Again if your talking about macro evolution and or big bang theory as "proven science" you would be wrong and "clinging" to scientific dogma.
There has been observed speciation. Groups of fruit flies were seperated and within four years had become different species, as incapable of breeding across the two populations.
Mice introduced into the Faeroe Islands speciated from the originator species over the 250 years from introduction.
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Cryonicleech wrote:Damn it, this again.
Hopefully, I can kill this beast.
People will believe in God, people won't
My Gosh! Simple as that!
That'd be pretty dull. Talking about what people believe goes a long way to understanding how they work. As long as it's civil, it can be a really interesting topic.
Indeed. Last time I got in a Dakka religion thread, I had a lot of fun.
This one already belongs to Wrex, though... :(
I don't believe in anything I've seen no evidence of, like Necrons winning games, or God.
I won't try to disprove them - I neither have the capacity to formulate an experiment that can do so, nor indeed the desire, I firmly believe that proving, beyond reasonable doubt, that there is no god (which is more likely than the opposite) would LITERALLY mean the end of the world.
As for the Universe coming about 'by accident' - unless I missed something, it didn't. It's creation was the first thing that was. There was no BB (Before Bang)...
The Genesis Story (Bible, not the band) is strange (even if) for no other reason than the fact that God takes so LONG to do the universe. Polish [insert Mexican, Americans!] builders would have had it done in half the time - and with fewer breaks!
Cryonicleech wrote:Don't get me wrong, it's a fine discussion.
Once.
After the 5th Thread, I honestly think I've given up.
You're right, let's have another gun control thread instead
There's, like eight topics of conversation on the internet. Death penalty. Abortion. Why don't girls like nice guys? I'm going through a complex emotional situation and need to vent so how about you guys give me nice messages until someone comes along and tells me it was all my fault. Poor people are lazy/rich people are unscrupulous bastards.
sebster wrote:You're right, let's have another gun control thread instead
There's, like eight topics of conversation on the internet. Death penalty. Abortion. Why don't girls like nice guys? I'm going through a complex emotional situation and need to vent so how about you guys give me nice messages until someone comes along and tells me it was all my fault. Poor people are lazy/rich people are unscrupulous bastards.
Blah blah blah ZOMBIES!
This website can help you enlarge your penis for FREE*.
"European modernity, which dominates the world politically, economically, and intellectually, may be leading us to decline?... I noted in regard to the modern European ego and it quest to control the world through thought that we have come to the end of the West's march from the ancient to the medieval and now to the modern period. I said that today we need to vanquish the standpoint of the modern ego. Now I can add that this also means overcoming the Western view of history... if we restrict ourselves to the West's standpoint of reflection, we will not be able to find the path that leads to the vanquishing of the alienation that separates human being from nature and from God. Nor can we vanquish the self-alienation that lies within human beings. In my view, it is precisely here that the deepest roots of the whole crisis facing human beings today can be found... Today, we have reached the point where all existence has been scattered and fragmented by the rise of nihilism. Now we must bring the history of karma to an end... we must overcome the principle on which the modern ego is based. We must vanquish historical consciousness."
I am pretty much done with this thread, as it has devolved into a, "You prove God doesn't exist!/No, YOU prove God DOES exist." I will say this though: Any of you who want to read a book about why an atheist found faith in Christ, one who in his own words went "kicking and screaming", read C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." It is very good and very insightful. It is one of the books that helped to convince me about the existence of God and the veracity of Christ. Further reading would be the work of Blaise Pascal, a noted Enlightenment scientist, mathematician and philosopher. Or if you have any questions on Christianity in general, please feel free to e-mail me. Like I said, I am pretty much done with this thread, but if there is something that perks my interest I may come back. Great discussion thus far though.
JEB_Stuart wrote:I will say this though: Any of you who want to read a book about why an atheist found faith in Christ, one who in his own words went "kicking and screaming"
Can we also read books about Christians becoming athiests?
JEB_Stuart wrote:read C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." It is very good and very insightful.
I liked The Great Divorce and the Screwtape Letters more.
JEB_Stuart wrote:I will say this though: Any of you who want to read a book about why an atheist found faith in Christ, one who in his own words went "kicking and screaming"
Can we also read books about Christians becoming athiests?
