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 dogma wrote:
You got one prong, but the second prong related to your implied claims regarding death in the context of abortion; assuming you support it.

I'm not really sure what you're saying here. What exactly is the second prong and how did I get it wrong (or not)?

Actually, I was brought up in an areligious household. I converted to Catholicism over the course of about eight years, most of which were spent in college or grad school. Your hypothetical account of my biography is as out-of-touch as your hypothetical account of Christian beliefs.

I never said you were born into your religion, I said you have a significant stake in the community.

That's still reading it backwards. I didn't convert to gain baggage. I'm not sure if I ever really thought it wasn't, but now I'm sure this discussion is totally useless.

 Manchu wrote:
That's still reading it backwards. I didn't convert to gain baggage. I'm not sure if I ever really thought it wasn't, but now I'm sure this discussion is totally useless.

I'm not talking about having baggage in the past, I'm talking about your current state now. I'm sure you had perfectly good reasons for converting, but everything you've posted here seems exactly like the kind of person who really doesn't agree with their religion anymore but has too much of a stake in the community to let go of it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 dogma wrote:
You got one prong, but the second prong related to your implied claims regarding death in the context of abortion; assuming you support it.

I'm not really sure what you're saying here. What exactly is the second prong and how did I get it wrong (or not)?

I want to guess that he's taking your stance that entities don't have authority over their own creations and mesh that with a pro-choice stance. You'll notice he stated the second prong relied on you being a supporter of abortion.

Taken together with your stance that there are standards which everyone agrees upon in regards to morality that are unarguable while stating God's 'murdering' of his 'children' was one of the proofs of his 'evilness' by our standards would be somewhat ironic.

Or maybe I have no idea what's going on.

Unrelated, but it always surprised me how Nazi-ish East Germany's Uniforms were... Aside from those horrendous helmets. Naturally, they had to do whatever the Russians told them to do, but why bother keeping the distinctive Heer markings instead of a more russian sort of thing?



I wonder how they allowed that to happen? Of course, they aren't exactly nazi uniforms, but they're close enough that I think it would've been upsetting to the German people.

 Peregrine wrote:
Except what makes your non-literal interpretation correct while theirs is wrong? I could argue just as easily that the literal interpretation is correct, and it just means that the story is an outdated myth and we should just abandon the religion entirely as factually absurd nonsense.

The interpretation I give is one consistent with biblical scholars, and one that can grant insight into life on Earth, even for a non-religious guy like me. When it comes to matters like this that's really the only way to judge what is 'correct'.

It doesn't matter if it's literal or not.

Of course it matters. When it isn't literal then a literal interpretation, such as "God is being very mean there in his punishment" stops making sense.

If I told you "It is the nature of Life and Man to follow the temptation of knowledge and so we became distant from God and are here on this Earth" and you replied "well that's very mean of God" it would sound ridiculous.

And that's what is happening here.

The answer of course is to say that Christianity is immoral and leave the church

People aren't moral or immoral based on how some point of view on some part of their religion can be made out to be immoral. They're moral or not based on their actions in the real world.

Using it to declare an entire faith as immoral is just so far from a grounded view of the world it's just... you can't hold to the view you've given here and be a good person. I'm sorry, but it really is that simple. That kind of bigotry is just so corrosive.

NThat might be your personal belief, but the belief of many (if not most) Christians is that original sin refers to a single specific event that occurred in the distant past.

You need to meet more Christians.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
If the majority of members of a religion believe things that make you dismiss them as idiots, shouldn't it be time to dismiss the religion as a whole?

No, of course not. The only reason to dismiss something as a whole is when that thing itself is bad, not when some, or even most of its member happen to misuse it.

Right now there's a vast number of people who think calling themselves atheist makes them more rational and more scientifically literate than other people. That just makes them donkey-caves, it doesn't make atheism wrong.

The best is when american atheists (usually white teenagers) claim that Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shintoism aren't religions, only philosophies. Yeah go ahead and discredit the beliefs of billions of people because you just want to be anti Abrahamic.

 Scrabb wrote:

I want to guess that he's taking your stance that entities don't have authority over their own creations and mesh that with a pro-choice stance. You'll notice he stated the second prong relied on you being a supporter of abortion.

Taken together with your stance that there are standards which everyone agrees upon in regards to morality that are unarguable while stating God's 'murdering' of his 'children' was one of the proofs of his 'evilness' by our standards would be somewhat ironic.

Or maybe I have no idea what's going on.

You got it.

 Manchu wrote:
No. I mean that no one should listen to people preaching hatred, violence, oppression, etc, and think they're getting an authentic insight into Christianity. I don't care whether the idiot in question is a televangelist or a cardinal. And yep, there have been a fair few idiots given fancy red hats over the ages up even to this very day.

OK my apologies...

I am enjoying the discussion so far.

I disagree that Adam and Eve were mere symbols or that they are myth, of course. (and so does official Roman Catholic doctrine by the way)

The question I think arises as to the literary style and how the representation of the serpent and other things, I.E were these aspects symbolic or not.

