Home › Forums › Philosophy › Atheism Quarterdeck: Aspiring Christian Apologists Welcome
This topic contains 158 replies, has 22 voices, and was last updated by 
Sandals 4 years, 5 months ago.
- AuthorPosts
FrankOne wrote:
If nobody is finding any contradictions, why has religiosity been on the decline in much of the world, coincident with easily available information? The internet is where religions go to die. You didn’t examine any of the photographs of transitional forms from an unbiased source, and continue making implicit claims that dinosaurs are large lizards. There are species that have not changed because they survive in their current form. I don’t understand all these statements about one generation relating to evolutionary change, it doesn’t make sense.Religion is also on the increase some areas, such as africa, parts of Europe, etc. It fluctuates and as to how and why it fluctuates is for a multitude of reasons. You cannot blame it on the internet because there is little evidence of the internet even making people smarter. On average, the IQ points have dropped by 14 since the victorian era. Now I do not agree with the IQ test, that is another subject, but according you your own standards you would be incorrect. And as to the “dinosaur” point to mentioned: Just look it up in the dictionary if you don’t agree with me. Dinosaurs are classified as massive reptiles. And in regards to certain organisms not changing, that is correct some do not. Which is proof that evolution is not a universal biological law. You are under a false assumption that religious people are not scientifically minded (assuming science is a medium for all truth) and that is not the case. There have been many religious orders that contributed alot to the sciences (Jesuits,etc) The Vatican owns one of the largest telescopes in the world. Strict psychological testings in applied before getting involved with exorcism cases. Many miracles are put through a strict set of testing, both scientific and non-scientific. Etc. Etc. You cannot make these claims as true without either being misinformed or lying.
Yes, it’s increasing in some areas. And my argument about the internet is likely overly simplistic, but it does allow people to more easily research a topic. Overall, religiosity IS on a slow decline, however. The birth rates in religious countries tend to be high which counterbalances this decline to a significant extent.
FrankOne wrote:
The proof here is the successful genetic engineering already achieved. Genetically Modified Organisms to produce grains have helped feed the planet.Success in what regards exactly? Because the GMOs meant to prevent weeds have failed. The GMOs meant to create “bigger” vegetables, do not contain enough nutrients. Studies of feeding pigs, GMO only grain have concluded with the pigs dying of organ failure. And the list can go on. You say GMO fixed alot of problems, I am saying nothing has changed. If anything the issues have become more complicated and in some respects even worse due to GMOs. And in regards to the “world hunger” problem. The issue is mulifaceted. Parts of Africa and India still suffer from starvation. And the average American cannot gain the right amounts of nutrients from a healthy diet. We have “full” stomachs and are still deprived of essential nutrition. What solution did the GMO’s give? Parts of Eastern Europe and Europe itself have banned GMOs altogether.
GMO’s have been effective for pesticide resistance. The EU lifted the ban on GMO crops back in Jan 2015 so at least now individual governments may decide.
FrankOne wrote:
Because it is at least based on some facts — extrapolations can be wrong, Faith is a belief despite absence of proof.I wish to have faith with an absence of proof (because it would be truer and fuller) but many have faith because of some miracle in some form, but public and/or private. In regards to proof itself? What do you mean exactly, because even the subject of proof ends up relating to a philosophical issue.
Proof comprises, from religious people I know, is personal revelation, feeling their prayers have been answered, or something they feel is a miracle. Or something that just makes them feel good. I guess one problem I have with this is, how can people of different contradictory religions all feel good and experience answers to prayers and miracles?
FrankOne wrote:
No. We haven’t had any wars with different species of hominids fighting one another. That’s the basis of my argument that these other factors predominate. Cultural differences have been greater than genetic differences in these wars.But these cultures would inevitably have to be a by product of evolution in some form, if evolution is to be taken as a universal law. Otherwise what else could account for advanced culture/techonology/physique, except for biology and physics, from the point of view of an atheist evolutionist. An evolutionist is still stuck with the question of the issue of differences between races as diversity is an evolutionary aspect. In many respects a culture could have been created due to a genetic predospition, according to the evolutionist. So your points is null in many different respects.
I think sometimes it’s which general is better. Sometimes it’s which countries ally with you and against you. In WWII the US had a weak military but a strong industrial base. Due to distance we could spend years building a war machine. We also made sociological choices such as to employ women in industry which further improved War production. Often countries and empires make changes that may take decades or centuries to cause collapse (e.g. debt). People migrate between nation states and culture is not homogenous so it all gets rather messy. Also, since we pass knowledge between generations and peoples without genetic information being transferred, it’s muddied; I can read scientific or philosophical papers by people halfway across the world and they can influence me and my culture. I don’t think technology has much to do with genetic evolution at all; each generation builds on the technology of the past which they learn about from books and practitioners. So it ‘evolves’ or ‘improves’, not always for survival, but to meet any of man’s wants/needs — we didn’t need to go to the Moon to survive, or send out space probes. We didn’t need TV or cinema to survive but they are entertaining. So I’m not denying some sort of ‘cultural evolution’, or advancement, I’m not seeing it the same as biological evolution. But there are parallels in some regards; the Aztec empire was stable until a change in environment (European invaders with GUNS, disease, and different Gods). Also cultures often ‘merge’ when one conquers another, as opposed to outright dieing. The US conquered Japan but it is still very different than the US. As for the races, they were geographically separated and evolved separately until relatively recently.
FrankOne wrote:
In the last sentence you impart anthropomorphic characteristics to atoms and molecules; they exist whether life exists or not.You wrote: Complexity is not an anthropomorphic feature, and if according to your standards it is (and anthropomorphization bring falsity) then we would never come to terms with truth through computers or machines which are complex in themselves. Also books cannot be used in aquiring knowledge, as they are complex. However, the athiest in many cases, requires these things for knowledge, so it leads to logic loop. After all, the things made by anthropomorphic hands and in many respects literally defined by anthropomorphism itself and have anthropomorphic reflections.
This is your ORIGINAL quote: ‘Also if life is nothing but particles, then what is the necessity or point of evolution, as particles themselves do not need ever increasing complexity to exist.’
I never said complexity was an anthropomorphic feature in my posts. There is no necessity for evolution. Life and evolution are not inevitable. There appears to be no life we can detect in interstellar space between stars; there is no life on the Moon, Mars, or other planets, at least that we can detect. However, IF you have self-replicating molecules or organisms, AND they exhibit transcription errors in the genetic code, then you have potential for evolution. I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say here as far as a logic loop; humans are able to create complex things out of simple ones, obviously (steel from iron ore, machines from steel, etc). I have already conceded we are limited in our senses and perceptions. As for complexity, stars slowly form more complex (heavier) elements so there are some natural processes that tend towards complexity, though entropy increases and everything slowly approaches the same temperature.
FrankOne wrote:
Evolution is a process, it doesn’t have a necessity or point, it just IS, like gravity or the four forces.You literally just said process=force. Evolution is not a force, because it is not applied universally, like gravity. Also this would imply that evolution has to be applied to physics which cannot be the case, otherwise it is not universal , and also because it applies only to biology as you previously mentioned. A process is a procress. According to the oxford dictionary a process is: a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a desired end. This points to a lot of contradictions, because it means evolution is somewhat anthropomophized and has a purpose. However you said it lacked these two prior things.
No, I did not say it was a force. I asserted that it just IS, like other features and interactions of nature, and that it is a process. A ‘force’ has a very specific meaning in physics and it isn’t a force. I admittedly, wrote that sentence poorly. A force is an interaction that changes the motion of an object, it pertains to classical and quantum mechanics more than biology. And I agree 100% Evolution is not a force. Obviously, evolved organisms may possess locomotion but that is NOT how the word ‘force’ is conventionally used in physics or mechanics by practitioners such as myself. For clarity, I am using the standard dictionary definition of process ‘a series of actions that produce something or that lead to a particular result’. Those ACTIONS do not need to be caused by humanity; processes such as erosion of rocks by flowing rivers, would be an example. Sorry for lack or clarity in any of my language. I think I’m using conventional terminology here; ‘natural processes’; ‘natural phenomena’ may be an even more precise term.
FrankOne wrote:
In Buddhism the goal is to STOP the reincarnation process/cycle of birth and death.At one point the Buddha was considered a saint in the Orthodox church, because he predicted a Christ-like figure “greater than himself (the buddha). So the Buddha, through his own admittance, did not claim to be the “end/all” be all in truth. To acknowledge some truths, does not make him wrong, but rather incomplete (philosophically speaking or lacking in awareness. But getting back to the point, it still acknowledges a resurrection in some form. Which was my point, that the issue of a resurection is a universal facet of all religions, however there obviously is distortion due to the interpretation of how/why a resurrection takes place. And as to having no Diety(ies) would be senseless as it deifies existence itself. Also introspection, in many respects, is to seek deification of oneself through “understanding” and awareness. The destruction of the ego does not eliminate the Buddha, or how else could he be acknowledged, except as nothingness.
Buddhist philosophy doesn’t hold others’ memory of the Buddha is annihilation. No, resurrection is NOT a universal feature of all religions and most certainly not across human history. Many Jews, especially Reform, do not believe in resurrection to this day — I’ve known several. And many heterodox Christians do not, either as you can look up in any surveys. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2006/06/jews-and-the-world-to-come Zen Buddhists do not believe in any sort of continuance of the ‘soul’ at all. Karite, Reform Judaism, Tao, and Hebrew beliefs all initially rejected the afterlife. Buddhists themselves do not share the view Buddha foretold Christ’s coming http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1121 and http://sdhammika.blogspot.com/2009/09/buddha-prophesized-jesus.html so I’ll have to disagree on that point too.
Yes I know this, but to say it has had babylonian influences would still implie there were core truths to Judaism which did not change. Otherwise what could be influenced? Judaism is monotheistic. One can say there is multiple “dieties” but they are all subjective, in many different respects, to one. So one can look to polythiesm either as a distortion of truth or as incomplete knowledge, because one cannot have multiple Gods without being subjected to one true law/existence /universal being/concept/etc. Many of the Psalms, books (Daniel/Isaiah/etc), were non babylonian in nature and these are where the prophecies of Christ came from. Christianity did not “come from babylonian” texts, but rather strictly Judaic texts only. Tell me how the book of Psalms was inspired by ancient babylon? In regards to the reformation, much of it had to do with theological issues. Many of which had nothing to do with the Resurrection, but rather theology. But even after the Reformation there were still some metaphysical/theological/ etc. truths that did not change. But regardless of that, even the motives of the Reformation were heretical. Martin luther wanted to take out scriptures that did not fit his philosophy, and he was just one of the schismatics. There are constants regardless. Also there was a philosophical change in many viewpoints as “nationalism” took precedent over religion. So there was a variety of factors. Your argument is that religions change, and because of change there is ambiguity. However there are constants that are not ambiguous and certain things which never change. Even if one were to say that “Change is the only truth” would be subject to contradictions as “Change” “is” “only” and “truth” cannot change meanings in themselves without causing contradiction and because they cannot change meanings there are certain things that do not change, thereby nullifying the statement. Also certain “non-changing” observations have to be made before even acknowledging this sentence, as in acknowledging forms which may vary in appearance but do not fundamentally change.
Just because Judaism changed and became monotheistic, has nothing to do with whether it’s true. I think it’s demonstrated by history that many of these religions have changed drastically, undermining their ‘universal truth’ claims. As to whether you can have multiple Gods, Hinduism, certain sects of Buddhism, and tribal religions seem to have no problem with it. Sincere there is no logical means to determine how many angels dance on a pin or a Totem I’ll defer to believers as to which is the One True Faith. Some establish a chief God or Goddess. To me and you, building Pyramids to the Pharaoh may not seem like a great idea but it seemed like a good one in Ancient Egypt where all our neighbors believed in it. What is a Schismatic and how do you tell them from a prophet? Was Joseph Smith a schismatic or prophet? If you can’t use reason in assessing religion, why can you use it here? How do we tell if they’re divinely inspired? Were the men at the councils deciding which books to include in the Bible schismatics or devout? Are the orthodox schismatic or the Roman Catholics? Seems when I visit the other one’s church they always show the other group on the left side of the family tree and call them the schismatics!
FrankOne wrote:
Has nihilism risen with atheism in irreligious countries? Have the non-believers in said countries converted to some non-Abrahmic religion? ‘Solution’ to what?Laminae, along with you, say everything is “meaningless” (or that purpose is not required) so how is that not Nihilistic? Nihilistic and Atheism are two philosophies that f~~~ed and the bastard child was the ego. I simply said Athiesm and Nihilism is on the rise and that people believe it will be a solution to thier problems (religion for example) however these philosophies lack reason and have no merit or value. Because of this they are only “temporary” and people will eventually move on to some other religion.
I can’t speak for Laminae as we’re not all created in the same Godless image and thus do not think alike, but I am definitely NOT a nihilist; I have goals I want to achieve in my life. Nihilism means a total rejection of moral principles. Like most non-believers, I haven’t gone on any killing, raping, and stealing sprees, so it would seem I still have some more principles. Saying that ‘purpose’ is not required for life to exist, is VERY different from saying I should not have a purpose. People that have no goals or purpose or direction, tend to be depressed, whether religious or not. You seem to mix/match what I say about ‘evolution’ and philosophy. I would not regard atheism as a philosophy; it is merely a lack of belief. As for egoism, I tend to be humble, I have known egotists, both religious and irreligious so I’m not seeing your point here, but I would argue the opposite: If I feel I am a believe in the One True Faith and am going to heaven, wouldn’t that tend to make me feel more self-important than a non-believe who thinks he’s going back to dirt?
FrankOne wrote:
Why doesn’t it apply today, and why the cafeteria Christianity?The revelation of Christ supercedes old abrhamic law. This is old-judaism, not Christianity. Christ himself revealed this when a crowd was about to stone Mary Magdeline. The laws were for a people who were children in nature. As a people matured, through time/faith/reason/and revelation, new laws superceded the old. It is not that the laws were wrong, but rather for a infant version of humanity. The resurrection of Christ, in Christianity, fulfilled the nature of man and enabled him to move past certain actions and thinking. Christs resurrection enabled the everlasting life of man as Christ was the first man to do it. If a disciple ran into unbelievers he was to walk away. The governments, as in all, gain their authority through the divine, so in many respects to attack a God/religion would be to attack the authority or government itself. A good government (one that is properly following its role as government) enables order and prosperity for its people. In this case the government was obligated to act in self defense and quell the heresy as all true heresy to fundamental to the well being of a people. The role of a government is different than that of the individual. Most modern governments still act against any ideas which threaten authority (whether that is a good or bad thing). Also, as I said multiple times, this was an act of heresy to serve other Gods. On one hand one denies their own image and likeness to God and in respect harms oneself and harms others. It would be the equivalent to removing a bad apple from the barrel. That is how governments and cultures operated at the time, before mass communication. Atheist governments do that now. It is a function of authority to preserve order and maintian prosperity. It would be the equivalent of killing in self defense, as some values are greater than the life of one man. And to undermine those values or truth, would not only hurt the people, but bring destruction. However to punish heresy was an act of government. And to “banish” as you would say was the equivalent of death in many respects. MGTOW is not a government so you cannot compare it to one. It does not bring order. The forums point to the corruption of a society, while implying a morality, so you cannot say it really has any authority over life an death to begin with. There is a big difference between an authority and a government. Also MGTOW does not have any physical violence against it, so you cannot imply that it is right for not killing people, as if was and can never be put under circumstances that morally obligate it to. I will say again. MGTOW is a forum. It is not a government. To compare the authorities/actions/rights would be to compare apples and oranges. And I will say this again, if you argument against Christianity is this, then you would be bias not to go against Athiestic governments also. And if this is would leads you to agnosticism, that one cannot know anything, then this is a contradiction as you stated some truth. You cannot deem a God immoral or wrong with having a prior value or morality to this. In a sense you would have to deify yourself, and if this is the case you would blatantly have to say you can do no wrong, which is why agnosticism suits you. Because it makes morality ambiguous. I feel like I am either repeating myself because do not understand what I am saying. Maybe I am not being clear enough. Or maybe you are more bias than you want to admit to yourself. I do not know. Besides how can you judge a Christianity (or Catholicism to be more precise) when you don’t even fully know it?
Again, in numerous verses, the old law is NOT canceled.
‘For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:18-19
I realize this is not how Christianity is practiced, but the Bible makes numerous references to the old law NOT being canceled.