You can read whatever you want, I was just providing a tip for people who expressed interest, or might have an interest, in understanding where I come from a bit better. C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton are undoubtedly some of the best Christian philosophers you can read.
Ahtman wrote:
JEB_Stuart wrote:read C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." It is very good and very insightful.
I liked The Great Divorce and the Screwtape Letters more.
The problem with "Mere Christianity" is that it purports to be a logical, reasonable discussion about why there must be Christ and God, but Lewis' logic falls apart very early, and he actually points it out himself but ignores it. He says that the only way that human beings could have some sort of a moral compass and tell good from evil is if there was a God who imbued that within us, and then he says something to the effect of not believing that the compass comes from any kind of natural, human instinct towards survival or some such.
In reality, that's probably where our moral compass DOES come from, because we're animals at heart like anything else, and we're social animals who form communities. The more we learn about psychology, the more it seems extremely likely. It's not actually in our nature to murder those who we consider "like us." If and when humans evolve past race and gender differences, you'll see cultural difference fade away as well, and there'll be a lot less crime and war.
None of that will have anything to do with Christ...it will have to do with humans being intelligent animals, and recognizing their own best interests.
On the earlier topic of how religion can be dangerous, here we go:
This couple already has three kids, and the mother has had some dangerous pregnancies. They use in-vitro fertilization to have their third kid, and they don't want their as-yet-used embryos to be left unused in part due to religious feelings, so they have them implanted...or so they think.
Turns out they are someone else's embryos.
I have no sympathy for these people. This is why I cannot stand so many branches of Christianity...so, if God makes it difficult for you to get pregnant, wouldn't that be a sign that God doesn't want you to have any more children? Apparently not, and so they turn to science for IVF.
Ethical and moral positions need to be ABSOLUTELY consistent to have ANY meaning whatsoever. Either you think that God speaks to you through events or you don't. If you do, then you have to listen to him ALL of the time, or you're a hypocrite and/or full of gak. Can't get pregnant? Don't have kids. God doesn't want you to.
Politics has the same problem. If you make a moral stand, it's incumbent upon you to apply those morals across the board. You don't get to pick and choose.
yeah,
I feel sorry for those people. regardless if god exists or not, they wanted to give birth to their own flesh and blood. Science let them down, they didn't want to carry someone else's unborn child.
As a believer in evolution, their situation bothers me as I belive that the strongest and smartest people will provide their childern with the best chances in life.
Implanting someone with the wrong embryo works against evolution as the baby will get raised by parents whos DNA is either stronger or weaker.
As a believer in evolution, their situation bothers me as I belive that the strongest and smartest people will provide their childern with the best chances in life.
You've never seen idiocracy have you. Mildly entertaining. It'll be that night when you wake up screaming that will turn you into a "get off my lawn!" libertarian.
Well, yes and no. They did have one child through IVF.
Perhaps this was God's way of saying "Well, if you insist upon using your womb like an idiot even though it seems like doing so might kill you, or produce premature babies who may have struggles that you could have not inflicted upon them by focusing on your two, existing children instead of having more, we may as well put your simple-mindedness to good use by giving the child to another couple who doesn't have any."
Panic wrote:Implanting someone with the wrong embryo works against evolution as the baby will get raised by parents whos DNA is either stronger or weaker.
Hmm... I am not sure if this is flamebait, or you really do not understand what you said. Apparently you have a problem with "mismatching" DNA with parents or whatever you were implying. I am seriously perplexed by this statement though.
works against evolution as the baby will get raised by parents whos DNA is either stronger or weaker.
So... adoption is wrong as well? Throw those damn babies out, their parents are the only ones who can raise them. Right?
yeah,
Adoption is fine for purposes of meeting peoples emotional needs.
It's the same as getting a dog.
But from evolution's point of view it means that weak DNA that should have been dropped from the gene pool gets attention from a outside source promoting it's mixing with good DNA. ViseVersa strong DNA may be settled with a under achiveing family, meaning that it never reaches it's full potential.
We are not talking about baked beans here... so yes, the possibility that Panic is somehow right, has no bearing on the fact that he is pushing a pretty insignificant point to begin with.
Elessar wrote:I concur. Cherry-pickers like that piss me off.