GG

 generalgrog wrote:
I disagree that Adam and Eve were mere symbols or that they are myth, of course. (and so does official Roman Catholic doctrine by the way)

Grog, please stick to what you know.

 Manchu wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:
I disagree that Adam and Eve were mere symbols or that they are myth, of course. (and so does official Roman Catholic doctrine by the way)

Grog, please stick to what you know.

It kind of drew a smirk from me that Grog would come in here and exemplify what Peregrine has been saying in the thread...

How did GG exemplify Peregrine's position?

 Manchu wrote:
How did GG exemplify Peregrine's position?

By stating that he believes that the Adam and Eve story from the Bible was a literal re tale of what really happened and not a metaphor like you are advocating?

At least that is what I think he meant when he said:

I disagree that Adam and Eve were mere symbols or that they are myth, of course. (and so does official Roman Catholic doctrine by the way)

And that is what Peregrine as been stating, that most (or at least a very large percentage), of Catholics believe that the Adam and Eve episode really happened as described in the Bible...

I'm not referring to the whole "God is a evil tyrant argument", if that is what you are thinking.

GG is not Catholic.

 Manchu wrote:
GG is not Catholic.

My mistake, Peregrine was talking about Christians, not just Catholics.

Catholics aren't Christians...

#StuffaBaptistSays

Hmm, Peregrine told me that I don't really believe in my religion, which is Christianity -- and which might actually be the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me on Dakka -- in part because I don't read the Bible like he, a non-Christian, does. So there's a strange argument. Moving on, Peregrine thinks that Christians must believe that Bible stories are literally true (which we definitely don't) and GG is one of those Christians who more or less does think those stories (or at least some of them) are literally true. Just like Peregrine, GG is talking past his capacity when he attributes things to "official Catholic doctrine." To be honest, what is and is not Catholic doctrine about weird subjects like monogenism is such a thorny issue that it's beyond my capacity, too. What every person can easily know about Christianity is that it is not about hatred and oppression. The fact that Peregrine is getting himself so frothed up about that shows, as sebster commented, that he's about as far from grounded as possible.

 Manchu wrote:
-- and which might actually be the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me on Dakka --

What about the time I said your homemade chicken noodle soup was 'just shy of pedestrian, and needed more pepper'? Pretty sure i saw a tear well up that day.

I don't want to talk about it.

 d-usa wrote:
Catholics aren't Christians...

#StuffaBaptistSays

The Pope walks into a pub and Jewish barman says " Why the wrong faith ?"

If anybody is curious about what the Catholic Church thinks about something, it's not like this information is hidden. The catechism is online, with a pretty good index:

http://old.usccb.org/catechism/text/

If you go here:

http://old.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect1chpt2.shtml

And scroll down to 102, you can find the Catholic Church's statements on how to read and interpret the scriptures.

Notably, "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."

The Catechism is a good starting point but people, especially the faithful, should be very wary of using it like a "rulebook."

 Polonius wrote:
If anybody is curious about what the Catholic Church thinks about something, it's not like this information is hidden.

Dan Brown has taught me otherwise.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Unrelated, but it always surprised me how Nazi-ish East Germany's Uniforms were... Aside from those horrendous helmets. Naturally, they had to do whatever the Russians told them to do, but why bother keeping the distinctive Heer markings instead of a more russian sort of thing?

Spoiler:

I wonder how they allowed that to happen? Of course, they aren't exactly nazi uniforms, but they're close enough that I think it would've been upsetting to the German people.

That's because these markings aren't of Nazi but Prussian / WW1 Reichswehr origin. Just like its West-German counterpart (which also kept the Iron Cross as its symbol), the NVA attempted to reconnect to these origins and traditions. I suppose it would have been possible to come up with something entirely new, but you have to keep in mind that back then people didn't automatically associate these uniforms, whose style had been around for quite some time, with the mere 12 years of the Third Reich. I think that's something more recent, because today people only ever hear about Nazi Germany but are relatively clueless about the decades before or after.


It's a legacy that did not only exist in the West- and East German army but continues in the Post-Reunification Bundeswehr as well. My Air Force uniform even kept the aviation wings on the right breast, but of course without the WW2 swastika.

Just compare this WW2 chart to ...


But I guess you could say that in the process of developing an army of "citizens in uniform" we have become somewhat more conscious about the issue. For example, we only break out the boots and belts for parades and honor guard stuff, otherwise just wearing the jacket and normal shoes. In the first image you can see both types of uniform next to each other. Also, the Ground Forces have deviated some more from the Prussian/Reichswehr/Wehrmacht style compared to the Air Force, by wearing berets instead of caps (in the AF this is something only done by the Object Protection regiment) and by having their pants be of a different colour (black) than their jackets (grey) - a fact often abused for friendly teasing by the other branches. "Picked the wrong pants this morning?"

 Manchu wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:
I disagree that Adam and Eve were mere symbols or that they are myth, of course. (and so does official Roman Catholic doctrine by the way)

Grog, please stick to what you know.

I went to a Roman Catholic Website http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution for that info and they were quoting Pope Pius XII. Has he been overturned?