Second, morality is INDEPENDENT of religion. I have known VERY moral and VERY immoral Christians, Jews, Agnostics, and Atheists. And some of the dogma in these religious texts (we have discussed primarily the bible) are VERY immoral, such as killing non-believers and slaves, by my morality. I do not need a God or Gods or Goddesses to have a morality. Many people throughout history believed Gods wanted them to engage in immoral actions (human sacrifice, etc). If morality depended so strongly upon religion, WHY is immorality and its presumable measurable outcome, crime, not proportional to the percent of believers in these Heathen nations? You keep saying you’ve addressed this point but you have decidedly NOT addressed it.
Originally the Jesus Movement accepted only Jews who followed Mosaic Law to become Christians, and Jesus was a prophet not a son of God; this is the sort of thing I’m referring to when I discuss the changing of these religions. It was about AD 50 when they had a council to allow gentiles in who did not follow Mosaic law.
Government Authority to ‘preserve order and maintain prosperity’? Its function is to preserve the status quo; the power and wealth of those in its possession using the threat of violence/coercion! Sorry, I paid 45% of my income in taxes last year.
I just don’t buy how lack of ‘mass communication’ (which we had in the ancient Roman World at least verbally — great Orators, travel on an elaborate road system extending to the edges of the empire, etc) makes immoral rules magically moral.
I object to any immoral governmental actions; I don’t consider the US Government ‘Christian’ in that it is not a Theocracy, though most of the country is Christian. I would consider a government like, say, Saudi Arabia, to be a corrupt theocratic state since you have a religious police. Either way, if either commit immoral actions they should be denounced.
And when I wrote this where did I say “humans are not animals”? I said “in this respect we are not animals”. Because we have both animal and I guess you can say “divine” qualities, but also neither in different respects. One would best understand our nature as that of a “fusion”. Are we animals? In one respect yes in another no. To deny this last sentence would be to deny common sense itself/lower humanity/raise animals.
Finally you express your beliefs.. In a way we can all read and understand! I now understand but will never agree only laugh at this contradictory hogwash that tries to put words in my mouth..I will not say we have “divine” qualities but you did and now I can stop calling you Eggplant because you have as much as said humans have god like qualities..I will let you act like a god now not an eggplant but will stop short of worshiping your drivel. We are animals in every respect not just one..So I deny the last sentence and hold that animals = animals no need to lower or raise or create god like status that only exist in your head. If any animal destroys this planet to the point of becoming uninhabitable it will be humans who are so arrogant to believe they are more important than other animals. This planet would be better off without humans trying to act like gods..
The Human with self proclaimed god like qualities wrote this; I said “in this respect we are not animals”.
There it is again proof you believe in some respect we are not animals..I know we are animals in every respect..
I was bound to be misunderstood, and I laugh at those who misunderstand me. Kind mockery at the well intentioned, but unfettered cruelty towards those would be prison guards of my creative possibilities. This so as to learn as much from misunderstanding as from understanding. Taking pleasure in worthy opponents and making language fluid and flowing like a river yet pointed and precise as a dagger. Contradicts the socialistic purpose of language and makes for a wonderful linguistic dance, A verbal martial art with constant parries that hone the weapon that is the two edged sword of my mouth.
The human with self proclaimed god like qualities wrote this; I think I accidentally won the longest post.
Is it a contest? I find it too time consuming to answer every point you attempt to make so from now on I will just stick with the most absurd and stupid ones. Besides anyone can use a lot of words to say very little. The challenge should be using the fewest words to make the largest statement.. With your self proclaimed divine attributes you should have no problem winning over and over without wearing out your fingers typing so much…
I was bound to be misunderstood, and I laugh at those who misunderstand me. Kind mockery at the well intentioned, but unfettered cruelty towards those would be prison guards of my creative possibilities. This so as to learn as much from misunderstanding as from understanding. Taking pleasure in worthy opponents and making language fluid and flowing like a river yet pointed and precise as a dagger. Contradicts the socialistic purpose of language and makes for a wonderful linguistic dance, A verbal martial art with constant parries that hone the weapon that is the two edged sword of my mouth.
a few billion years ago a day was 18-20 hours. So that is something we do know
Theoretical, as we have no historical records of observations by actual people.
Unfortunately, the argument is ever-changing; first, it’s carbon dating is pulled from thin-air; then when radionuclide dating is accepted as accurate, a ‘day isn’t a day’.
The first point still holds as most artifacts are guessed to be within a certain age range but when it does not match up the article is tossed or considered a miscalculation. A variable for determining value is “pulled out of thin air.”Also, atmospheric composition has to be taken into account when measuring samples. Much of this can only be guessed as we have no historical records of atmospheric composition from past several hundred years ago. Not only that but burning up of fossil fuels, volcanic eruptions, and various other factors cause changes we cannot fully calculate. Save the self-projection for somewhere else.
Your statement regarding the length of a day relating to the length of a year doesn’t make any sense; even if the earth spins 24 times faster, that has NO impact upon its orbital period/length of the year. I am aware of how time was measured on a sundial relative to local/seasonal noon but I don’t see how that bears on the question.
The day was determined by when the sun went up and when it went down. In ancient Egypt the length of a year was determined by the size of the shadow the obelisk cast.
In regards to earths orbit we cannot predicts its future, but also know little about the past:
In 1989, Jacques Laskar’s work indicated that the Earth’s orbit (as well as the orbits of all the inner planets) can become chaotic and that an error as small as 15 metres in measuring the initial position of the Earth today would make it impossible to predict where the Earth would be in its orbit in just over 100 million years’ time.[17] Modeling the Solar System is subject to the n-body problem.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_orbit
There is no exact formula for analyzing a planet’s orbit, yet.
is some molecular genetic research indicating ancestral primates may have coexisted with dinosaurs.
Yes that is my point. Even scriptures point to “behomeths”, “beasts”, and massive “serpents” that have no modern day translation. We do not know enough to rule out the possibility people existed at the same time. At the end of the day, human footprints with dinosaurs appear on multiple occasions throughout the world.
The difference between this and apologetics is, in apologetics, you are a biased party (a member of a religion), you start with a conclusion, and seek to prove it, throwing away any contradictory facts or explanations.
Explanations are inherently biased, regardless of the party. In regards to “facts”, most of what you consider facts is either theory or unproven. We do not know the equivalent length of time mentions in religious texts, but we do know from multiple texts that various religions and historical accounts acknowledge people having long life spans. Also dinosaurs have been acknowledged to coexist at one point with people regardless of the culture. We also have little documentation of how time was measured “pre-history”. We do not know enough to rule it out. Also to follow the philosophy of objectivism and the scientific method without questioning it is fundamentally biased. You are under some mistaken assumption that many men of faith do not seek to understand deeper and/or question their own faith. This could not be more untrue.
When stating facts, assumptions cannot be made.
As I said multiple times, evolution does not contradict many faiths. It is fundamentally irrelevant to atheism. I think we can both at least agree on this. Because these posts are becoming to long, on both sides, I am going to cut this portion out. If you want to debate about it, make a separate thread.
I guess it’s okay to start a Bible-based religious community, hold slaves, and kill them then as long as they survive for a day or two. I agree to disagree on the immorality of slavery and killing said slaves. Since I don’t believe in slavery, rebellion is not cause for murder. The verse says nothing about why the slave was struck or acceptable or ‘just’ reasons for striking the slave and places no qualifications on killing the slave so we’ll agree to disagree on the morality of holding slaves and killing them. The verse doesn’t discuss a rod; it discusses KILLING them. Don’t obfuscate when you’re pinned down and can’t move.
They used a rod to beat them. Much of the physical punishment conducted in ancient Judaism made use of a thick reed type rod. The verse is literally about not over doing punishment.In regards to “rebellion” I gave it as an example but it would not be to far from the truth as any rebellion of any sort would require self defense. However this is a multidimensional issue and I will get to what the “Hebrew” slaves were later on in the post. When discussing issues such as this all viewpoints, or at least as many as possible, have to be covered.
I think you and I have a very different view of right and wrong, apart from our religious differences. Some of the products I use were likely created by slave labor. I’m just not seeing a low-income worker in the US at least, as a slave. I was a low income worker in my teens but I could still QUIT my job and find another one; I was free to do as I saw fit outside work hours, and my employer couldn’t sell me. Yes, slavery in the ancient world wasn’t based on race, more on conquest and you could become a freeman after a certain number of years in some cultures. I would argue slavery is a part of the world up and including today, though not to the extent as a relative percent of population as in the past.
To say you possess a point of view in regards to right and wrong would be hypocritical unless backed up by science and objective standards.
To say you possess a point of view in regards to right and wrong would be hypocritical unless backed up by science and objective standards.
In regards to the modern day slavery: It still exists, most minimum wage low income people cannot financially rise past a certain level and in many regards are left to be governed by a corporate structure, regardless of where they go. Personal freedoms are eroding. Take for example political correctness and the ban on smoking. These are lesser forms of slavery as there is some possiblility, however low of leaving. However I have known many people who do not have the choice of leaving. The issue the illegal aliens being used for cheap labor in unsafe conditions. Also the sex trafficking market, which has a huge influence in
first world countries. And here is a further list of modern day slavery:http://www.state.gov/j/tip/what/index.htm
In regards to the ancient world, this is what most of these “slave texts” are about in the old testament. Slaves, as you said, were men conquered in war. Also you noted that certain civilizations freed there slaves after a specific period of time. That is also true. The Jewish faith also required this. In regards to my personal view of slavery, I am against it. However I see it as unavoidable in most social and political behavior. It is a facet of corrupted human nature. You can say slavery is wrong all you want, and the world can do without it however it would require you to give up most of what you own (up to and including some/most of your technology. The standards for slavery for the Jews were much more lax than many other parts of the world. It was not that slavery was a good thing in itself but rather a necessary evil, as it could not be avoided but rather must be made the most of.
NO. Jesus ridicules the Jews for not killing their children for disobeying (old testament law) and repeatedly states the law must still be followed. I can cite the numerous verses relating to this but I don’t think it’s necessary.
Go ahead cite them.
quote=41572]Overall, religiosity IS on a slow decline, however.[/quote]
Agree, and atheism is on an increase too. I think we can both agree here.
GMO’s have been effective for pesticide resistance. The EU lifted the ban on GMO crops back in Jan 2015 so at least now individual governments may decide.
Not fully, and there are issues with nutrition and the possible health related side effects found in some experiments on pigs.
Proof comprises, from religious people I know, is personal revelation, feeling their prayers have been answered, or something they feel is a miracle. Or something that just makes them feel good.
This is false. Miracles have been recorded of actual physical healings, physical changes in materials (iron to Gold ) and a variety of other factors. If you do the research, most miracles are physical in nature and are put up to a litmus test of scientific scrutiny and still not solve or even given an explanation.
I never said complexity was an anthropomorphic feature in my posts.
True, however in many respects it would have to be as life is nothing but a complex arrangement of particles. So yes, you said complexity is not anthropomorphic in nature, however that statement would still be a contradiction as a human being is nothing but particles according to the athiest. So in many respects you have no choice but to accept anthropomorphization as a complexity in particles.
No, resurrection is NOT a universal feature of all religions and most certainly not across human history.
Then what is reincarnation? Also I should be more specific and say a wide variety of religions. However the term “universal” still applies in many aspects as in the basic form of all core faiths (not all Jews, but many/not all Christians but many/not all Buddhists but many/not all pagans but many). This is somewhat my fault as I should have be more precise. I’ll claim fault for this one, but regardless it is a common cultural myth.
Judaism changed and became monotheistic, has nothing to do with whether it’s true. I think it’s demonstrated by history that many of these religions have changed drastically, undermining their ‘universal truth’ claims
Cite evidence as to when Judaism changed from polytheism to monotheism. There is evidence of cultural practice crossings, however this did not eliminate the core of Judaism and much of this was later rebuked. Cite your evidence.
Certain universals pop up across cultures, regardless of the changes. Here is a list of many cultural universals, religious included:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal#Myth.2C_ritual_and_aesthetics
Sincere there is no logical means to determine how many angels dance on a pin or a Totem I’ll defer to believers as to which is the One True Faith.
This “stuff” does not matter. There have even been letters in the New Testament talking about how not to get involved in conversations over this stuff. Your impressions of “religion” are very misguided or you have been around a lot of wack jobs (as have I).
To me and you, building Pyramids to the Pharaoh may not seem like a great idea but it seemed like a good one in Ancient Egypt where all our neighbors believed in it. What is a Schismatic and how do you tell them from a prophet? Was Joseph Smith a schismatic or prophet? If you can’t use reason in assessing religion, why can you use it here? How do we tell if they’re divinely inspired? Were the men at the councils deciding which books to include in the Bible schismatics or devout? Are the orthodox schismatic or the Roman Catholics? Seems when I visit the other one’s church they always show the other group on the left side of the family tree and call them the schismatics!
No disagreement, I have had some of the same opinions years before this dialogue (and still do). People are decieved. It happens. However one cannot say that there is no truth. One just keeps looking. And in regards to the “schisms” alot of that is complicated and cannot be bunched up into one group. Take for example the Roman Catholic vs. Orthodox schism in modern times. The Romans view much of the Orthodox as legitimate, however it is not the other way around. Sometimes, a schism is sought to be fixed, but noone wants it due to politics, philosophies, etc. Regardless, the papacy is viewed as a centerpoint (or a least strong point) symbolically of Christians around the world. By all of them? No. But there is a level of symbolism with it. But getting back to the point, at the end of the day someone has to be right.
Saying that ‘purpose’ is not required for life to exist, is VERY different from saying I should not have a purpose.
Is it? After all to say one should have purpose when life has no purpose would be to make purpose an artificial construct.
Athiesm is a philosophy in that it determines certain metaphysical principles through a method of doubt.
As for egoism, I tend to be humble, I have known egotists, both religious and irreligious so I’m not seeing your point here, but I would argue the opposite: If I feel I am a believe in the One True Faith and am going to heaven, wouldn’t that tend to make me feel more self-important than a non-believe who thinks he’s going back to dirt?
Egoist as only the self can determine truth. I would agree about the egoism across much religious and non-religious peoples. However to believe, or to be convinced that one is right, is fundamentally not egoistic at all. If it were then to assuming doubting oneself as truth, is also egotistical as they assume “doubting” is true. In regards to the “heaven/hell” issue, that is a matter of faith and trust. Noone can pass judgement on where anyone is going, including oneself, or even know.
realize this is not how Christianity is practiced, but the Bible makes numerous references to the old law NOT being canceled.
This is in reference to the ten commandments. And it also goes to point out how man cannot follow them all. Salvation does not come through the law, but through Jesus Christ as the law only pointed towards our damnation. Faith through good works is necessary. This is explained later, I don’t have the time to look up the verses, but several of the verses are in the letters of saint paul and several in the latter parts of the four gospels.
by my morality.
Anything can be considered immoral in a subjective morality. The fact that you can determine morality on your own terms makes what your doing immoral as all moral law becomes subjective. If moral law is subjective than you cannot call another man immoral as that would be immoral.
Originally the Jesus Movement accepted only Jews who followed Mosaic Law to become Christians, and Jesus was a prophet not a son of God; this is the sort of thing I’m referring to when I discuss the changing of these religions. It was about AD 50 when they had a council to allow gentiles in who did not follow Mosaic law.
Jesus went to all the people who did not follow Mosaic law, if you cannot acknowledge this as the obvious then there is nothing I can say. In regards to the Gentiles, several of the 12 original disciples were sent to preach all the way up to parts of Asia, etc.
Jesus was considered the Son of God by many followers. Also some did not consider him as such. It would be false to make this a universal statement.
Government Authority to ‘preserve order and maintain prosperity’? Its function is to preserve the status quo; the power and wealth of those in its possession using the threat of violence/coercion! Sorry, I paid 45% of my income in taxes last year. I just don’t buy how lack of ‘mass communication’ (which we had in the ancient Roman World at least verbally — great Orators, travel on an elaborate road system extending to the edges of the empire, etc) makes immoral rules magically moral. I object to any immoral governmental actions; I don’t consider the US Government ‘Christian’ in that it is not a Theocracy, though most of the country is Christian. I would consider a government like, say, Saudi Arabia, to be a corrupt theocratic state since you have a religious police. Either way, if either commit immoral actions they should be denounced.
I am almost out of time due to work, I will get to these points again.
There it is again proof you believe in some respect we are not animals..I know we are animals in every respect..