There's usually more than one way to interpret any given event with respect to 'meaning', and its very hard to whittle down the number of acceptable choices without appealing to common sense, which is logically indefensible. Similarly, when discussing the uniformity of any moral standard, its important to note that there is no reason (beyond the aesthetic) that said standard has to be universally applicable.
yeah,
That's awesome! I'm getting a dog in a few months when I get my new house.
If a person can't conceive it's probably because of age or a accident or their genes are weak, I doubt it's because god hates them.
over millions of years this will mean that those who breed at a younger age and have less accidents will pass on their stronger/smarter genes. for the human race this is made of win...
Science Meddling with our genes will probably end bad for us.. IMO.
That's not to say that I believe someone who can't conceive shouldn't use IVF or adopt, as I think emotional needs of the here and now take priority. We can deal with the mutants later.
Panic
edit:
We are going off topic here, but also I think that irresponsible breeding of dogs has caused some breeds of dogs to have inherent health problems. I'm planning of getting a Red Setter.
I love the typical Red Setter's personality, but I've started to thnk 'do they have some form of canine asperges?'
And could this be due to inbreeding?
yeah,
I ment that as the major issue with IVF...
straight up adoption doesn't mess with genes directly.
But alot of people now look to adopt children born through IVF and surrogates... this is science meddling with nature. especially when we start to think about designer babies.
I don't think that forcing evolution is particularly wrong. But I will admit that it is particularly strange for people to do so. I would point out that trying to define what evolution is any more for humans, is a particularly difficult endeavor. People force good genes together all the time, we have always done that in one form or another. In some ways, what you are saying is that if two athletes want to have a child, but have no interest in raising it, we should not allow them to because they are being immoral. If they want to do that, it is their business, and I see no real reason to complain about something along those lines. As long as that child has a home and support, there is really no problem with it.
Much of the problems we have in "human evolution", are because of bad natural parents; the same cannot be said for most adoption couples. This is not to say that natural parents are bad (obviously), just that most problems do occur amongst "natural families", which is very obtuse in itself.
I am not sure I see a real problem with this, mainly because it is not some sort of wide-spread fad. The day that people ignore the fact that the world is full of "adoptables" and move on to create perfect little children; this is the day that we begin dealing with Gattaca-like situations.
Sure it does, just not by our own perceptions, by it's own.
Hokey I guess, but the synchronicity of nature, and our ability to seemingly counter it, shows that in some way we are "superior" to the natural intent of the planet. I suppose this would mean that we are unnatural, but that would also be a oversimplification.
Are rockets natural? Are we nothing but an extension of this planets intention? Oooh, that sounded pretty cool .
yeah,
Adoption is fine for purposes of meeting peoples emotional needs.
It's the same as getting a dog.
But from evolution's point of view it means that weak DNA that should have been dropped from the gene pool gets attention from a outside source promoting it's mixing with good DNA. ViseVersa strong DNA may be settled with a under achiveing family, meaning that it never reaches it's full potential.
This reads like excerpts from the Diary of Charles Manson. How the hell are you defining 'good' DNA?
If a person can't conceive it's probably because of age or a accident or their genes are weak
Based on....?
over millions of years this will mean that those who breed at a younger age and have less accidents will pass on their stronger/smarter genes.
Have you SEEN some of the 14 yr old parents on The Jeremy Kyle Show?lol Seriously though, there's a bit of a fascist undertone to some of your posts, man. Just a thought.
Albatross wrote:This reads like excerpts from the Diary of Charles Manson. How the hell are you defining 'good' DNA?
The kind that smells like roses and vanilla... yeah, that is the stuff...
You may find yourself asking what in the hell Wrex is on about with some of these pictures... well... I will tell you. The fact that Jar Jar Binks is locked in carbonite... is more than enough reason for me to show this image... oh man, that is good stuff... yeah, good stuff... I mean good genes, sorry. Not jeans man, genes...
How can you tell the difference between genes and jeans? Well... if you are wearing your genes your doing something right... If you are not wearing your jeans you are doing something wrong...
dogma wrote:We haven't discussed consciousness, or free will on this board. At least as far as I can recall. Might be interesting.
We had a thread about rights a while back, that is kind of in that same conceptual region... or vein, whatever really. I might be called out for using the word rape in a sentence that did not include boobs , j/k man.
The way that this thread is going, I keep looking for someone to mention the doctrines of holy turtle pie. I do believe it addresses most everything that is good in the world.