GG

Given what we know about genetics, all humans do share a common ancestor.

 Polonius wrote:
Given what we know about genetics, all humans do share a common ancestor.

Hah, that's one big o can of worms . What do you consider the earliest 'common' ancestor? The first mammal? The first hominin? The first chimpanzee/human split?

I mean--really I say this tongue in cheek because given metaphorical analysis--Adam and Eve can mean the first eukaryotic cell division--to the first hominen--to a literal 2,000 year old creationist. *Shrug*--such beliefs are an ever expanding tautology and really not worth arguing about.

 AgeOfEgos wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
Given what we know about genetics, all humans do share a common ancestor.

Hah, that's one big o can of worms . What do you consider the earliest 'common' ancestor? The first mammal? The first hominin? The first chimpanzee/human split?

I mean--really I say this tongue in cheek because given metaphorical analysis--Adam and Eve can mean the first eukaryotic cell division--to the first hominen--to a literal 2,000 year old creationist. *Shrug*--such beliefs are an ever expanding tautology and really not worth arguing about.

No, I mean that there are two people, between 60,000 and 200,000 that are the male and female ancestors to all humans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

This isn't murky. There was a human adam, and a human eve.

Peregrine wrote:Ok, fine. It's an origin story and we shouldn't take it literally. Congratulations on destroying the entire concept of original sin, a fundamental principle of many (if not all) branches of Christian doctrine. If Eve didn't actually give in to temptation then the entire story of Jesus makes no sense. Without original sin to make us all unworthy of god and require the sacrifice of Jesus to allow us into heaven there's no need for salvation through faith, and you can be a good person and be just as worthy of heaven. Now, one can argue that the doctrine of original sin is a horrible ethical concept, but it's not exactly a trivial detail about Christianity we're talking about reversing.

When I hear "original sin", what springs to mind first is that the entire concept was used to suppress women and justify mysoginy throughout the middle ages. And in many places, it keeps women out of the priesthood up to this very day.

reds8n wrote: The Pope walks into a pub and Jewish barman says " Why the wrong faith ?"

*badum-tshhh*

AgeOfEgos wrote:

Polonius wrote:Given what we know about genetics, all humans do share a common ancestor.

Hah, that's one big o can of worms . What do you consider the earliest 'common' ancestor? The first mammal? The first hominin? The first chimpanzee/human split?

I mean--really I say this tongue in cheek because given metaphorical analysis--Adam and Eve can mean the first eukaryotic cell division--to the first hominen--to a literal 2,000 year old creationist. *Shrug*--such beliefs are an ever expanding tautology and really not worth arguing about.

If we're talking "Adam and Eve", it gets even more interesting when you consider that it must've been a mighty coincidence indeed for a male and a female proto-human of an equal evolutionary status to split-off from the monkeys at the same time and at the same place (in order to mate and produce offspring), but that it happened nowhere else...

This is an interesting theory on the subject, tho: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

Also, I have to say, you've certainly got a fitting avatar for this thread.

 Polonius wrote:
Given what we know about genetics, all humans do share a common ancestor.

I'm well aware of the term Mitochondrial Eve---that, however is my point . She is not our common ancestor--as you stated in your first post (quoted above). She's not even really a common genetic ancestor at all. Mitochrondria DNA is vastly different than nuclear DNA--in fact it isn't in nuclear DNA at all and lies outside of the nucleus (This also gives us good evidence to the bacterial/viral origin of Mitochondria). So really mitochondrial eve isn't Eve at all--she's just the first 'hominen' that our mtDNA traces to. And before her there were countless women/men that contributed to our nuclear DNA as well. This actually forbids her from being some ancestral mother---when she lived other females were carrying around variants as well. It just happens that they had too many sons and not enough daughters. *Edit--actually a quick Google turned up this excellently written essay*

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mitoeve.html


Which explains why we can trace our mtDNA to one maternal line 200k+ years ago--yet trace the Y chromosome line to only 60k years ago (Your Y Chromosomal 'Adam'). Unless you want to start considering the genetic material found in mtDNA, etc, ad nauseum regression--which is my metaphor point. Once you state Adam/Eve is not a literal translation, anything goes. And does .


@Lynata

I apologize if I came across as suggesting an common early ancestor was spontaneously birthed by a monkey/ape (We didn't evolve from apes--we are an ape and chimpanzees are our cousins). Speciasation is something we define after several thousand genetic mutations differentiate one class of creature from another. This is why the notion of a "Missing Link" is absurd--every time you find another step, you exponentially increase the number of steps in between the previous two rungs. To take that even further--even after enough genetic mutations occurred after thousands of years--there is strong evidence that we interbred with earlier hominids.

As to your catastrophe link---Gould put forth the punctuated equilibrium theory vs. the accepted gradualism view of genetics. While bottlenecks certainly may lead to less genetic variants over time--I'm not sure that it really shows rapid genetic expansion. Gould was grilled pretty badly over it--but even it was found to be true, he was just stating evolution is static until great environmental pressure causes aggressive mutation.

...and now--I'm going to go play Wii with my little 7 year old ape