Good, now that you believe we are nothing but animals (even though I explained why) I can now treat you like one. Grow up harpo, during our first interaction I thought you were a p~~~ed off teenager (commenting on every little thing I wrote) now I know that with age does not come wisdom. But I can say this, after all you are tolerant “and hard to anger.” But I guess you “know” somethings because you are “you”.
Oh, and with arguing aside, what happened to MG-TOWER?
John Doe TOWER is still here ask him what it is you want to know.. You should treat me like an animal That’s what some of us older men feel like and relate to…Like I once hear KM say we arrived at MGTOW feeling and looking like a life worn dog…abused and well aware that I should never expect anyone should give a rats ass about my problems and feelings, because they never have before…Claiming the exclusive right to control ones own emotions is very liberating…The Key word is “exclusive” No one else has the authority much less the power to manipulate my emotions….I plan on living until I am 105 years old so at 52 I have not yet hit my midlife crisis… and I don’t know half the knowledge I will at the end…Originally My goal was 103 years old but finding This place may cause me to rethink it again…Could MGTOW not only save men’s lives but also add a few years to the end?…Removing stress from my life because of the knowledge that there is an honest to goodness International men’s-room wall where I can scribble my graffiti, tell my jokes and laugh at all the other men’s jokes and generally relax and socialize safe from the demands of the outside world…
I published this old joke at the urban dictionary and It was published first time through….. Google search the term “tough whore” My definition is the top search result..
The definition of a “tough whore” is the prostitute in an old joke..
A man goes into a brothel and asks for a six pack of bottled beer and a tough whore..The madam hands him the beer and sends him upstairs to room 3..He inters the room and says “Are you the tough whore I asked for”? The prostitute replied “I sure am” at which time she turned away lifted her dress, dropped her panties and bent over. The man says “I am not here to screw your ass”. She replied “who said anything about screwing my ass? “I thought you would like to open a beer”…
I was bound to be misunderstood, and I laugh at those who misunderstand me. Kind mockery at the well intentioned, but unfettered cruelty towards those would be prison guards of my creative possibilities. This so as to learn as much from misunderstanding as from understanding. Taking pleasure in worthy opponents and making language fluid and flowing like a river yet pointed and precise as a dagger. Contradicts the socialistic purpose of language and makes for a wonderful linguistic dance, A verbal martial art with constant parries that hone the weapon that is the two edged sword of my mouth.
Where was I? I had to leave due to work and sleep schedule. I will try to address some points, however if I forget any make sure to bring them up.
Government Authority to ‘preserve order and maintain prosperity’? Its function is to preserve the status quo; the power and wealth of those in its possession using the threat of violence/coercion! Sorry, I paid 45% of my income in taxes last year
Authority in the form of some government or governing people is natural and unavoidable. Part of a governments is to preserve a “status quo” in the sense of maintain a form of justice and order. Do governments always do this? No, but it is not due to the role of a government but rather because it ceases to act according to its nature or is corrupt. I never argued that our government or most were just, rather that in many respects they are necessary.
I just don’t buy how lack of ‘mass communication’ (which we had in the ancient Roman World at least verbally — great Orators, travel on an elaborate road system extending to the edges of the empire, etc) makes immoral rules magically moral.
This is a multidimensional issue as you have the question of “mass communication” and morality and the question of whether the rules are immoral or not or even if they can be judged to be moral.
There was much more value and emphasis on the “spoken” word back then compared to today. People did not travel as fast even when there was mass communication. Because of this “speed” of communication a culture (a way of life and values) were often developed slowly and had more of an impact. Because we currently live in a “global culture” in many respects this idea may seem foreign but to maintain a way of life or a culture back then required more input. Ideological unity in both philosophy and religion helped give order in a time where people literally relied on eachother directly (unlike today).
In regards to killing “apostates” as I have said before that law was deemed fulfilled in one respect and also nullified in another in Judaism with the revelation of Christ. Christ telling others not to “stone” Mary of Magdeline is the beginning of this. Where before the laws were fundamentally only applied to the physical body, which Christ’s resurrection the laws took on a more spiritual overtone as this world would eventually pass and eternity became a priority. Before, according to Judaism (and for modern jews), if one died that was it.
Also to abandon a God would be to abandon a morality. To in many affects being an apostate was not just a criminal act against God, but also a criminal act against the people in that moral virtues were undermined and opened up vice and discord instead. In many respects a lie can and is just as harmful as murder.
Also, you cannot deem something immoral when you have no morality of your own that is not fundamentally subjective.
An athiest cannot judge a God who “kills” innocent children when abortion is an okay act. Also one has to “define”
innocent, as innocense requires a moral code to prove, which athiesm lacks. Also you have the issue of Athiesm
viewing people only as animals, yet it is okay to kill and eat animals when “necesary”. So their is no moral code
that can be applied to animal life, that in many senses would be hypocritical, as animals themselves do not follow it.Also you have the issue of an “all-knowing God” who would know the consequences and repercussions of what would happen
if the children died, should the have lived, etc. the athiest (and all men) do not. Eventually the athiest is left as judging God for not following
the athiests own criteria.Also the athiest limits the sum total of all human life down to physical existence, where in the Christian faith life
is not limited to an earthly body, so in many respects God cannot commit murder on a soul which lasts forever by putting
a physical body to death.Isaiah 57 1-2 does not necessarily deam physical death as always evil :“The righteous perishes, and no man takes it to heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil. He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness”
Before I forget, the subject of how some countries can be moral without religion (denmark, japan, etc.) produces a set list of problems. First how can you determine they are moral? On what moral code are they judged by? Also, assuming the term morality as an ends to
achieving values, would fundamentally make anyone who valued anything moral. If this were the case, and one valued
something and had a standard to achieve, on what account could you say they were anything but moral? Also you
have to take history into account as some countries had deep religious values ingrained into there culture, and although
the religion might not be practiced, the cultural values remain the same.So frankone, reply when you see fit. If I am still unclear, for the sake of brevity (as these posts are getting too long) bring up those points first.
You should treat me like an animal
I really don’t understand why you are pushing this people are only animals thing. I did not claim we were “Gods” either.
To be more accurate I should state that we have some reflection of the divine in us, and as it is a reflection, we cannot
be “Gods” in any sense of the word.To push that people are only savage animals sets a dangerous precendent to a moral a value system that will not only
do more harm than good, but is essentially untrue as it limits human nature to base impulse.FrankOne wrote:
a few billion years ago a day was 18-20 hours. So that is something we do knowTheoretical, as we have no historical records of observations by actual people.
True, we do not have historical records written by man. Instead, we have convergence of estimated ages using many different methodologies that converge upon a similar age of, say, the Universe. Since that contradicts literalism, the only answer is to change the definition of ‘day’. No Biblical ‘scholars’ were saying ‘day’ meant age until science made Genesis implausible. If the Bible is divinely inspired, why does it not contain knowledge beyond that of the ancient world in which it was written? Why don’t any sacred religious texts contain such knowledge? It is laughable to have one standard of proof for this (direct observation), and another, very much lower, standard of proof for the Bible. Why is the Bible true and the Koran false?
Many of your arguments ignore basic facts of physics:
‘ We do not know if the rotation of the earth has sped up or slowed down so what might have been 100 years along time ago might have been 10 years today, when compared to the measurement of atomic time.’
As stated in my previous message, the rotational speed of the earth/length of day, has no relationship whatsoever with the oribtal period or year. You ignore any points on which you are shown to be incorrect. A convergence of theoretical and observational evidence suggests the day was shorter. And we know it’s getting longer now — it’s been measured with those inaccurate atomic clocks that are, for some bizarre reason, our standard for measuring time!FrankOne wrote:
Unfortunately, the argument is ever-changing; first, it’s carbon dating is pulled from thin-air; then when radionuclide dating is accepted as accurate, a ‘day isn’t a day’.The first point still holds as most artifacts are guessed to be within a certain age range but when it does not match up the article is tossed or considered a miscalculation. A variable for determining value is “pulled out of thin air.”Also, atmospheric composition has to be taken into account when measuring samples. Much of this can only be guessed as we have no historical records of atmospheric composition from past several hundred years ago. Not only that but burning up of fossil fuels, volcanic eruptions, and various other factors cause changes we cannot fully calculate. Save the self-projection for somewhere else.
We’ve already hashed this out. Atmospheric composition has no impact on radioisotopic dating on longer time scales. because carbon isotopes are not used. You neglected to address that point. As for radiocarbon dating, it has been calibrated to tree rings going back thousands of years to correct for atmospheric composition — the standard methodology used for decades. ‘Miscalculation’? The error is typically sample contamination, the calculation, is straightforward. No, a variable for determining value is NOT ‘pulled out of thin air’, the dendrochronological (tree ring) record goes back thousands of years. Is there uncertainty in the measurement? Yes, I stated it earlier. Do recent atmospheric changes such as from nuclear testing make the method inaccurate for very recent samples? Yes. So far scientific predictions have been more accurate than Nostra-dumb-ass’s predictions or Biblical prophecy. Actually, there are quite a few of those that are WRONG as documented historically.
FrankOne wrote:
Your statement regarding the length of a day relating to the length of a year doesn’t make any sense; even if the earth spins 24 times faster, that has NO impact upon its orbital period/length of the year. I am aware of how time was measured on a sundial relative to local/seasonal noon but I don’t see how that bears on the question.The day was determined by when the sun went up and when it went down. In ancient Egypt the length of a year was determined by the size of the shadow the obelisk cast. In regards to earths orbit we cannot predicts its future, but also know little about the past: In 1989, Jacques Laskar’s work indicated that the Earth’s orbit (as well as the orbits of all the inner planets) can become chaotic and that an error as small as 15 metres in measuring the initial position of the Earth today would make it impossible to predict where the Earth would be in its orbit in just over 100 million years’ time.[17] Modeling the Solar System is subject to the n-body problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_orbit There is no exact formula for analyzing a planet’s orbit, yet.
Once again, you did not address the point, and change the subject. No matter what speed the earth spins, has no impact upon the duration of the year. This is basic physics.
No. The Egyptians used the star Sirius and the lunar cycle. They had an extra 5 days at the end of the year for a 365 day year instead of 365.25 — they later adopted the leap year and had to make adjustments due to the 1/4 day annual error. I am completely familiar with what a chaotic system means. There won’t be an exact analytic formula for the n-body problem any more than there is an exact (finite term) way to calculate the sine or cosine of an angle…. When a time-dependent problem is analyzed with finite element analysis, there will be some error due to the mesh size. Since the error is cumulative, it adds up. I’ve solved differential equations with FEA so I have some direct experience with it. Since there are other stellar bodies we don’t know the exact mass, position, or velocity of, those can also have a significant impact over long time durations. When we say the earth is ‘4.54 billion years old’, that is understood to mean the duration of a current earth year. Almost all practical calculations have error — I cannot calculate exactly, even the pressure drop in a pipe since I don’t know the exact roughness. Also there is a limit to how precise I can calculate it due to the limits of the correlation I am using.FrankOne wrote:
is some molecular genetic research indicating ancestral primates may have coexisted with dinosaurs.Yes that is my point. Even scriptures point to “behomeths”, “beasts”, and massive “serpents” that have no modern day translation. We do not know enough to rule out the possibility people existed at the same time. At the end of the day, human footprints with dinosaurs appear on multiple occasions throughout the world.
Whether the footprints are human is contested. Ancestral primates does not mean humans. . . Maybe the ancestral primates also saw the light of the moon (note, I didn’t say ‘reflected light’ since that’s not what the Bible calls it).
FrankOne wrote:
The difference between this and apologetics is, in apologetics, you are a biased party (a member of a religion), you start with a conclusion, and seek to prove it, throwing away any contradictory facts or explanations.Explanations are inherently biased, regardless of the party. In regards to “facts”, most of what you consider facts is either theory or unproven. We do not know the equivalent length of time mentions in religious texts, but we do know from multiple texts that various religions and historical accounts acknowledge people having long life spans. Also dinosaurs have been acknowledged to coexist at one point with people regardless of the culture. We also have little documentation of how time was measured “pre-history”. We do not know enough to rule it out. Also to follow the philosophy of objectivism and the scientific method without questioning it is fundamentally biased. You are under some mistaken assumption that many men of faith do not seek to understand deeper and/or question their own faith. This could not be more untrue. When stating facts, assumptions cannot be made. As I said multiple times, evolution does not contradict many faiths. It is fundamentally irrelevant to atheism. I think we can both at least agree on this. Because these posts are becoming to long, on both sides, I am going to cut this portion out. If you want to debate about it, make a separate thread.
There is no evidence of coexistence of man & dinosaurs as stated previously. Evolution does not contradict many faiths; science and evolution DO contradict LITERAL belief in the Bible and its cosmology. The order of events in Genesis, the moon giving light directly, PI = 3, etc… are all scientific issues with Biblical inerrancy. All of this DOES enter into this discussion. For some reason you’re not arguing that every other use of a ‘day’ in the Bible means a day, but in Genesis, it means an age… THAT is the nature of apologetics. Trying to fit bottled truths into inconvenient realities.
Of course men of faith want to understand their faith. That’s why they’re praying to God & he’s revealing the One True Religion them. That’s why hundreds of millions of Muslims are converting to Christianity. The Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and others are sure to follow. If all of these people are praying, why isn’t the faith that God answers growing? Evolution provides an alternative to creationism by God(s) but it isn’t the only alternative to explain how life originated on Earth — just the most plausible with limited information.
‘People living long life spans’ : Literalist Bible Believer –> English translation = Noah lived to be 950 & the other Patrirchs had long lives (maybe some didn’t have wives to nag ’em so they lived longer?). No, we do NOT know that AT ALL… Ancient people didn’t live longer. There were some kings and others that lived into their 90’s and even to 100 in recorded history… Not to 950… Assumptions are implicitly made in stating facts; I assume my perceptions can be trusted and reality is real, for instance. In science assumptions are often stated and quantitative parameters are given error limits.
I give up on beating slaves to death. It’s as just and moral as killing all the firstborn sons.
Speaking of slaves — let’s talk about the Israelis. The Bible clearly states god made Pharoah obstainate, then collectively punished the Egyptians for this obstinance. Given the 10 plagues, ya’d think they’d believe in Jewish OT God? So why isn’t Egypt a Jewish or Christian nation?FrankOne wrote:
I think you and I have a very different view of right and wrong, apart from our religious differences. Some of the products I use were likely created by slave labor. I’m just not seeing a low-income worker in the US at least, as a slave. I was a low income worker in my teens but I could still QUIT my job and find another one; I was free to do as I saw fit outside work hours, and my employer couldn’t sell me. Yes, slavery in the ancient world wasn’t based on race, more on conquest and you could become a freeman after a certain number of years in some cultures. I would argue slavery is a part of the world up and including today, though not to the extent as a relative percent of population as in the past.To say you possess a point of view in regards to right and wrong would be hypocritical unless backed up by science and objective standards. In regards to the modern day slavery: It still exists, most minimum wage low income people cannot financially rise past a certain level and in many regards are left to be governed by a corporate structure, regardless of where they go. Personal freedoms are eroding. Take for example political correctness and the ban on smoking. These are lesser forms of slavery as there is some possiblility, however low of leaving. However I have known many people who do not have the choice of leaving. The issue the illegal aliens being used for cheap labor in unsafe conditions. Also the sex trafficking market, which has a huge influence in first world countries. And here is a further list of modern day slavery: http://www.state.gov/j/tip/what/index.htm In regards to the ancient world, this is what most of these “slave texts” are about in the old testament. Slaves, as you said, were men conquered in war. Also you noted that certain civilizations freed there slaves after a specific period of time. That is also true. The Jewish faith also required this. In regards to my personal view of slavery, I am against it. However I see it as unavoidable in most social and political behavior. It is a facet of corrupted human nature. You can say slavery is wrong all you want, and the world can do without it however it would require you to give up most of what you own (up to and including some/most of your technology. The standards for slavery for the Jews were much more lax than many other parts of the world. It was not that slavery was a good thing in itself but rather a necessary evil, as it could not be avoided but rather must be made the most of.