Jar Jar has rights too man... unfortunately, they do not include having his mouth stapled shut. Real loss on that one... I expect more from some of these space judges in cases like these. Wait... Jar Jar Binks, Catapult, Mayonnaise? I think we may have a better way to take this one down. Jar Jar Binks mayonnaise, that sounds like a terrible... wait, Jar Jar Binks fired out of a catapult into a pit filled with mayonnaise? Yes, I think that will work just fine.
I'm coming in here pretty late, but that seems to be my forte lately.
Having grown up in a very strict charismatic christian home I am now a devout athiest on most days, the other days me being agnostic.
If there is a god/creator I think he kind of just set us up and walked away. I don't see him working in mysterious ways, and every time I stub my big toe it's not "the devil" trying to test me. Things happen, and it's life, there's not always some mysterious force behind everything.
My buddy just bought a car, and all he could do was talk about how god had blessed him. I tried to explain to him that no, it was probably all of the effort he put into fixing his crap credit, and all of the work he did to earn a living. But he refused to take credit for his accomplishment and acted as if he was worthless without god's attention.
This is one of my main issues with religion, and monotheists in particular. They put everything on god. When good things happen they are being blessed and it validates their faith, reinforcing it ad nauseum, and when they screw up and do something horrible it's merely the devil messing with them, or their weak carnal nature which can't really be helped and isn't really their fault. When mom and dad die in a car accident it's "everything happens for a reason," and when you get fired for being a slacker it's the devil hating on you. When you can't stop being attracted to men it's a test of your faith, so on and so forth.
Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.
I'm not saying all religious people are like this, I have great respect for men like C.S. Lewis, who actually understood what he believed, and enjoy listening to people who are pragmatic in their defense of those beliefs, but I cannot abide most people's ignorance when it comes to religion.
So in summary:
I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club,
Lint wrote:
This is one of my main issues with religion, and monotheists in particular. They put everything on god. When good things happen they are being blessed and it validates their faith, reinforcing it ad nauseum, and when they screw up and do something horrible it's merely the devil messing with them, or their weak carnal nature which can't really be helped and isn't really their fault. When mom and dad die in a car accident it's "everything happens for a reason," and when you get fired for being a slacker it's the devil hating on you. When you can't stop being attracted to men it's a test of your faith, so on and so forth.
Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.
I'm not saying all religious people are like this, I have great respect for men like C.S. Lewis, who actually understood what he believed, and enjoy listening to people who are pragmatic in their defense of those beliefs, but I cannot abide most people's ignorance when it comes to religion.
Being a current "christian" (whatever that even means these days), this is precisely what I hate about Christianity, church, and many fellow "believers". We do go around blaming everything on either God or the devil. The older I get, I believe its in between "God doesn't care" and "God is the puppet master". Apparently most "Christians" have issue with a God that demonstrates restraint of any sort.
Here is another non-statement though... in fact a few.
Bananas. Apples, Oranges, wallabees.
Perception is an acceptance of the non-statement, without regard for "external" matters. When you begin to take into account everything, i.e. feign omnipotence, you loose the ability to have a perception. In other words you trade your view for many, and more often than not... it ends up making no sense at all.
Using constraints and other methods of organization, you can develop an envelope theory that can be applied to many things. Not only beings as we know them, but life as it is. I see no reason why the planet itself could not be classified as a form of sentient life, not omnipresent, but self aware on many counts.
I could go as far to say that the state of self awareness a planet has achieved (without any comparative information as to what a thriving planet would actually constitute), is reflected in the functions of life that take place within. You develop processes of elimination to construe what is and is not fact; this is a natural process of the planet itself, a experiment of constant trial and error. This "natural experiment" does take many forms than can be easily anthropomorphic, as to be understood in a clearer fashion.
Would I consider the planet a form of life? Yeah, why not? Would I consider the universe itself a form of life? Well... I am not sure how accurate a statement like that would actually be. Perhaps a "canvas" for life to take place, but no where near as tangibly "self-aware" as an individual planet; perhaps even entire solar systems if you begin to really think about it.
The "idea" that we are just an infinitely reflected microcosm of the universe (i.e. the simpsons zoom in clip) is a pretty silly one, but entertaining nonetheless. MIB had a good clip like that as well, but the metaphor is lost when you begin to analyze the real-life implications of such a circumstance. There is potential for that activity to exist, no doubt, but the assumption that all life is an imitation of a pre-assumed form, limits us to a very specific view on such an idea.
Rambling on here... the marble is not indicative of containing more marbles. It does however contain (by default) the plausibility of existing in the same form, but in different places. So this "existence" of existence is only lateral persay, whereas the "existence" of existence within itself would be a foregone, or pre-conceived notion.
It is so cute when people try to pretend there is a single definition for something that changes over time and is defined differently by different experts.
Wrexasaur wrote:Perception is an acceptance of the non-statement, without regard for "external" matters. When you begin to take into account everything, i.e. feign omnipotence, you loose the ability to have a perception. In other words you trade your view for many, and more often than not... it ends up making no sense at all.
Using constraints and other methods of organization, you can develop an envelope theory that can be applied to many things. Not only beings as we know them, but life as it is. I see no reason why the planet itself could not be classified as a form of sentient life, not omnipresent, but self aware on many counts.
I could go as far to say that the state of self awareness a planet has achieved (without any comparative information as to what a thriving planet would actually constitute), is reflected in the functions of life that take place within. You develop processes of elimination to construe what is and is not fact; this is a natural process of the planet itself, a experiment of constant trial and error. This "natural experiment" does take many forms than can be easily anthropomorphic, as to be understood in a clearer fashion.
Would I consider the planet a form of life? Yeah, why not? Would I consider the universe itself a form of life? Well... I am not sure how accurate a statement like that would actually be. Perhaps a "canvas" for life to take place, but no where near as tangibly "self-aware" as an individual planet; perhaps even entire solar systems if you begin to really think about it.
The "idea" that we are just an infinitely reflected microcosm of the universe (i.e. the simpsons zoom in clip) is a pretty silly one, but entertaining nonetheless. MIB had a good clip like that as well, but the metaphor is lost when you begin to analyze the real-life implications of such a circumstance. There is potential for that activity to exist, no doubt, but the assumption that all life is an imitation of a pre-assumed form, limits us to a very specific view on such an idea.
Rambling on here... the marble is not indicative of containing more marbles. It does however contain (by default) the plausibility of existing in the same form, but in different places. So this "existence" of existence is only lateral persay, whereas the "existence" of existence within itself would be a foregone, or pre-conceived notion.
So is it self-aware by your perception or not?
If you're saying "it's possible for it to have a trait that no one can perceive, ever", I stand by my "non-statement" comment.
We can percieve black holes yes? By our "standards", the only way to verify the existence of a black hole is by the lack of one, using things that would normally be there to confirm that.
Sure, I would consider the planet self-aware, and I thought my statements made that clear enough. We could talk about what awareness is, and how that is applied in a way that can be seen as self-awareness; which by my view is a little bit silly to begin with.
To be self-aware, all you need to do is say you are aware... not all that much more too it really.
Nothing is imperceptible, ever... that makes no sense really. If you cannot percieve something using various methods, you have no confirmation of it being. By default it would contain possibilities that we are not aware of , and for many reasons. Tree falls in the forest, no one is there, did you hear it? Well... I would assume you did not, because you would be included in that "no one" possibility.
You said previously that nature was self aware "not by our own perceptions, by it's own". I assumed you were reffering to yourself when you said "our".
You are aware of yourself by your own perceptions... I see no reason why this would not be applied in much the same way to the planet itself.
Do I know how you think? Of course not, but I can guess, and I can attempt to understand when you put forth the opportunity to do so.
I am quite sure you just accused me of being arrogant, which is quite funny. Anyway though... moving along. I find this subject matter to be very interesting, especially in the fact that it can be talked about in many different ways. We can verify a lot of information that the planet presents, much as we do for any other statistical analysis. When you consider the complexity of most of earths natural systems, there is intent there by my count. I am not sure where I would place that intent within the individual systems, but I would have much the same response for many of our own endeavors.
Where does the intent to do something come from? Why is it that the courts can decide that one person lacks the ability for intent, whereas someone else in much the same situation has the ability for intent. It is usually very clear that a person is unhinged, no doubt, but where is this line that divides the intentional from the automatic.
Wrexasaur wrote:You are aware of yourself by your own perceptions... I see no reason why this would not be applied in much the same way to the planet itself.
Do I know how you think? Of course not, but I can guess, and I can attempt to understand when you put forth the opportunity to do so.