So, possessing a view of right and wrong is hypocritical unless backed up by science and objective standards? Read up on secular morality, consequentialism, freethinking, and secular humanism. You have a very narrow-minded view on this topic and have been unable to defend your position and had to change it. First, you said you couldn’t have morality without religion, but then we had inconvenient truths such as entire nations of irreligious individuals who were behaving morally… So now you’ve had to change the thesis to, well, you can still be moral, but you’re hypocrites…. I would argue it is VERY hypocritical to not follow the Biblical edict on executing Apostates WITH YOUR OWN HAND and making a bunch of excuses for NOT KILLING THEM per God’s clear directions. That’s ‘cafetaria Christianity’ at its finest. But, I’m glad the way that’s how many Christians feel. People who read and follow their holy books too literally, tend to behead people and fly airplanes into buildings. And I’m not just talking Muslims or ‘history’ — look up Ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, that happened only 20 years ago.
Sorry, there is a big difference between ‘wage slave’ and ‘plantation slave’; my employer can’t punch me, deprive me of sleep, sell me, or kill me. I’m not defending Corporatism but I prefer it over human slavery if I must choose between the two. Sure, personal freedom is eroding in some ways (war on drugs, PC campuses), but has increased in others (elimination of segregation and Jim Crow laws). Economic freedom, in contrast, has been SEVERELY eroded even in my lifetime — huge increases in the size and scope of the State and taxes. No, ending slavery would just mean I pay more for some of what I own and I could likely afford less of it. You may think low wages are horrible but they’re better than starving. As economies grow, they build infrastructure and skills, the service sector grows and everyone is better off.FrankOne wrote:
NO. Jesus ridicules the Jews for not killing their children for disobeying (old testament law) and repeatedly states the law must still be followed. I can cite the numerous verses relating to this but I don’t think it’s necessary.Go ahead cite them.
Okay. This is basic Christianity. The tradition (requirement to follow Mosaic law) changed when Paul of Tarsus spread Christianity to the Gentiles. Christians should have issued a new edition like they did with Book of Mormon when the theology changed or a new cult leader takes over a growing prophet(profit)-making business.
It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17 NAB)
“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19 RSV)
“It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17 NAB)
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17 NAB)
Of course, you’ll argue ‘all things’ = the resurrection instead of ‘all things’ = end of earth…
“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” (2 Timothy 3:16 NAB)
Didn’t see a time limit there.
“Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God.” (2 Peter 20-21 NAB)
“Whoever curses father or mother shall die” (Mark 7:10 NAB)
Amen Brother! Of course you’ll have to re-define death to spiritual death/going to hell for this inconvenient Truth…
“He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” (Matthew 15:4-7)
Bring on that NT morality!
“Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law” (John7:19)
“For the law was given by Moses,…” (John 1:17).FrankOne wrote:
GMO’s have been effective for pesticide resistance. The EU lifted the ban on GMO crops back in Jan 2015 so at least now individual governments may decide.Not fully, and there are issues with nutrition and the possible health related side effects found in some experiments on pigs.
Antecdotes. Farmers can choose GMO or non-GMO. Adoption rates of insect and herbicide resistant crops over the last 20 years tell the tale. http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/adoption-of-genetically-engineered-crops-in-the-us/recent-trends-in-ge-adoption.aspx — are there unintended consequences? Sure, just like for the thousands of years of selective breeding before to optimize the crops and yield. GMO has been a convenient demon for politicians who don’t want to let in foreign competition (e.g. ban imports).
FrankOne wrote:
Proof comprises, from religious people I know, is personal revelation, feeling their prayers have been answered, or something they feel is a miracle. Or something that just makes them feel good.This is false. Miracles have been recorded of actual physical healings, physical changes in materials (iron to Gold) and a variety of other factors. If you do the research, most miracles are physical in nature and are put up to a litmus test of scientific scrutiny and still not solve or even given an explanation.
Absolutely. It’s just God’s been a little camera-shy since the Parting of the Red Sea and the invention of the camcorder. The Bible says believers can drink poison without harm, not sure why any haven’t subjected themselves to scientific inquiry? Why haven’t any airplanes just crashed with no one on board suffering impact injuries? Why haven’t Churches, Mosques, or Synogogues been protected when a Tsunami sweeps along a coastline? Why haven’t all these supposed miracles changed history? Why isn’t Egypt a Jewish or Christian nation? After all the plagues, one would surely think the Jewish God more powerful than Pharoah? Why did God MAKE Pharoah obstinate, only so that He could collectively punish the Egyptian people? If miracles occur for True Believers, one would expect them to become Great Evangelists fulfilling the Great Commission; why, then, does not the One True Religion(r) bestowing these miracles predominate? Some difficult questions, surely.
FrankOne wrote:
I never said complexity was an anthropomorphic feature in my posts.True, however in many respects it would have to be as life is nothing but a complex arrangement of particles. So yes, you said complexity is not anthropomorphic in nature, however that statement would still be a contradiction as a human being is nothing but particles according to the athiest. So in many respects you have no choice but to accept anthropomorphization as a complexity in particles.
NO. Natural phenomenon produce complexity. Ever look at a snowflake under a microscope? Ever hear of ordered crystalline structures? Why is biological life anthropomorphic? We aren’t made of ‘particles’, we are comprised of atoms which form molecules — as are plants, bacteria, viruses, cows, and humans. So I’m not seeing how that perspective is ‘antropomorphic’. Really, I’m not sure what you are trying to say with all this discussion about ‘particles’ evolving in previous posts. Systems that don’t self-replicate don’t exhibit natural selection.
FrankOne wrote:
No, resurrection is NOT a universal feature of all religions and most certainly not across human history.Then what is reincarnation? Also I should be more specific and say a wide variety of religions. However the term “universal” still applies in many aspects as in the basic form of all core faiths (not all Jews, but many/not all Christians but many/not all Buddhists but many/not all pagans but many). This is somewhat my fault as I should have be more precise. I’ll claim fault for this one, but regardless it is a common cultural myth.
To be fair, it is a widespread cultural myth, I merely objected to it being ‘universal’. I would contend a LOT of Jews don’t believe in it. Most Christians DO believe in it from surveys I’ve read.. I objected to this on the grounds you built an argument that it was somehow built into us. I favor a very simple explanation — I think most people don’t want to face death and an ultimate end, so these beliefs surely provide comfort.
FrankOne wrote:
Judaism changed and became monotheistic, has nothing to do with whether it’s true. I think it’s demonstrated by history that many of these religions have changed drastically, undermining their ‘universal truth’ claimsCite evidence as to when Judaism changed from polytheism to monotheism. There is evidence of cultural practice crossings, however this did not eliminate the core of Judaism and much of this was later rebuked. Cite your evidence. Certain universals pop up across cultures, regardless of the changes. Here is a list of many cultural universals, religious included: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal#Myth.2C_ritual_and_aesthetics
I read it on the internet, so it must be true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Judaism Please don’t skewer me for that, I’m just trying to be funny. I don’t deny or disagree with cultural universals. If I take animals that have been socialized together and migrate them somewhere else they may have similar behaviors. Some behaviors may be beneficial to living together in harmoney (e.g. treat others as you would have them treat you a.k.a. the Golden Rule as it is known in Christianity).
FrankOne wrote:
Sinc there there is no logical means to determine how many angels dance on a pin or a Totem I’ll defer to believers as to which is the One True Faith.This “stuff” does not matter. There have even been letters in the New Testament talking about how not to get involved in conversations over this stuff. Your impressions of “religion” are very misguided or you have been around a lot of wack jobs (as have I).
Whack jobs? I LOVE whack jobs. Just don’t marry one!
FrankOne wrote:
To me and you, building Pyramids to the Pharaoh may not seem like a great idea but it seemed like a good one in Ancient Egypt where all our neighbors believed in it. What is a Schismatic and how do you tell them from a prophet? Was Joseph Smith a schismatic or prophet? If you can’t use reason in assessing religion, why can you use it here? How do we tell if they’re divinely inspired? Were the men at the councils deciding which books to include in the Bible schismatics or devout? Are the orthodox schismatic or the Roman Catholics? Seems when I visit the other one’s church they always show the other group on the left side of the family tree and call them the schismatics!No disagreement, I have had some of the same opinions years before this dialogue (and still do). People are decieved. It happens. However one cannot say that there is no truth. One just keeps looking. And in regards to the “schisms” alot of that is complicated and cannot be bunched up into one group. Take for example the Roman Catholic vs. Orthodox schism in modern times. The Romans view much of the Orthodox as legitimate, however it is not the other way around. Sometimes, a schism is sought to be fixed, but noone wants it due to politics, philosophies, etc. Regardless, the papacy is viewed as a centerpoint (or a least strong point) symbolically of Christians around the world. By all of them? No. But there is a level of symbolism with it. But getting back to the point, at the end of the day someone has to be right.
I’ve known many Evangelical christians and they despise the Pope and the Catholic church, mainly because over principles such as infallibility, beliefs about Mary, and Church traditions have equal weight with the Bible. Yes, poltiics played a role in the schisms and also the inability to re-unify now. Most Protestants I know LIKE this Pope a LOT more than his predecessor. But they still disagree with Catholic teachings about the Pope’s authority. I agree there is truth. You can keep looking but in matters of religion I’m not seeing how one ‘finds’ anything as you have a bunch of conflicting religions making Truth claims. Which one is right? Or are they all apostate and we should be praying to Richard Dawkins who created skeptics like me in His Image & he’s gonna reward non-believers who read all his books with 40 virgins and everybody else gets to read all the world’s holy books over and over in a very hot place… Gotta have some levity here… I just hope the guys flying the airplanes into buildings get MALE virgins!
FrankOne wrote:
Saying that ‘purpose’ is not required for life to exist, is VERY different from saying I should not have a purpose.Is it? After all to say one should have purpose when life has no purpose would be to make purpose an artificial construct. Athiesm is a philosophy in that it determines certain metaphysical principles through a method of doubt..
Certainly philosophical atheism has been developed by numerous philosophers to try to answer basic questions about existence and reality but atheism alone is not a philosophy — it’s simply a lack of belief. I was a bit tired when I wrote that, it would have been more clear, to say, even if there is no purpose for the existence of life on Earth, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have goals or a purpose. I regard a philosophy as a system of principles for guidance in practical affairs. Since atheism isnt’ a belief (it’s a non-belief) , and it doesn’t provide any guidance, I’m not seeing it as a philosophy in and of itself — whereas, say, a religion, like Judaism, is a whole set of principles for life guidance — some of these philosophies have God(s) and others do not. But that is just a semantic issue. Agnostics/atheists are both skeptical as hell in my experience — our bulls~~~ detector is 1000 times more sensitive than most people’s. And I readily confess that can be annoying as hell to other people…
Anything can be considered immoral in a subjective morality. The fact that you can determine morality on your own terms makes what your doing immoral as all moral law becomes subjective. If moral law is subjective than you cannot call another man immoral as that would be immoral…
I suppose morality is subjective since there is no common moral code everyone can agree upon. It isn’t like mathematics. According to my morality, killing apostates is wrong; in someone else’s morality it may be acceptable or encouraged. I can still call someone immoral but he may not be immoral per his own views of what comprises morality. Even with different moralities, we can coexist peaceably as we do in America with many different religions and moralities. There is no prescribed morality but there are laws against actions which would make it difficult for people to live together in a peaceful society (e.g. murder is against the law).
I am going to try for “shorter” more “efficient” responses as two pages on both sides is alot to go back and forth on
without going into exponential answers.quote=42620]Since that contradicts literalism, the only answer is to change the definition of ‘day’. No Biblical ‘scholars’ were saying ‘day’ meant age until science made Genesis implausible.[/quote]
Actually this is an untrue interpretation as many simple cultures had a limited number of words in their vocabulary. The need for “precision” in language is not required except in highly technological or philosophic society. Also a language also reflects the psychology of a culture, so that has to be taken into account. The Jews also did not have words for certain things, as we do in English or from the Greek they were translated into. “Aunt” and “Uncle” had no direct translations except as “Mother/Father/brother/sister”. This is just an example of the varying degrees of language within one culture when compared to another.
If the Bible is divinely inspired, why does it not contain knowledge beyond that of the ancient world in which it was written? Why don’t any sacred religious texts contain such knowledge?
And give me an example of what that knowledge would be exactly? One could easily reverse the question and say if science is infallible why does it not give us more knowledge of the ancient world?
‘ We do not know if the rotation of the earth has sped up or slowed down so what might have been 100 years along time ago might have been 10 years today, when compared to the measurement of atomic time.’ As stated in my previous message, the rotational speed of the earth/length of day, has no relationship whatsoever with the oribtal period or year. You ignore any points on which you are shown to be incorrect.
Not if the calendar year had a similar number of days. You are under the false assumption that a year has always been measured by the orbit of earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time#History_of_the_calendar (scroll down to history of calendar/time measurement for examples)
Also your argument is heavily dependent on carbon dating, which I pointed out earlier. Regardless of how correct my first argument is the issue of carbon dating has a lot of flaws, and not just minor ones.
Atmospheric composition has no impact on radioisotopic dating on longer time scales. because carbon isotopes are not used. You neglected to address that point. As for radiocarbon dating, it has been calibrated to tree rings going back thousands of years to correct for atmospheric composition — the standard methodology used for decades. ‘Miscalculation’? The error is typically sample contamination, the calculation, is straightforward. No, a variable for determining value is NOT ‘pulled out of thin air’, the dendrochronological (tree ring) record goes back thousands of years. Is there uncertainty in the measurement? Yes, I stated it earlier. Do recent atmospheric changes such as from nuclear testing make the method inaccurate for very recent samples? Yes. So far scientific predictions have been more accurate than Nostra-dumb-ass’s predictions or Biblical prophecy. Actually, there are quite a few of those that are WRONG as documented historically.
First I am not arguing for nostradamus, and in regards to Bible prophecy we barely understand it as is. Contamination
does not affect the samples, as “all in not most” mollusks have this issue. However, for the sake of brevity, here
is an article that goes further into it. Carbon dating has a lot of serious issues, it cannot be avoided.http://www.reasons.org/articles/how-trustworthy-is-carbon-dating
No matter what speed the earth spins, has no impact upon the duration of the year.
It does if the year is dependtent on a yearly calendar fixed on 360-380+ days per year. And to get back on point, we
don’t know much about the rate of the earth’s orbit around the sun. There is not precise formula for it, but I think
I already covered that in the prior post.Whether the footprints are human is contested. Ancestral primates does not mean humans. . . Maybe the ancestral primates also saw the light of the moon (note, I didn’t say ‘reflected light’ since that’s not what the Bible calls it).
What is to differentiate Ancenstral primates from humans? At this point it ends up a game of semantics, for all we know
they were the same. And simply saying something is contested does not prove it wrong.DO contradict LITERAL belief in the Bible and its cosmology.
You do understand the bible, as read by many scholars, is not interpretted literally in all aspects nor metaphorically
in all either. There is a large amount of symbolism. I am not even arguing for its literal intepretation in all respects.
But with that being said, your “proof” at the end of the day is theory. And evolution does not contradict the bible, as
it would require a point in which an organism (ape or something else) evolved into man. At that point man is created. So
to say man is created from “mud” is not as far fetched or unscientific as it sounds.the moon giving light directly,
Are you serious? Moonlight (the reflection of the sun off of the moon) is an example. You are literally twisting
verses for your own ends. I would ignore this if this were the first case but it isn’t.For some reason you’re not arguing that every other use of a ‘day’ in the Bible means a day, but in Genesis, it means an age… THAT is the nature of apologetics. Trying to fit bottled truths into inconvenient realities.
It isn’t apologetics when one is trying to grasp the meaning of a primitive language. Historically speaking, there were
not as many words as there were today. One does not have to be “bias” to understand this.If all of these people are praying, why isn’t the faith that God answers growing?
Your assuming people want the truth and that prayers are always about “truth”. We cannot judge people’s prayers, but what
we do know objectively speaking is that Catholicism has more “unexplained” and “supernatural” events than most other
religions. It even gives examples in the bible of miracles being done and people not believing. You are also assuming
it is not growing or that the number of members defines its quality.There is no evidence of coexistence of man & dinosaurs as stated previously.
Explain this: http://www.paleo.cc/ce/dino-art.htm
http://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/historical/ancient/dinosaur/
No, we do NOT know that AT ALL… Ancient people didn’t live longer. There were some kings and others that lived into their 90’s and even to 100 in recorded history… Not to 950… Assumptions are implicitly made in stating facts; I assume my perceptions can be trusted and reality is real, for instance. In science assumptions are often stated and quantitative parameters are given error limits.
Ancient sumerian tablets also reported people having very long life spans. Also is specifically states that peoples years
were cut to 120 or under, so your evidence is circular, as your basic evidence from a time (which has been most of
recorded history) in which peoples lives were that long.So, possessing a view of right and wrong is hypocritical unless backed up by science and objective standards?
For you it is. You are an agnostic, arguing an athiest perspective (if I understand you correctly), your only perimeters
for “truth” are science. If you do not claim to be scientific in your morality, as an unbeliever, than your morality
falls upon personal subjectivism. This is a very important point, as you claim God is immoral, however your morality
has no standard and is fundamentally subjective.You have a very narrow-minded view on this topic and have been unable to defend your position and had to change it. First, you said you couldn’t have morality without religion, but then we had inconvenient truths such as entire nations of irreligious individuals who were behaving morally… So now you’ve had to change the thesis to, well, you can still be moral, but you’re hypocrites….
Actually it isn’t, as my morality (which isn’t of my creation so I use the term “my” loosely) is dependent on values as revealed through Catholic faith so in this respect I can claim others
are acting immorally in respect to my beliefs. If one is two argue, as we said before, that morality is a means to values
than using that as a standard people are acting morally in regards to whatever they value. These are two seperate
perspectives as arguing from one value system one can acknowledge flaws in a seperate value system, however if looking
a value systems alone than in this respect everyone has a morality. If everyone is “moral (as we defined moral) we
are still stuck deciding which value system (morality) is correct and which is wrong. So from this perspective a person
acting morally in one respect (achieving own values) is immoral when another value system is applied to them.Hopefully that clears it up, as I have not backtracked or switched arguments at all.
well, you can still be moral, but you’re hypocrites
To follow ones own morality makes them moral in the respect that they are following their own morality. It makes them
immoral in the respect that they are subjectivizing morality which in effect is a contradiction as one would then be
immoral if there morality is not subjective. And it would not be subjective if they followed a moral law that all
morality is subjective. One is still stuck not non subjective moral truths.No, ending slavery would just mean I pay more for some of what I own and I could likely afford less of it.
And many people cannot afford to pay for their own food. People don’t have to be beaten by rod or whip to be punished,
just take away their paycheck. Slavery may have changed its form, but it still exists. To a minor degree in the
corporate world, to a greater degree in debtors prison, sex slavery, debt, etc. (and all the other forms on the list
I showed you.The tradition (requirement to follow Mosaic law) changed when Paul of Tarsus spread Christianity to the Gentiles.
False, it changed with Jesus himself as he was the fulfillment of the law (which you acknowledged the verse for) and
the example he gave his disciples to follow. Take for instance the stoning of Mary Magdaline. Jewish law demanded it,
however Jesus deemed it unnecessary as he took on the burden of these laws.Okay. This is basic Christianity. The tradition (requirement to follow Mosaic law) changed when Paul of Tarsus spread Christianity to the Gentiles. Christians should have issued a new edition like they did with Book of Mormon when the theology changed or a new cult leader takes over a growing prophet(profit)-making business. It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17 NAB) “For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19 RSV) “It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17 NAB) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17 NAB) Of course, you’ll argue ‘all things’ = the resurrection instead of ‘all things’ = end of earth… “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” (2 Timothy 3:16 NAB) Didn’t see a time limit there. “Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God.” (2 Peter 20-21 NAB) “Whoever curses father or mother shall die” (Mark 7:10 NAB) Amen Brother! Of course you’ll have to re-define death to spiritual death/going to hell for this inconvenient Truth… “He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” (Matthew 15:4-7) Bring on that NT morality! “Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law” (John7:19) “For the law was given by Moses,…” (John 1:17).
You clearly stated that the need to follow Mosaic law was rendered null. However, the timing (paul preaching to Gentiles)
was incorrect. Also you acknowledged that verses cannot be personally interpretted, as you are doing. In regards to
“until all things taken place” as you have already said the “resurection” fulfilled this. However that in many respects was the end of the
world at the time (end in the manner of how things were done) in that eternal life given through faith. You are
intentionally trying to argue that everything needs to be taken literally or it is “cafeteria Christainity” however
this is impossible as it ignores allegories, symbolism, and in many respects requires forbidden personal interpretation.
Your arguments require the bible to be interpreted your way. I really don’t know what the issue is.And here are some other verses as to what religion is or in regards to violence (they are limited
because of time) If you want more then I will bring up more.James 1…26If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless. 27Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
“Those who live by the sword die by the sword”.
Hosea 6:6 http://biblehub.com/hosea/6-6.htm
Farmers can choose GMO or non-GMO. Adoption rates of insect and herbicide resistant crops over the last 20 years tell the tale.
Not when the field next door cross polinates. Also the issues provided don’t solve the problem as starvation,
nutrient deficiencies, the expenses of organic foods, etc still exist.They also relate to cancers:
http://www.foodmatters.tv/articles-1/gm-corn-linked-to-cancer-tumors
http://www.liveinthenow.com/article/are-gmos-behind-increasing-rates-of-cancer-and-food-allergies-in-the-u-sGluten problems:
http://rt.com/usa/gmo-gluten-sensitivity-trigger-343/Should I go on? Save me the semantics.
It’s just God’s been a little camera-shy since the Parting of the Red Sea and the invention of the camcorder. The Bible says believers can drink poison without harm, not sure why any haven’t subjected themselves to scientific inquiry? Why haven’t any airplanes just crashed with no one on board suffering impact injuries? Why haven’t Churches, Mosques, or Synogogues been protected when a Tsunami sweeps along a coastline? Why haven’t all these supposed miracles changed history? Why isn’t Egypt a Jewish or Christian nation? After all the plagues, one would surely think the Jewish God more powerful than Pharoah? Why did God MAKE Pharoah obstinate, only so that He could collectively punish the Egyptian people? If miracles occur for True Believers, one would expect them to become Great Evangelists fulfilling the Great Commission; why, then, does not the One True Religion(r) bestowing these miracles predominate? Some difficult questions, surely.
Yes and many that demand that he be accountable to your standards, but you knew I would say that didn’t you?
Questions:
#1 Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the Test, Jesus followed this during his fast in the desert (look it up)
#2 Why didn’t people engineer a better plane? They know better than God, according to you, right? You are also
assuming physical death is the worst of all evils, that all the people “deserved” to live, etc. This question
only opens more questions.
#3 Actually there are accounts of monasteries being protected in Japan during the atomic blast. Here is one just google
if you want more:http://holysouls.com/sar/rosarymiracle.htm You are also making similiar assumptions as in question #2
#4 They have. People did not believe when Jesus had done miracles. It is part of being human, we can choose to not
believe even our senses.
#5 You can go back to #4. Look it up in the new testament, or even on modern miracles, people can believe what they
want. Miracles, just as science, do not force people to believe anything. They give evidence to those who are open to
it.
#7 Yes, what is the issue?
#8 To fully display his power. Pharoah hardened his heart prior, God gave him what he wanted in some respects. Also God did not have to harden Pharoah’s heart just to punish the Egyptian people,
there is an assumption in this question.
#9 It does with the Catholic Faith.Why don’t you save yourself (and me) the trouble and actually research miracles, for all your “openmindness” and “objectivity”
you seem to limit yourself alot. You have all these questions, and I somehow doubt you seek the answers but are rather
are seeking to prove me wrong. If I am not precise enough, and you have a question, the internet does offer alot of
options. Much of this stuff can be researched on one’s own time, from better sources from myself.
My answers are limited and the below two versuses I have found to be factual and give good reasons to my own limitations.Ecclesiastes 12:12 http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/12-12.htm
I’ve known many Evangelical christians and they despise the Pope and the Catholic church, mainly because over principles such as infallibility, beliefs about Mary, and Church traditions have equal weight with the Bible. Yes, poltiics played a role in the schisms and also the inability to re-unify now. Most Protestants I know LIKE this Pope a LOT more than his predecessor. But they still disagree with Catholic teachings about the Pope’s authority. I agree there is truth. You can keep looking but in matters of religion I’m not seeing how one ‘finds’ anything as you have a bunch of conflicting religions making Truth claims. Which one is right? Or are they all apostate and we should be praying to Richard Dawkins who created skeptics like me in His Image & he’s gonna reward non-believers who read all his books with 40 virgins and everybody else gets to read all the world’s holy books over and over in a very hot place… Gotta have some levity here… I just hope the guys flying the airplanes into buildings get MALE virgins!
Someone has to be infallible as one cannot have absolute truth without infallibity (and this applies to the morality
issue you posted below). There is absolute truth. If one says there isn’t then that is an absolute truth. If I am
correct the Roman Catholic church is the only one that claims “infallibility”, but don’t quote me on that. So in some
respects that are not all making “truth claims”. In regards to skepticism, it has its limits, as being skeptical of
skepticism itself leads one out of skepticism thereby making skepticism not completely true. In regards to the virgins,
I would have to give you a big LOL, as I have had the same thought. Regardless of our differences, we have more common
observations than you might think. I think that you think, that because I defend religion as a truth that I “like”
alot of religious people. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I think alot of them are nuts, and I thought this way
for years. However I have to acknowledge that there is some, if not alot, of truth in religion. There are also alot of
“religious” people who share my views, so I think you are overgeneralizing religion and religious people alot.and it doesn’t provide any guidance, I’m not seeing it as a philosophy in and of itself
I would have to disagree and I will give a metaphor as an example: Look up apophatic theology.
I suppose morality is subjective since there is no common moral code everyone can agree upon. It isn’t like mathematics. According to my morality, killing apostates is wrong; in someone else’s morality it may be acceptable or encouraged. I can still call someone immoral but he may not be immoral per his own views of what comprises morality. Even with different moralities, we can coexist peaceably as we do in America with many different religions and moralities. There is no prescribed morality but there are laws against actions which would make it difficult for people to live together in a peaceful society (e.g. murder is against the law).
If all morality was subjective then it would be immoral to have a non subjectivIn regards to “coexisting” in many regards we don’t. There is a split that has not yet become violent. Also, historically
speaking many theocracies permitted people of seperate religions to live in them. I have to go, out of time.I want you to research Catholic/Christian Miracles though, if you want physical proof. Do you have to accept them? No.
But to save time, on both sides, why don’t you take the time and research that and we can discuss that next. I am
under the impression we are going back and forth over the same points and it is becoming stale.I am going to try for “shorter” more “efficient” responses as two pages on both sides is alot to go back and forth on without going into exponential answers. quote=42620]Since that contradicts literalism, the only answer is to change the definition of ‘day’. No Biblical ‘scholars’ were saying ‘day’ meant age until science made Genesis implausible.
Actually this is an untrue interpretation as many simple cultures had a limited number of words in their vocabulary. The need for “precision” in language is not required except in highly technological or philosophic society. Also a language also reflects the psychology of a culture, so that has to be taken into account. The Jews also did not have words for certain things, as we do in English or from the Greek they were translated into. “Aunt” and “Uncle” had no direct translations except as “Mother/Father/brother/sister”. This is just an example of the varying degrees of language within one culture when compared to another.[/quote]
No. The Bible references 200 million in Revelations — there may be higher numbers still. ‘The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number.’ (Revelation 9:16). So there is no problem expressing large numbers in Biblical Hebrew and prefixing them to ‘day’ or ‘year’. As for horses, there aren’t that many horses on the Earth presently (it’s about 60 million), and it seems improbable that mounted combat will return….
FrankOne wrote:
If the Bible is divinely inspired, why does it not contain knowledge beyond that of the ancient world in which it was written? Why don’t any sacred religious texts contain such knowledge?And give me an example of what that knowledge would be exactly? One could easily reverse the question and say if science is infallible why does it not give us more knowledge of the ancient world?
A few simple ones might be the ratio of the Sun’s mass to the Earth’s, the age of the Universe, the speed of light. Even getting a few things right in Cosmology; instead of the Sun and Moon being set in a firmament with water above and below with earth floating upon said water by God’s will. The Sun can be made to stand still so others can attack at night, according to the inerrant Bible. So what, the Earth stops rotating for the Sun to stay still? You may not wish to discuss Biblical cosmology any further, as this is where literalism withers and dies; the earth isn’t a floating disc on water and nothing is holding up the sky. If you have studied Astronomy at even a cursory level you’ll be familiar with the persecution of Gaileleo for positing Heliocentrism. As for 2nd sentence, science is limited by mankind’s limitations; there are only so many records available of the ancient world and so many artifacts to be found, many of which contradict the Biblical chronology. As for scientists, and the scientific method, it is NOT infallible but it is at least self-correcting. See my earlier brief comments about determining the age of the earth.
Instead of focusing on what it SHOULD say about the natural world, it might be better if my arguments focused upon what it DOES say:
The Earth is firmly fixed; it shall not be moved.” -Psalms 104:5.
That is not true. Are you familiar with the persecution of Gaileleo?JD wrote:
‘ We do not know if the rotation of the earth has sped up or slowed down so what might have been 100 years along time ago might have been 10 years today, when compared to the measurement of atomic time.’ As stated in my previous message, the rotational speed of the earth/length of day, has no relationship whatsoever with the oribtal period or year. You ignore any points on which you are shown to be incorrect.Not if the calendar year had a similar number of days. You are under the false assumption that a year has always been measured by the orbit of earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time#History_of_the_calendar (scroll down to history of calendar/time measurement for examples) Also your argument is heavily dependent on carbon dating, which I pointed out earlier. Regardless of how correct my first argument is the issue of carbon dating has a lot of flaws, and not just minor ones.
1.) You wrote that the rotational speed of the Earth somehow relates to the duration of a year. This is false as discussed previously. 2.) I’m well aware of how the year has been measured; typically it was important for an agrarian calendar of when to plant the crops. And it often required adjustments because its length was off by a quarter day in some ancient calendars. That’s a good synopsis. Carbon dating has a wider error margin than other radioisotopic dating methods.
FrankOne wrote:First I am not arguing for nostradamus, and in regards to Bible prophecy we barely understand it as is. Contamination does not affect the samples, as “all in not most” mollusks have this issue. However, for the sake of brevity, here is an article that goes further into it. Carbon dating has a lot of serious issues, it cannot be avoided. http://www.reasons.org/articles/how-trustworthy-is-carbon-dating
Biblical Prophecy: If it’s a false statement, the problem isn’t that it’s false, it’s that we don’t understand it? I understand you aren’t arguing for the truth of Nostradumbass’s prophecies. However, like Nostradamus, there are Biblical prophecies that are simply FALSE such as Egypt being a desolate wasteland, Egpytians speaking the language of Canaan, that Tyre would be conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and never rebuilt. All demonstrably FALSE. I should have clarified the analogy to other prophesies in the dustbin like Nostradamus. Carbon dating is the least accurate radioisotopic method but it is still useful. Are incorrect results sometimes obtained such as when samples are contaminated or other reasons? Yes. We have to look at a totality of evidence in assessing, say, the age of the Universe or the Earth. Does this evidence from disparate fields and measurements agree? i.e. rate of expansion of the universe, cosmic background radiation, etc.
FrankOne wrote:
No matter what speed the earth spins, has no impact upon the duration of the year.It does if the year is dependtent on a yearly calendar fixed on 360-380+ days per year. And to get back on point, we don’t know much about the rate of the earth’s orbit around the sun. There is not precise formula for it, but I think I already covered that in the prior post.
Do you understand the rate at which the earth slows down per year? The point is, the rate at whch the earth slows, about 1.7 msec/century, is insignificant across the entire duration of the existence of modern humans. Modern humans have existed around 200,000 years so back then you’re looking at a day that was about 3.4 sec shorter. So this is significant only over geologic time scales. We know a great deal about the orbital mechanics but making predictions into the far future with limited information is problematic.
What is to differentiate Ancenstral primates from humans?
No, they aren’t the same. If you have studied the fossil record you will be familiar with the homo group, australopitehcus group, paranthropus group — these groups then have species within them. If you go to a site like Smithsonian you can simply look at the photographs of the fossil casts to see these are different species. If there were not morphological differences they wouldn’t be characterized this way.
You do understand the bible, as read by many scholars, is not interpretted literally in all aspects nor metaphorically in all either. There is a large amount of symbolism. I am not even arguing for its literal intepretation in all respects. But with that being said, your “proof” at the end of the day is theory. And evolution does not contradict the bible, as it would require a point in which an organism (ape or something else) evolved into man. At that point man is created. So to say man is created from “mud” is not as far fetched or unscientific as it sounds.
Of course I understand this. Evolution doesn’t contradict the Bible if it is read metaphorically because then we can interpret Genesis however we please. My arguments thus far have been primarily against young earth creationism/literalism. However, the Bible has many errors in basic science such as geocentrism (Earth as center of solar system). I also find its morality objectionable (see previous posts regarding God’s body count, killing apostates, collective punishment, etc).