The planet would be aware of itself by it's own perceptions, if it was self-aware.
I don't see how we would then become aware that the planet is perceiving itself, though. As you said, it doesn't exist to us if there's no way we can perceive it.
I am quite sure you just accused me of being arrogant, which is quite funny.
I don't recall having done that.
Anyway though... moving along. I find this subject matter to be very interesting, especially in the fact that it can be talked about in many different ways. We can verify a lot of information that the planet presents, much as we do for any other statistical analysis. When you consider the complexity of most of earths natural systems, there is intent there by my count. I am not sure where I would place that intent within the individual systems, but I would have much the same response for many of our own endeavors.
So you see complexity as proof of self-awareness?
Where does the intent to do something come from? Why is it that the courts can decide that one person lacks the ability for intent, whereas someone else in much the same situation has the ability for intent. It is usually very clear that a person is unhinged, no doubt, but where is this line that divides the intentional from the automatic.
Well, there's a difference between intent as a legal concept and intent in general.
Orkeosaurus wrote:I don't recall having done that.
My apologies, I misunderstood your internet tone (not that you really had one I suppose... being on the internet and all )
The planet would be aware of itself by it's own perceptions, if it was self-aware.
I don't see how we would then become aware that the planet is perceiving itself, though. As you said, it doesn't exist to us if there's no way we can perceive it.
We could become aware through many paths. There has been a spiritually practiced anthropomorphic view of the earth for as long as man started to worry if that damn shadow was really trying to eat them. Shinto is a prime example, where you abstractly revere the natural world through perceptions that are distinctly human.
So you see complexity as proof of self-awareness?
Not necessarily. Intricacy could be a sign of awareness though. When you talk about robotics becoming autonomous, are they aware? By our definitions they are becoming more and more aware by the month. You can see clips of autonomous faces that can react to facial expressions with it's own. How different this reaction is to ours, more specifically what actions are taken to portray such reactions is the important question.
Well, there's a difference between intent as a legal concept and intent in general.
I will have to look up the legal definitions of "intent", perhaps you could drop some info on that into the thread though. It seems we are successfully engaged in an entirely new topic .
Wrexasaur wrote:We could become aware through many paths. There has been a spiritually practiced anthropomorphic view of the earth for as long as man started to worry if that damn shadow was really trying to eat them. Shinto is a prime example, where you abstractly revere the natural world through perceptions that are distinctly human.
These religions usually do more than look at the planet as one entity, though. In Shinto you'll have rocks and trees and rivers all with an individual "Kami".
If we're talking about a boulder, we're now talking about something that has a lot less complexity than the natural world as a whole. Also, things like Zeus and Ba'al were ascribed existence by a lot of people. Wouldn't it make sense to believe those traits to be true as well, if it's just popular belief that determines it?
Not necessarily. Intricacy could be a sign of awareness though. When you talk about robotics becoming autonomous, are they aware? By our definitions they are becoming more and more aware by the month. You can see clips of autonomous faces that can react to facial expressions with it's own. How different this reaction is to ours, more specifically what actions are taken to portray such reactions is the important question.
I think basing it on the complexity of facial expressions isn't a particularly useful route to go down.
You can have an intelligent person wearing a mask, or a very detailed set of drawings covering various expressions.
I will have to look up the legal definitions of "intent", perhaps you could drop some info on that into the thread though. It seems we are successfully engaged in an entirely new topic .
I'm no expert on the matter myself, it just seems that the law usually doesn't try and define things outside of a legal context.
We could become aware through many paths. There has been a spiritually practiced anthropomorphic view of the earth for as long as man started to worry if that damn shadow was really trying to eat them. Shinto is a prime example, where you abstractly revere the natural world through perceptions that are distinctly human.
Shinto doesn't believe in a self-aware Earth, it believes in a sacred Japan. Japan is not the entirety of the globe. It is also highly infused the spirits of Japanese ancestors. Native Americans also don't go for the self-aware Earth in the same sense you are talking about. When it is referred to as sacred they are talking about very specific areas: The Black Mountains are sacred, Devils Tower was sacred, ect. Mother Earth isn't a hands-across-the-world sort of concept. Now, you do get this from New Age and some neo-Paganism. These indigenous religions were focused on specific areas.