FrankOne wrote:
the moon giving light directly,Are you serious? Moonlight (the reflection of the sun off of the moon) is an example. You are literally twisting verses for your own ends. I would ignore this if this were the first case but it isn’t.
Isaiah 30:26: Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
If everything is interpreted metaphorically I guess you have an ‘out’. If I can define any word as anything, though, what’s the point? Apologists have attempted to answer this one too, but it’s not merely as huge of an error as the Earth-centered Universe error (see Gaileleo).FrankOne wrote:
For some reason you’re not arguing that every other use of a ‘day’ in the Bible means a day, but in Genesis, it means an age… THAT is the nature of apologetics. Trying to fit bottled truths into inconvenient realities.It isn’t apologetics when one is trying to grasp the meaning of a primitive language. Historically speaking, there were not as many words as there were today. One does not have to be “bias” to understand this.
As discussed above, the Bible does express large numbers easily, e.g. ten thousand times ten thousand. At the end of the day, the Bible has necessarily become more and more of a metaphor for believers, as verses which are verifiable, are proved false with scientific or archaeo-historical advances. In some religions, the holy texts are simply re-written for the times but that has not been done recently in Christianity.
FrankOne wrote:
If all of these people are praying, why isn’t the faith that God answers growing?Your assuming people want the truth and that prayers are always about “truth”. We cannot judge people’s prayers, but what we do know objectively speaking is that Catholicism has more “unexplained” and “supernatural” events than most other religions. It even gives examples in the bible of miracles being done and people not believing. You are also assuming it is not growing or that the number of members defines its quality.
I would expect miracles to increase membership, yes. Since members of these other Faiths feel their prayers are being answered and miracles are occuring, the question arises about whether people deceive themselves on this subject.
There are plenty of alleged miracles in other Faiths. Mohommed flying on a winged horse? Mohommed splitting the moon in two (oddly no evidence found it was ever two bodies)? What is the source Catholics have more miracles? Thus far I’m not even seeing basics like believers being able to drink poison as stated in the Bible. But, oops, conveniently, that’s all metaphorical too! As far as which religion’s claims are more extraordinary, I’d vote Scientology, OT 8 super-human powers and Xenu are k00l. Mormonism and man becoming God is up there too (Adam-God doctrine), but there are probably many other Faiths I haven’t studied.FrankOne wrote:
There is no evidence of coexistence of man & dinosaurs as stated previously.Explain this: http://www.paleo.cc/ce/dino-art.htm http://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/historical/ancient/dinosaur/
No problem. There are numerous cultures with mythologies including dragons, Chimeras, and other creatures that don’t exist. One only need look at Greek vases or ancient mosaics. Should we read Odysseus question as real, or is it metaphorical too?
Ancient sumerian tablets also reported people having very long life spans. Also is specifically states that peoples years were cut to 120 or under, so your evidence is circular, as your basic evidence from a time (which has been most of recorded history) in which peoples lives were that long.
We have one verified case of a person living over 120. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment — so oops, have to go back to that 120 year limit as metaphorical. It’s hard to disprove a moving target. Longevity myths are historical across many faiths, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity_myths
FrankOne wrote:
So, possessing a view of right and wrong is hypocritical unless backed up by science and objective standards?For you it is. You are an agnostic, arguing an athiest perspective (if I understand you correctly), your only perimeters for “truth” are science. If you do not claim to be scientific in your morality, as an unbeliever, than your morality falls upon personal subjectivism. This is a very important point, as you claim God is immoral, however your morality has no standard and is fundamentally subjective.
Morality is not a scientific field. It depends upon values. So, yes, my morality is subjective. As if yours — you appear to choose to believe in some selected parts of Biblical morality while ignoring others, and state outright that the Law (morality) has changed over time — so you too have made a strong case for a subjective morality. One of my core values is peacable coexistence with others, where they are afforded the same rights to freedom as I have — and thus, I am going to deem killing slaves, for instance, as immoral. If, in contrast, one of my core values is, do no harm to any living animals, then I may become vegetarian. Different people have different values. A Buddhist may forego a family or material possessions and lead an ascetic life if that is his highest value. Is the highest value my personal happiness? My nation-State’s success? Was it moral to drop a bomb on Hiroshima or firebomb Dresden? Outside morality we typically have a legal structure that limits what people can do so we can exist together in a society.
Actually it isn’t, as my morality (which isn’t of my creation so I use the term “my” loosely) is dependent on values as revealed through Catholic faith so in this respect I can claim others are acting immorally in respect to my beliefs. If one is two argue, as we said before, that morality is a means to values than using that as a standard people are acting morally in regards to whatever they value. These are two seperate perspectives as arguing from one value system one can acknowledge flaws in a seperate value system, however if looking a value systems alone than in this respect everyone has a morality. If everyone is “moral (as we defined moral) we are still stuck deciding which value system (morality) is correct and which is wrong. So from this perspective a person acting morally in one respect (achieving own values) is immoral when another value system is applied to them. Hopefully that clears it up, as I have not backtracked or switched arguments at all.
I would argue your morality is at least somewhat your creation; you decide what Holy Book will form the basis of your beliefs. And you elect to follow certain precepts and not others (you’ve said as much) — there is definitely subjectivity in how to interpret Biblical morality. For instance, I’ve known literalists who were ABSOLUTELY against usury or interest and stated, that it was immoral. I would say that is a fringe view among Christians, but it certainly exists. That is one example of many. Or American Catholics who use birth control and see nothing wrong with it despite Church teachings against it.
I readily concede, my declaration of something as ‘immoral’ is subjective; but I disagree that it is ‘hypocritical’, unless it disagrees with my belief system. I’m tending to think on this point, we agree more than we disagree, I took undue offense when you said it was ‘hypocritical’ of me, to declare anything moral/immoral… I guess I’d also add as I’ve said before, I’ve known theists and non-theists who were moral, and those that were immoral by my subjective standards. I’m hardly seeing religion as some fount of morality, nor is non-belief some fount of morality, either, as a lot of skeptics seem to want to claim. It’s obviously true if you followed some of these religious dictates you’d be unethical by majority standards (e.g. killing apostates), but at the same time nobody believes in actually doing that except fringe groups.
I’ll just say I disagree about gentiles coming into Christianity; there was significant debate about whether they had to become fully observant Jews, be circumcised, etc in the nascent Church. It was a much more ‘dynamic’ situation when the gospels had not been cannonized, exactly what comprised a ‘Christian’ was in dispute — and still is today amongst various denominations — many today would not regard, say, Mormons, as Christians because their beliefs diverge too much from mainstream Christianity even if they do believe in Jesus.
Obviously, the argument that gentiles didn’t need to be circumcised and follow Mosaic law won out historically. It was decided by the Counsel of Jerusalem in AD 50 so pretty early in the history of the Church. I’d contend the NT calls for following some OT laws such as death to disobedient children. This is what I was trying to get at by saying religion changes.anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless. 27Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. “Those who live by the sword die by the sword”. Hosea 6:6 http://biblehub.com/hosea/6-6.htm
I agree with many moral precepts made in the Bible and other religious texts; I value freedom for myself and others so I definitely agree with the section of this verse pertaining to violence.
Not when the field next door cross polinates. Also the issues provided don’t solve the problem as starvation, nutrient deficiencies, the expenses of organic foods, etc still exist. They also relate to cancers: http://www.foodmatters.tv/articles-1/gm-corn-linked-to-cancer-tumors http://www.liveinthenow.com/article/are-gmos-behind-increasing-rates-of-cancer-and-food-allergies-in-the-u-s Gluten problems: http://rt.com/usa/gmo-gluten-sensitivity-trigger-343/ Should I go on? Save me the semantics.
My point was, the marketplace has determined GMO’s benefits exceed its costs, and that is why the adoption curves quickly go to nearly 100% in about 20 years. The marketplace may not make the best decisions for our health; rather it represents aggregate individual decisions to plant seed that gives the highest yield and thus revenue, per acre. As I said, there may be unanticipated consequences, like much technology. Is the automobile good or bad for us? Well, it encourages a sedentary lifestyle where I’m isolated in my car during a long commute, instead of living close and walking to where I need to go (I live in the ‘burbs), causes us to live further from where we work and waste resources and it creates pollution… And I may not even know the names of the closest neighbors to me… But it also gets me to where I need to go quickly… In general, higher yields mean lower cost for food and less starvation; assuming the unintended consequences don’t counterbalance those reduced costs.
There were buildings that survived the atomic bomb, and survivors as close as 100-150m away from ground zero. Amongst the thousands that died instantly, some were in the right places where the shockwave was absorbed, the fireball was unable to reach them, and the radioation wasn’t as strong. The church building was destroyed; only the house survived. I would argue mircales are more faith-promoting stories. I’m not seeing Christians drink poison by the glassful as the Bible claims believers can do. Maybe they shouldn’t put God to the test per the Bible, but if they’re accidentally subjected to poison, why is it killing them when believers should be spared? Which miracles should I research? Christian ones? Cult ones? Islamic ones? I’m not familiar with any centralized database of miracles where they are analyzed analytically or categorized.Someone has to be infallible as one cannot have absolute truth without infallibity (and this applies to the morality issue you posted below). There is absolute truth. If one says there isn’t then that is an absolute truth. If I am correct the Roman Catholic church is the only one that claims “infallibility”, but don’t quote me on that. So in some respects that are not all making “truth claims”. In regards to skepticism, it has its limits, as being skeptical of skepticism itself leads one out of skepticism thereby making skepticism not completely true. In regards to the virgins, I would have to give you a big LOL, as I have had the same thought. Regardless of our differences, we have more common observations than you might think. I think that you think, that because I defend religion as a truth that I “like” alot of religious people. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I think alot of them are nuts, and I thought this way for years. However I have to acknowledge that there is some, if not alot, of truth in religion. There are also alot of “religious” people who share my views, so I think you are overgeneralizing religion and religious people alot.
Maybe we don’t have absolute moral truth and morality is subjective — that would be my position. After all, for centuries, the Popes promoted Biblical-based geocentricity (Sun orbits the Earth), the Crusades, sold indulgences, and headed up the Inquisition. So I’m not seeing the Pope as infallible in temporal matters. I’m not exactly sure what you mean by absolute truth here, if you mean, whether Christianity is true, or whether the Pope as the arbiter of what is moral and immoral or both. I think there is absolute truth in that either a deity or deities exist or it/they do not.
As far as Christian’s, I find Gandhi’s quote amusing: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” — a good statement about many Churches AND judgmental Christians. And there are certainly Christians that don’t join a Church because they don’t like any of the denominations and the focus of their missions. And some who just want to sleep in on Sundays!FrankOne wrote:
and it doesn’t provide any guidance, I’m not seeing it as a philosophy in and of itselfI would have to disagree and I will give a metaphor as an example: Look up apophatic theology.
I wasn’t familiar with this, but I have read about it & I still argue that atheism doesn’t contain any morals or guidance in and of itself. If you don’t posit God exists, there isn’t much to say about what God isn’t so this is kind of a dead-end if you are a non-believer. There may be atheists who believe in a humanist philosophy, utilitarianism, etc. Atheism itself is just a lack of belief in the existence of God or Gods. It really doesn’t say anything about what philosophy you believe in.
If all morality was subjective then it would be immoral to have a non subjectivIn regards to “coexisting” in many regards we don’t. There is a split that has not yet become violent. Also, historically speaking many theocracies permitted people of seperate religions to live in them. I have to go, out of time. I want you to research Catholic/Christian Miracles though, if you want physical proof. Do you have to accept them? No. But to save time, on both sides, why don’t you take the time and research that and we can discuss that next. I am under the impression we are going back and forth over the same points and it is becoming stale.
I didn’t understand some of the sentences above, but I readily concede, ‘coexisting’ is not objectively moral any more than anything else is objectively moral — and I suspect that’s your point. Since I personally value coexistence and personal freedoms, my personal subjective morality, then concludes that acts such as murder are wrong. But even that has caveats — murdering someone killing innocent people is acceptable. Yes, some theocracies provided tolerance; even in Islam: Practice of Judaism and Christianity were permitted but the jiyza tax had to be paid — of course, many Islamic countries have NOT followed that across the centuries, and have instead followed other dictates thare are a bit, shall we say, more violent… Not everyone has the same morals; some may consider it moral to kill, steal, etc with no restriction. I need to run to work too, had a cold so got up early & couldn’t sleep…
The Bible references 200 million in Revelations
I would have to disagree with your point as Revelations was written around the end of the 1st century during the time of an advance civilization(s), I am talking about old testament books. Most scholars believe it was written in Greek originally.
Also we are talking about words, not numbers. Even Latin or greek does not completely translate to words of today. Words represent the cultures they come from, however there are some universal constants that are present in all languages.
A few simple ones might be the ratio of the Sun’s mass to the Earth’s, the age of the Universe, the speed of light. Even getting a few things right in Cosmology;
And why would it need this? Since when has this knowledge stopped war famine or disease? How has this knowledge brought peace between peoples? A better question would be how would this help the common man, as many cultures thrived and prospered without it. How does it define man’s identity? You should get my point by now.
If you have studied Astronomy at even a cursory level you’ll be familiar with the persecution of Gaileleo for positing Heliocentrism.
I covered this on a separate thread. Heliocentrism was not a popular stance amongst both religious and irreligious of the time. Aristotle refuted heliocentricity a long time prior. (along with many other philosophers and secular scientists.) Also Galileo could not provide enough evidence, at the time of shifts in orbit. He got in trouble when he abandoned it as theory and promoted it as truth, even though he had no evidence at the time. Even if his position was proven true, it proved no issue for Catholic Theologians (Augustine for example) who remarked that God did not send wisdom to teach us about the course of the sun and the moon. Also Galileo wanted to move the debate into a theological debate when personal interpretation of scripture was not allowed. He pushed it up against the pope. It was turned down. His argument was based on a literalist interpretation of the bible, when most understandings were from a phenomenological interpretion (language of appearances). He kept pushing that the bible had to be interpreted literally only. He met with the pope again and the pope permitted him to write an argument on it, both for and against it. He was not permitted to advocate it, only present arguments both for and against it. He wrote the argument in the form of a story and he mocked the pope who permitted him to write it. He also attacked one of the Jesuit astronomers (verbally) and alienated the Jesuits. After this he was put on trial.
Galileo was put under house arrest (given every convenience of the time including a servant) and later recanted his viewpoint. Several anti-Catholic scholars were surprised at how well he was treated. This was during a time of persecution of witches by protestants and many people were surprised by the Catholic churches treatment of Gallileo. The Church ended up apologizing a long time later and produced several stamps as signs of this. The pope never issued an infallible statement in regards to Galileo prior, during, or after this incident. Some view this as evidence of the pope being fallible but this is not the case. The pope’s infallibility is applied:
(1) he must speak in his official capacity as the successor of Peter; (2) he must speak on a matter of faith or morals; and (3) he must solemnly define the doctrine as one that must be held by all the faithful.
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy
You wrote that the rotational speed of the Earth somehow relates to the duration of a year. This is false as discussed previously.
I am still not, if the days were shorter or longer and the years maintained the same number of days, the year would be shorter or longer (not in days) but actual time as it was dependent on days.
Carbon dating has a wider error margin than other radioisotopic dating methods.
If I am correct you were arguing for carbon dating then switch it to radioisotopic dating. Regardless it makes assumptions as to the
stucture of rocks when the were first created, cannot consider contamination, and also assumes the decay rate is the
same. In regards to the last point, Uranium deposits were found in New Mexico and was dated to be 1.5 billion years old.
However, the decay rate also produce Helium but only 6,000 years worth if measured by its current rate.If you have studied the fossil record you will be familiar with the homo group, australopitehcus group, paranthropus group — these groups then have species within them. If you go to a site like Smithsonian you can simply look at the photographs of the fossil casts to see these are different species.
One of them was a sandal print……..
Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
Prophecy, if I remember correctly. One cannot argue about what has not happened yet.
Thus far I’m not even seeing basics like believers being able to drink poison as stated in the Bible.
You bring this point up, show the verse. If you are going back to the handling of “scorpions and snakes” part of this
has to do with the demonology of the time, as demons during exoricism were classified as having certain qualities etc.
Satan was equated to “devouring lion”, etc.Longevity myths are historical across many faiths, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity_myths%5B/quote%5D
My point exactly, and so are flood myths. And evidence of a Great flood is popping up more and more.