Orkeosaurus wrote:
Wrexasaur wrote:
I will have to look up the legal definitions of "intent", perhaps you could drop some info on that into the thread though. It seems we are successfully engaged in an entirely new topic .
I'm no expert on the matter myself, it just seems that the law usually doesn't try and define things outside of a legal context.
Legal definitions and standard definitions are almost entirely different. Sometimes they have almost nothing in common.
Frazzled wrote:You've never seen idiocracy have you. Mildly entertaining. It'll be that night when you wake up screaming that will turn you into a "get off my lawn!" libertarian.
Have you seen Idiocracy? Because the 'dumb people breeding more' is just a used a bit of short hand used to justify the actual point of the movie, that Mike Judge is really "annoyed at the anti-intellectualism in modern society. The message is spelt out pretty explicitly;
"... And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags. And neither was writing. People wrote books and movies -- movies that had stories so you cared about who's ass it was and why it was farting..."
"I know these things aren't easy to do. I'm pretty lazy myself. But you know, sometimes you have to challenge yourself, and do something that matters, cuz if you don't, you'll wind up with a hollow empty feeling inside."
Meanwhile, Panic... you're the bad guy. Your science is very bad (there are lots of reasons for low fertility, and genes are only one, and any attempt to describe 'nature's intent' is ignoring that evolution has no intent) but that is only a small portion of what's wrong with what you're arguing. Vague, pseudo-scientific plans for human progress have a tendency to end really, really badly. To your credit you did recognise that emotional needs in the here and now are more important, but the next step is to realise that emotional needs are ultimately the only thing that ever matters.
Wrexasaur wrote:Where does the intent to do something come from?
First you have to ask yourself if intent, as we understand it, actually exists in a fashion which allows it to be sensibly reduced to another concept or set of concepts.
What is intent as we understand it though? Perhaps the act of being aware in a situation is all that constitutes intent. This is a pretty complicated subject to be sure though.
Is it enough to get someone to say that they were/are intentional? Is intent simply a construct we use to affirm our own beliefs about others? All in all I do think that intent is very sticky territory, but when you begin to think about it a bit more... wait... only becoming stickier .
This is an interesting conversation though, and I would like if it could continue a bit further.
Wrexasaur wrote:What is intent as we understand it though? Perhaps the act of being aware in a situation is all that constitutes intent. This is a pretty complicated subject to be sure though.
That's the point of the question. If intent is an irreducible concept, then it is impossible to describe.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Is it enough to get someone to say that they were/are intentional? Is intent simply a construct we use to affirm our own beliefs about others? All in all I do think that intent is very sticky territory, but when you begin to think about it a bit more... wait... only becoming stickier .
This is an interesting conversation though, and I would like if it could continue a bit further.
Without going into neuroscience, or really technical philosophy of mind, there are two broad schools of thought on intent.
1) Actions which are intended are those which has been consciously preconceived.
2) All actions are intended to some degree, with considered actions featuring greater intent.
dogma wrote:Without going into neuroscience, or really technical philosophy of mind, there are two broad schools of thought on intent.
1) Actions which are intended are those which has been consciously preconceived.
Preconception does play a huge role in this. How do I know that what I am doing is intentional? Does picking up a rock with the thought in mind really have a 'tangible' difference to anyone but me, opposed to just picking up the rock. With athletes, you can see focus being applied to great effect. I would say that their intent was in fact to succeed, without much application to the nuances involved in that. A positive frame of mind, but in many ways one that takes for granted a lot of the technicalities involved with action through applied awareness.
2) All actions are intended to some degree, with considered actions featuring greater intent.
As my last response lightly noted, I would be more of this frame of mind. Intent to survive is a given, it is just that some are better than others. So when you consider the same action throughout a large number of people, you will see a certain amount of intent in excess among certain individuals. What this could mean, is that intent is in fact entirely subjective, but in the long run, all things are intentional (as noted). This does not make us aware of the intent, it just acknowledges that a certain level of intent will always be there; and among some people, you will see a much higher degree of involvement with their actions.
Could being different be an action in itself, or is the need to fit in an intentional action?
One thing to keep in mind about the westboro baptist church is that they don't represent Christianity as a whole. (and I'm not suggesting you think that either YB :-))
In fact, is has been suggested that their whole agenda is about generating lawsuits. I.E. they cause a confrontation to get people angry, so that they will "induce" a physical reaction from people. The hope is that someone will get angry enough to punch one of the members of the wbc and then generate a moneymaking law suit.