[quote=43280]It depends upon values. So, yes, my morality is subjective.
Not if the values are the same though. One cannot value “life” and have two seperate moralities.
One of my core values is peacable coexistence with others, where they are afforded the same rights to freedom as I have — and thus, I am going to deem killing slaves, for instance, as immoral.
And what is that “peace” exactly? And what rights are those too? Also the church does not condone slavery as something
that “should be in existence” but rather acknowledges as a necessary evil. In regards to slavery, most athiest governments
are for it in the form of labor and debtor camps. The slaves of ancient Judaism were not viewed as slaves as you think
of today and had more rights. Don’t believe me go look it up.Also you deem the killing of slaves immoral. Here is a reality check: on what authority do you says these things, who is
going to listen to you and why should they listen to you? You say slavery is wrong, however you acknowledge it as a
neccessary evil (along with most americans) in their private purchases.Also you deem the killing of slaves immoral. Here is a reality check on what authority do you says these things, who is
going to listen to you and why should they listen to you. You say slavery is wrong, however you acknowledge it as a
neccessary evil (along with most americans) in their private purchases. At the end of the day you can’t back up your
“morality” in any way what so ever. And even if you are immoral what consequences are there? After all we are just
animals created from particles. If anything value has to be a logical or mathematical formula subject to the laws
of physics/chemistry/mathematics/etc. However, you say value cannot be objective. But why can’t it be when we are
defined by objective laws?For instance, I’ve known literalists who were ABSOLUTELY against usury or interest and stated, that it was immoral. I would say that is a fringe view among Christians, but it certainly exists. That is one example of many. Or American Catholics who use birth control and see nothing wrong with it despite Church teachings against it.
First you are arguing for literalists, where if I have not stated before I will state again, the literalist interpretation
was not strongly recommended or practiced even in the early church (before “science”). The texts are so multidimensional that not only
is literalism wrong but it also limits the texts. Your second example is one of immorality and is beside the point.I would argue your morality is at least somewhat your creation; you decide what Holy Book will form the basis of your beliefs. And you elect to follow certain precepts and not others (you’ve said as much) — there is definitely subjectivity in how to interpret Biblical morality.
The scripture is “not for personal interpretation”, it clearly says this in the scriptures.. Also I may chose a morality, but that does not make the morality subjective. I may choose a set of rules, but I cannot choose the rules themselves. You are starting to lose your
“logical edge”, if you have one. You better start pulling it together.I readily concede, my declaration of something as ‘immoral’ is subjective; but I disagree that it is ‘hypocritical’, unless it disagrees with my belief system.
It does disagree with your belief system as you said all morality is subjective. However you are making a concrete
moral statement. So you are lying in effect, if only to yourself. So, yes you are a hypocrite (but don’t take this
as a “f~~~ you I am right you are wrong” because we are all hypocrites in some sense of the word.).There are numerous cultures with mythologies including dragons, Chimeras, and other creatures that don’t exist. One only need look at Greek vases or ancient mosaics
Some of these were of Stegosaurus’s and Diplotacus’s (I used to study dinosaurs as a kid). These were not “made up”.
I’m hardly seeing religion as some fount of morality, nor is non-belief some fount of morality, either, as a lot of skeptics seem to want to claim.
Don’t take this as “me being a dick” but that leaves you as the only “fountain” of morality left.
I’ll just say I disagree about gentiles coming into Christianity; there was significant debate about whether they had to become fully observant Jews, be circumcised, etc in the nascent Church.
Actually some of this was covered with the “Jesus meets the Samaritan woman”. Samaritans were very loose followers of
Judaic law, and if I understand correctly ignored many parts of it. How is this different than a gentile? Also
Jesus demanded that the Gentiles be preached too after his resurrection. So although the 50A.D. council might have
come to terms with the truth, it did not outright create it.My point was, the marketplace has determined GMO’s benefits exceed its costs, and that is why the adoption curves quickly go to nearly 100% in about 20 years. The marketplace may not make the best decisions for our health; rather it represents aggregate individual decisions to plant seed that gives the highest yield and thus revenue, per acre. As I said, there may be unanticipated consequences, like much technology. Is the automobile good or bad for us? Well, it encourages a sedentary lifestyle where I’m isolated in my car during a long commute, instead of living close and walking to where I need to go (I live in the ‘burbs), causes us to live further from where we work and waste resources and it creates pollution… And I may not even know the names of the closest neighbors to me… But it also gets me to where I need to go quickly… In general, higher yields mean lower cost for food and less starvation;
I agree, however there is and will be starvation. GMOs have done far from solve the problem, and because they are
replacing natural foods, in many respects they are making the problem worse as all the food is now fundamentally
becoming poisonous.The church building was destroyed; only the house survived. I would argue mircales are more faith-promoting stories.
http://www.miraclesofthechurch.com/
http://www.viralnova.com/modern-miracles/
http://listverse.com/2008/07/14/top-10-astonishing-miracles/
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” — a good statement about many Churches AND judgmental Christians. And there are certainly Christians that don’t join a Church because they don’t like any of the denominations and the focus of their missions. And some who just want to sleep in on Sundays!
I agree, and actually held this view for a long time. And in some respects and personally guilty of this.
I wasn’t familiar with this, but I have read about it & I still argue that atheism doesn’t contain any morals or guidance in and of itself.
People naturally believe, it just happens. To rule out faith in a Diety/dieties is just to have faith in something else
and promotes idolotry (raising something or someone up past its place.I am running out of time, due to my work schedule. With one final note, as a skeptic myself at times (in all facets of
life) one cannot limit oneself to skepticism otherwise they would not be skeptical of skepticism itself. Skepticism
has its place, it just cannot be applied universally without being self defeating.Ironically I came to terms with Faith itself through cynism. But that is another story.
There were a couple other points I wanted to touch on.
The sumerian King’s list documents rulers who reigned for up to 43,200 years. I’m assuming that is what you referred to when talking about ancient evidence of long lifespans. The reigns typically get shorter and shorter. Maybe the people figured ‘off with his head’ was a successively better idea with each new ruler? Haha.
Since literalists assert Man was created 6,000 – 10,000 years ago such reigns are inconsistent with the Bible.
Even after the ‘flood’, the reigns lasted up to 1200 years. So that has some problems with consistency with a 120 year cap on lifespans. As does anyone living over 120 today, which you did not address either. You seem to want to have it both ways — completely ridiculous passages of the Bible are metaphorical, but the Bible is still historical.
Interestingly, there were REAL floods in mesopotamian cities — the stratiagraphic evidence proves it. So it’s hardly surprising the flood is integrated into the Bible stories. The Earth goes through cycles such as ice ages. A flood or flood(s) occurring no more proves the Bible’s veracity than it proves we should follow other ancient myths that mention a flood.FrankOne wrote:
The Bible references 200 million in Revelations
I would have to disagree with your point as Revelations was written around the end of the 1st century during the time of an advance civilization(s), I am talking about old testament books. Most scholars believe it was written in Greek originally.600,000 is a pretty large number & that’s how many Jews went on the 40 year desert camping trip in Egypt (Exodus). So there are large numbers in the OT. It is most peculiar no such Exodus is recorded in Egyptian history since it would be a huge disruption. Incidentally, how could there be 1.5 – 2 MM jews (including women and children not worth counting) living at that time to produce the 600,000 men? Of course, the only answer is ‘sometimes 1,000 isn’t 1,000’.
Also we are talking about words, not numbers. Even Latin or greek does not completely translate to words of today. Words represent the cultures they come from, however there are some universal constants that are present in all languages.
Why was heliocentrism ‘not popular’ as you put it? Because the Bible says the Earth doesn’t move!
Psalm 93:1: The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is established, that it cannot be moved.
1 Chronicles 16:30: Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
Think about that. Are we are the center of the Universe with everything else moving relative to us? Does the earth rotate? Does it orbit the sun?
Joshua 10:12-13: On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.
Think about that for a second. It does NOT read ‘the earth stopped spinning’. Moon stopped? Its orbit stopped then? So it started falling towards the Earth? But it wasn’t getting bigger as it fell? Did the earth stop rotating? What would then happen to the oceans since the water would still have a velocity vector when the Earth stopped? Big flood? Really, all the verses referring to Biblical cosmology MUST be metaphorical. BUT none of the verses such as the ten commandments? Logic has left the building.
Of course, the Pope was really nice to Gailileo by not killing him. He only had him interrogated under threat of torture. He got added to the banned books list with the ‘ole omni ban on ALL his works, not just the Dialogue. Then he spent the last 9 years of his life under house arrest. BUT in the end, the Church was very gracious and most Progressive — they removed him from the banned book list a mere two centuries later. After ANOTHER mere two centuries, he was praised as a brilliant physicist by the most progressive Church and John Paul II. You note that it was okay to put him under house arrest since he could not prove his assertions. Should then not the Pope and his henchmen be subjected to the same treatment if they couldn’t prove their assertions? I guess there was no ‘equal protection’ under the Inquisition?You wrote that the rotational speed of the Earth somehow relates to the duration of a year. This is false as discussed previously.
I am still not, if the days were shorter or longer and the years maintained the same number of days, the year would be shorter or longer (not in days) but actual time as it was dependent on days.As stated, the length of a day changes so slowly due to tidal forces that this effect is insignificant except across geological time scales. It most certainly has had no impact across the short timespan of recorded human history (see math, previous post).
FrankOne wrote:
Thus far I’m not even seeing basics like believers being able to drink poison as stated in the Bible.You bring this point up, show the verse. If you are going back to the handling of “scorpions and snakes” part of this
has to do with the demonology of the time, as demons during exoricism were classified as having certain qualities etc.
Satan was equated to “devouring lion”, etc.Mark 16:17-18 ESV And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Sounds like neutralizing poison is metaphorical too?FrankOne wrote:
Longevity myths are historical across many faiths, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity_myths/quote
My point exactly, and so are flood myths. And evidence of a Great flood is popping up more and more.
No, evidence of a global flood is not ‘popping up more and more’. The geologic column is sorted by less complex organisms at the bottom and more complex higher up. So, while there is evidence of floods, there isn’t evidence for a global flood that killed everything and put it into the same strata.
Also, you did not address how humans can live beyond 120 years of age in contradiction to the Bible. How is this possible, or is it metaphorical too?It depends upon values. So, yes, my morality is subjective.
Not if the values are the same though. One cannot value “life” and have two seperate moralities.
Hitler valued Aryan life; some value all human life; other value human and animal life. I don’t see the point here?
FrankOne wrote:
One of my core values is peacable coexistence with others, where they are afforded the same rights to freedom as I have — and thus, I am going to deem killing slaves, for instance, as immoral.
And what is that “peace” exactly? And what rights are those too?
To me, peace means you don’t assault people, you respect their property rights. Some rights: the right to choose where to live and work, religious freedom and free association, the right to protest government, etc.
Also the church does not condone slavery as something that “should be in existence” but rather acknowledges as a necessary evil. In regards to slavery, most athiest governments are for it in the form of labor and debtor camps. The slaves of ancient Judaism were not viewed as slaves as you think of today and had more rights. Don’t believe me go look it up.
I’m not convinced it’s a ‘necessary evil’. I’d say totalitarian regiemes lock people up, why say it’s only atheists? Most irreligious countries don’t run camps. Christians sometimes enslave and massacre Muslims, too — look at Yugoslavia. I don’t dispute differences in slavery across ages and regions.
Also you deem the killing of slaves immoral. Here is a reality check: on what authority do you says these things, who is
going to listen to you and why should they listen to you? You say slavery is wrong, however you acknowledge it as a
neccessary evil (along with most americans) in their private purchases.Good question. No one may listen to me. They can hear my arguments & I can make a case. A small fraction of what I purchase is likely produced by slave labor. As a practical matter there’s little I can do about it, unless I attempt to research which products use exploitative labor.
And even if you are immoral what consequences are there? After all we are just
animals created from particles. If anything value has to be a logical or mathematical formula subject to the laws
of physics/chemistry/mathematics/etc. However, you say value cannot be objective. But why can’t it be when we are
defined by objective laws?Temporal consequences — if I violate civil laws and am caught. Otherwise, not much, except perhaps a guilty conscious for not living up to your own morals, or shaming from peers. Most people in non-religious countries seem to have morals — otherwise crime rates wouldn’t be so low in countries like Japan, right? The second part — objective values — I have different genetics than you, or my neighbor, and different life experiences. They have made me distinct from you. I may like to read; you may enjoy working more or vice-versa. You may like new cars, I may like driving around in my jalolpy or vice versa. My parents might have brought me up in a different religion than yours, one with different values. Even if we have the same values we can still have different moralities because our reasoning process for choosing morals may differ. We’re not all clones. I’m reading Harris’s ‘The Moral Landscape’ right now, and I suspect I am going to strongly disagree with the concept of objective morals, just as I don’t agree with Ayn Rand’s ‘Objectivist Ethics’. But I like to expose myself to different ideas.
FrankOne wrote:
For instance, I’ve known literalists who were ABSOLUTELY against usury or interest and stated, that it was immoral. I would say that is a fringe view among Christians, but it certainly exists. That is one example of many. Or American Catholics who use birth control and see nothing wrong with it despite Church teachings against it.
First you are arguing for literalists, where if I have not stated before I will state again, the literalist interpretation
was not strongly recommended or practiced even in the early church (before “science”). The texts are so multidimensional that not only is literalism wrong but it also limits the texts. Your second example is one of immorality and is beside the point.Literalism also limits the texts to being true or false — verifiable statements.
I will have to disagree, when you choose which biblical rules to adopt (e.g. usury, apostasy, etc), and then exercise reasoning to make a morality out of it, this is necessarily SUBJECTIVE. You’re going to do it differently than some other Christian. If that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t have all these denominations. What you believe depends on the subject/person.The scripture is “not for personal interpretation”, it clearly says this in the scriptures.. Also I may chose a morality, but that does not make the morality subjective. I may choose a set of rules, but I cannot choose the rules themselves. You are starting to lose your “logical edge”, if you have one. You better start pulling it together.
Yes, I am familiar with Peter 1:20 but that pertains to prophecy. You’re going to have personal interpretation unless you, say, follow every Papal edict if Roman Catholic — if you pick which rules to follow and you pick differently than a Luterhan, or other denomination, isn’t that the very definition of subjective? If you read the Bible and make your own subjective interpretation about killing apostates or slaves, that’s subjective morality. I don’t see how this is illogical.
FrankOne wrote:
I readily concede, my declaration of something as ‘immoral’ is subjective; but I disagree that it is ‘hypocritical’, unless it disagrees with my belief system.
It does disagree with your belief system as you said all morality is subjective. However you are making a concrete
moral statement. So you are lying in effect, if only to yourself. So, yes you are a hypocrite (but don’t take this
as a “f~~~ you I am right you are wrong” because we are all hypocrites in some sense of the word.).Yes, according to my morality killing apostates is wrong; it may or may not be wrong according to other people’s morality. If I’m Hindu, I may value cows; most Americans, however, value a good juicy hamburger more than sacred cattle. I’m not getting what you’re saying here; I’m not hypocritical if I make a moral statement based upon my values, any more than if I say, ‘I like the color blue’. I guess I’m a hypocrite if I say ‘I like the color blue’, when I really like red?
FrankOne wrote:
There are numerous cultures with mythologies including dragons, Chimeras, and other creatures that don’t exist. One only need look at Greek vases or ancient mosaicsSome of these were of Stegosaurus’s and Diplotacus’s (I used to study dinosaurs as a kid). These were not “made up”.
But how do we know it’s an ancient piece of pottery? All the strata were layed down very quickly, in under one year, after the Great Flood. Radiocarbon dating isn’t accurate. How do you know this image is a Stegosaurus? Maybe it’s a metaphorical image? Unfortunately, having a double standard for truth is problematic, though I’m also a sarcastic SOB.
There are numerous images in the ancient world with animals, and sometimes the images may coincidentally match reality.FrankOne wrote:
I’m hardly seeing religion as some fount of morality, nor is non-belief some fount of morality, either, as a lot of skeptics seem to want to claim.
Don’t take this as “me being a dick” but that leaves you as the only “fountain” of morality left.”.
I definitely didn’t mean it that way at all; with an agnostic position I’m no more a fount of objective morality than the aheist or religionist.
Why all Christian miracles? Are all the other miracles false?