Most of the people in the wbc are family members, they resemble a cult or a gypsy like group.
GG's right, but it still makes me physically sick a) to see such strong hatred b) to have that as one of the most covered "faces" of who I am supposed to represent and c) to see how freedoms (1st amendment) are pretty abused by them.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Preconception does play a huge role in this. How do I know that what I am doing is intentional? Does picking up a rock with the thought in mind really have a 'tangible' difference to anyone but me, opposed to just picking up the rock.
In terms of neuroscience: yes, in most cases.
Wrexasaur wrote:
With athletes, you can see focus being applied to great effect. I would say that their intent was in fact to succeed, without much application to the nuances involved in that.
That's actually an interesting case, because it overlaps a great deal with memory. When I played football I would usually be able to to recall the majority of what happened during the previous play; including my response to those occurrences. Once the game was over, the memory would usually fade very quickly. I would say that I intended to do most of the things I did during the game, but that my memory of that intent was strictly of the short-term variety.
Wrexasaur wrote:
This does not make us aware of the intent, it just acknowledges that a certain level of intent will always be there; and among some people, you will see a much higher degree of involvement with their actions.
Intent must be consciously manifest in order for it to be intent. I don't know of any school of thought which considers emotions intentional, though most would regard action from emotion in that manner.
The question of intention by degree is usually considered to be one of significance, and corroboration. Significance in the sense that my intent to drink some water from the glass in front of me was realized, and fulfilled in the course of a relatively short period of time. Corroboration in the that I might have 3 separate intentional motives which I seek to fulfill as a result of their own qualities, but also because they lead me to the fulfillment of a 4th intention.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Could being different be an action in itself, or is the need to fit in an intentional action?
In the sense of different from the outside world, or in the sense of being different from the moment before (with respect to the same scalar assumptions as required by intent)?
Shuzan held out his short staff and said, "If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?"
The question of intention by degree is usually considered to be one of significance, and corroboration. Significance in the sense that my intent to drink some water from the glass in front of me was realized, and fulfilled in the course of a relatively short period of time. Corroboration in the that I might have 3 separate intentional motives which I seek to fulfill as a result of their own qualities, but also because they lead me to the fulfillment of a 4th intention.
The idea that intent is reliant on possibility (and in some cases plausibility) is an interesting one to be sure though. We all wear our blinders, and in doing so, often find ourselves seemingly without options. This is not as easily applied to life as some would like to think though.
With a glass of water you can see alternatives to a given action. The most obvious would be to leave the glass, instead of picking it up. By taking the action to pick it up, we are losing the possibility to not pick it up. But in doing so we open up more possibilities, such as accidentally knocking the glass over.
When you start to add more glasses to the equation (sitting at a table with more than one glass, and multiple people) things get much more complicated. Not only can you knock that glass over in trying to pick it up, you can now also knock over other glasses in the process, even spilling water on people besides yourself. Life is not quite so simple as I mentioned, and applying this situation with an amount of reliability to real life is often hit or miss.
So intent, while it is also linked to many other actions, always leads (in one form or another) to a single action. This action may include other reactions, but in essence stands alone in itself.
Hmmmm... Deja vu on that last line ... maybe my brain... ON NOES IT RAN AWAY!!! HEY, GET BACK HERE!!!
There was a really good story in the papers recently. A guy whose religion is actually jedi was asked to remove his hood when he entered a shopping centre. He said that the hood was part of his religion, and when he was escorted from the premises, he took the company involved to court. His court case is pending, but the defence is good, as there are hundreds of pictures of the might of the god Yoda and Obi-Wan without their hoods.
So philosophy kills philosophy? I didn't realize dualism/non-dualism was a non-philosophy area that killed philosophy. We better get on the phone with all those philosophy departments and let them know they are wasting their time.
Ahtman wrote:
So philosophy kills philosophy? I didn't realize dualism/non-dualism was a non-philosophy area that killed philosophy. We better get on the phone with all those philosophy departments and let them know they are wasting their time.
Philosophy kills itself off every few decades or so. Usually over dualism vs. non-dualism. That's where the 'again' comes in.
In hindsight, "Philosophy is dead, long live philosophy." would have been a better response.
Not exactly science, but certainly logic.