FrankOne wrote:
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” — a good statement about many Churches AND judgmental Christians. And there are certainly Christians that don’t join a Church because they don’t like any of the denominations and the focus of their missions. And some who just want to sleep in on Sundays!
I agree, and actually held this view for a long time. And in some respects and personally guilty of this.
Personally, I like to sleep in and read on Sundays. I do periodically turn the telly on to listen to one of the televangelist charlatans fleecing the flock with prosperity theology (yes, I know, many of these guys are scumbags and don’t represent mainline Christians).
FrankOne wrote:
I wasn’t familiar with this, but I have read about it & I still argue that atheism doesn’t contain any morals or guidance in and of itself.
People naturally believe, it just happens. To rule out faith in a Diety/dieties is just to have faith in something else
and promotes idolotry (raising something or someone up past its place.I am running out of time, due to my work schedule. With one final note, as a skeptic myself at times (in all facets of
life) one cannot limit oneself to skepticism otherwise they would not be skeptical of skepticism itself. Skepticism
has its place, it just cannot be applied universally without being self defeating.Ironically I came to terms with Faith itself through cynism. But that is another story.
I’m not sure how skepticism is self defeating? Are skeptics unhappy? How would a skeptic come to terms with Faith? Most likely they convert to whatever religion is dominant in the nation-state in which they live, no study them and decide which is right. Since all these religious beliefs seem to make many people feel good, they practice them.
Since literalists assert Man was created 6,000 – 10,000 years ago such reigns are inconsistent with the Bible. Even after the ‘flood’, the reigns lasted up to 1200 years. So that has some problems with consistency with a 120 year cap on lifespans. As does anyone living over 120 today, which you did not address either. You seem to want to have it both ways — completely ridiculous passages of the Bible are metaphorical, but the Bible is still historical.
We do not know whether the bible, in regards to the creation story is literal or metaphorical. As I said before, your perspective requires that it has to be taken literally, where for thousands of years this has not been the case. There is a lot of symbolism, and a phenomonelogical perspective has been used in interpreting it long before a scientific revolution. So your argument, that the argument changes with each sciencific discovery might be true for some protestant faiths, but not so for Catholicism or Orthodoxy. With that being said, there is the possibility of it being literal too. This has to be taken into account. Using the Sumerian tablets, as an example, there is a common thread of long lifespans in history. The issue is in trying to figure who,what, when, how, and were the distortions on either side are or if they are on just one side.
600,000 is a pretty large number & that’s how many Jews went on the 40 year desert camping trip in Egypt (Exodus). So there are large numbers in the OT. It is most peculiar no such Exodus is recorded in Egyptian history since it would be a huge disruption. Incidentally, how could there be 1.5 – 2 MM jews (including women and children not worth counting) living at that time to produce the 600,000 men? Of course, the only answer is ‘sometimes 1,000 isn’t 1,000′.
We barely know what happened with the holocaust. Did you ever hear a leader claim to desire to “wipe someone out of the history books”? In regards to the numbers showing precise thinking, I think you either misunderstood me or I did not explain myself well enough. I am arguing about an actual language which develops abstract thoughts or precisely categorizes things as lacking in the ancient world. Numbers aside, many cultures did not have large vocabularies.
Why was heliocentrism ‘not popular’ as you put it? Because the Bible says the Earth doesn’t move!
Actually Aristotle also backed this up. He was the predominant “scientific” mind people looked backed at. There were a lot of non religious philosophers, that held similar views. At the time heliocentrism was not taken seriously as it lacked evidence. In regards to the earths movements, that is a separate point altogether. The earth is the center of life in the solar system. There are a lot of “pro” “con” arguments that can be taken from the creation story because it is written vaguely. Although its cites an order, it does not give a “how” it was made. And when I mean a “how” I mean specifics. But then again it might not have been possible either.
Joshua 10:12-13: On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. Think about that for a second. It does NOT read ‘the earth stopped spinning’. Moon stopped? Its orbit stopped then? So it started falling towards the Earth? But it wasn’t getting bigger as it fell? Did the earth stop rotating? What would then happen to the oceans since the water would still have a velocity vector when the Earth stopped? Big flood? Really, all the verses referring to Biblical cosmology MUST be metaphorical.
Actually there were some modern day accounts, such as Fatima, where people observed similiar things. In regards to the
“logic” leaving the building athiesm and agnosticism lack logic also. So we are stuck trying: to find the most logical
system, ignoring logic altogether, accepting the limits of logical, viewing the grades of logic in each philosophy/religion
etc. My point is, if you want to argue against religion because it is “illogical” then fine go on ahead. However, to
be fair and open minded you have to understand that atheism and agnosticism lack logic also. Logic has its place, but
one can through observation, see it deficit in natural behavior and some physical events.Remember to the atheist, human beings are nothing but particles. Humans behave irrationally. Therefore particles can
behave irrationally.So, while there is evidence of floods, there isn’t evidence for a global flood that killed everything and put it into the same strata. Also, you did not address how humans can live beyond 120 years of age in contradiction to the Bible. How is this possible, or is it metaphorical too?
In regards to the first point, there is evidence of massing flooding in the middle East. If all of civilization originated there, and a flood occurred, in regards to the ancients all the world was flood. You have to remember the “world” was only what was observed. In regards to the second point, what do you mean? If I remember correctly the longest modern human to live was 124, but there were issues with possible errors (lack of birth certificate), and the issue of “our calendar year vs the old argument. I don’t see what the issue is.
Hitler valued Aryan life; some value all human life; other value human and animal life. I don’t see the point here?
There cannot be two separate and complete moralities about a single value (take human life for example.)
To me, peace means you don’t assault people, you respect their property rights. Some rights: the right to choose where to live and work, religious freedom and free association, the right to protest government, etc.
How do you define property rights? If the property rights are redefine are they still rights. Who backs up the rights? If one is forced to live in an area they do not want to live in, due to poverty and lack of jobs, do they really have a right? How far is religious freedom permitted before it takes place of the government/vice versa? If the government has to give me permission to protest is it really my right or am I submitting to the government’s demands?
You see where I am going? These “blanket” beliefs are not as simple as they sound. And I could ask a hundred more legitimate questions just from these few beliefs.
Good question. No one may listen to me. They can hear my arguments & I can make a case
You are also assuming a right that people should listen to you. Morality, in any respects, depends on consequences and force.
I don’t dispute differences in slavery across ages and regions.
Then you cannot judge a faith immoral without saying everyone else is also wrong. With that being said, slavery is unavoidable. Take for example POWs, especially in ancient times. If they were let loose they would return to fight. Is it always required to kill them all? No. Sometimes slavery was the best option. (This is a practical example point, not argument as to why)
Temporal consequences
Temporal consequences is what defined the thinking of prior generations and caused all our problems today.
My parents might have brought me up in a different religion than yours, one with different values. Even if we have the same values we can still have different moralities because our reasoning process for choosing morals may differ.
People have the right to value what they want to value. They do not have the right to avoid the consequences of their actions.
Literalism also limits the texts to being true or false — verifiable statements.
Then by default all parables and alleghories are fundamentally wrong. Also true and false in regards to what standards? You have to understand the importance of alleghories, parables, and imagery in acknowledging certain truths. Mathematics and chemistry cannot solve everything, they are limited by there very nature.
I will have to disagree, when you choose which biblical rules to adopt (e.g. usury, apostasy, etc), and then exercise reasoning to make a morality out of it, this is necessarily SUBJECTIVE. You’re going to do it differently than some other Christian. If that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t have all these denominations.
Denominations prove that some things are not subjective, otherwise everyone would be “going their own way” and groups would cease to exist. The issue of adopting “which biblical rules to adopt” is less about personal choice and more to do with understanding the scriptures in there entirety. It requires a lot of specialization and knowledge in many different respects.
Yes, I am familiar with Peter 1:20 but that pertains to prophecy. You’re going to have personal interpretation unless you, say, follow every Papal edict if Roman Catholic — if you pick which rules to follow and you pick differently than a Luterhan, or other denomination, isn’t that the very definition of subjective? If you read the Bible and make your own subjective interpretation about killing apostates or slaves, that’s subjective morality.
You are correct in the last point, however there is an interpretation. In many respects this is what authorities are for. You are also incorrect, as it is not only subjective but going against certain moral codes. A Catholic follower, cannot pick and choose right or wrong. They may commit right or wrong, but they cannot define it. Same with the Orthodox, Lutherans, etc. I think you are mixing up subjectivism with immorality.
I’m not hypocritical if I make a moral statement based upon my values, any more than if I say, ‘I like the color blue’.
If I decide to “create” my own morality, I would be morally wrong if I did not create my own morality. So in many respects I cannot create something that I would be guilty of committing prior to creating it. To create ones own morality in many respects would be to create one’s own damnation as any uncreated moral code (regarding anything) would deem me guilty. Unintentional ignorance would lead to guilt.
Also if you value the same thing as someone else, your code cannot be subjective or different, as one value cannot have two separate moralties contradicting eachother.
Also if you say all morality is subjective, you are damning those who do not choose their own. To have a concrete morality would be immoral, however saying “all morality is subjective” is a concrete moral statement.
But how do we know it’s an ancient piece of pottery? All the strata were layed down very quickly, in under one year, after the Great Flood. Radiocarbon dating isn’t accurate. How do you know this image is a Stegosaurus? Maybe it’s a metaphorical image? Unfortunately, having a double standard for truth is problematic, though I’m also a sarcastic SOB. There are numerous images in the ancient world with animals, and sometimes the images may coincidentally match reality.
Really?……Well I guess all things of order (laws included) can be interpreted as accident or coincidence.
Why all Christian miracles? Are all the other miracles false?
Go look up the others. It just appears that the Christians have the majority and greater depth.
I do periodically turn the telly on to listen to one of the televangelist charlatans fleecing the flock with prosperity theology (yes, I know, many of these guys are scumbags and don’t represent mainline Christians).
You are more patient than me, I cannot listen to those men for more than five minutes without wanting to shoot my television. They
are what give Christianity, and all faiths in general, a bad name.I’m not sure how skepticism is self defeating?
Because a true skeptic would have to be skeptical about skepticism otherwise they are not a skeptic and just subjective.
Anonymous42
umm.. excuse me ..i think i am going to f~~~ my toaster oven now..what a giant load of s~~~ ! i mean that in the nicest way possible ;} ha ha ha !LIGHTEN THE F~~~ UP !!!!
FrankOne wrote:
Since literalists assert Man was created 6,000 – 10,000 years ago such reigns are inconsistent with the Bible. Even after the ‘flood’, the reigns lasted up to 1200 years. So that has some problems with consistency with a 120 year cap on lifespans. As does anyone living over 120 today, which you did not address either. You seem to want to have it both ways — completely ridiculous passages of the Bible are metaphorical, but the Bible is still historical.We do not know whether the bible, in regards to the creation story is literal or metaphorical. As I said before, your perspective requires that it has to be taken literally, where for thousands of years this has not been the case. There is a lot of symbolism, and a phenomonelogical perspective has been used in interpreting it long before a scientific revolution. So your argument, that the argument changes with each sciencific discovery might be true for some protestant faiths, but not so for Catholicism or Orthodoxy. With that being said, there is the possibility of it being literal too. This has to be taken into account. Using the Sumerian tablets, as an example, there is a common thread of long lifespans in history. The issue is in trying to figure who,what, when, how, and were the distortions on either side are or if they are on just one side.
I’ve got to call you on this one. I was discussing the trial of Galileo. Obviously, you didn’t respond to many of my points. But let’s read the indictment (remember, this is written by the Pope’s henchmen Inquisitors, and represents the views of the Roman Catholic Church in 1633. Yet you state literal interpretation has NOT been the case for thousands of years. 2015 – 1633 = 382 years, not thousands.
Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, were denounced in 1615, to this Holy Office, for holding as true a false doctrine taught by many, namely, that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; also, for having pupils whom you instructed in the same opinions; also, for maintaining a correspondence on the same with some German mathematicians; also for publishing certain letters on the sun-spots, in which you developed the same doctrine as true; also, for answering the objections which were continually produced from the Holy Scriptures, by glozing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning; and whereas thereupon was produced the copy of a writing, in form of a letter professedly written by you to a person formerly your pupil, in which, following the hypothesis of Copernicus, you include several propositions contrary to the true sense and authority of the Holy Scriptures; therefore (this Holy Tribunal being desirous of providing against the disorder and mischief which were thence proceeding and increasing to the detriment of the Holy Faith) by the desire of his Holiness and the Most Emminent Lords, Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the sun, and the motion of the earth, were qualified by the Theological Qualifiers as follows:
I see no point in including the rest and making this even longer. Suffice it to say, Roman Catholic views on literalism of, say, Biblical cosmology, have changed radically in even the last 400 years. ‘Theological Qualifiers’ — what a laughable term. A much better way to determine facts than, say, observation or a double-blind study.
You neglected to respond to any of the criticisms of the Sumerian tablets; people mythicized the early leaders so their reigns are much longer than human lifespans. After the flood, they still had lifespans greatly exceeding God’s longevity limit as spelled out in the Bible to which you admitted (120 years = God’s post-flood lifespan limit). That limit has also been exceeded today which you failed to explain away. So here again, a mountain of contradictions. Are the Sumerian tablets corroborated by long lifespans in other parts of the world in which advanced civilizations existed for thousands of years (e.g. Egypt). The answer to that is NO.
FrankOne wrote:
600,000 is a pretty large number & that’s how many Jews went on the 40 year desert camping trip in Egypt (Exodus). So there are large numbers in the OT. It is most peculiar no such Exodus is recorded in Egyptian history since it would be a huge disruption. Incidentally, how could there be 1.5 – 2 MM jews (including women and children not worth counting) living at that time to produce the 600,000 men? Of course, the only answer is ‘sometimes 1,000 isn’t 1,000′.We barely know what happened with the holocaust. Did you ever hear a leader claim to desire to “wipe someone out of the history books”? In regards to the numbers showing precise thinking, I think you either misunderstood me or I did not explain myself well enough. I am arguing about an actual language which develops abstract thoughts or precisely categorizes things as lacking in the ancient world. Numbers aside, many cultures did not have large vocabularies.
I’m not denying cultures had limited vocabularies. The numbers are non-sensical and represent a significant fraction of what would have been the Egyptian population and it would have changed its character and religion. I don’t understand what you’re trying to assert about the ‘barely knowing what happened with the Holocaust’; The Germans were great recordkeepers; we have the meeting minutes of the Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution was laid out; this is well known historically.
FrankOne wrote:
Why was heliocentrism ‘not popular’ as you put it? Because the Bible says the Earth doesn’t move!Actually Aristotle also backed this up. He was the predominant “scientific” mind people looked backed at. There were a lot of non religious philosophers, that held similar views. At the time heliocentrism was not taken seriously as it lacked evidence. In regards to the earths movements, that is a separate point altogether. The earth is the center of life in the solar system. There are a lot of “pro” “con” arguments that can be taken from the creation story because it is written vaguely. Although its cites an order, it does not give a “how” it was made. And when I mean a “how” I mean specifics. But then again it might not have been possible either.
I’m fully aware of Aristotle’s geocentrism. The recorded history of heliocentrism goes back the 8th to 9th century BC India, so it isn’t a new idea, either. Heliocentrism lacked evidence? But didn’t the resurrection lack evidence? And nobody was being persecuted for that. Was there more evidence for one religion’s Truth than another’s?
Actually there were some modern day accounts, such as Fatima, where people observed similiar things. In regards to the “logic” leaving the building athiesm and agnosticism lack logic also. So we are stuck trying: to find the most logical system, ignoring logic altogether, accepting the limits of logical, viewing the grades of logic in each philosophy/religion etc. My point is, if you want to argue against religion because it is “illogical” then fine go on ahead. However, to be fair and open minded you have to understand that atheism and agnosticism lack logic also. Logic has its place, but one can through observation, see it deficit in natural behavior and some physical events. Remember to the atheist, human beings are nothing but particles. Humans behave irrationally. Therefore particles can behave irrationally.
There are also modern day accounts where people have observed UFO’s. Should we then join the Heaven’s Gate cult? How does a disbelief in deities lack logic? I don’t understand what you’re saying about ‘particles’; a ‘particle’ doesn’t reason, or at least, there’s no evidence that it does, so how can it be irrational/unreasonable? The ‘particles’ that make up a living entity do not possess all the qualities and capabilities of the entity. My TV can display a picture; the bezel cannot; nor can the screen without the power supply and a signal. ‘Particles’ is a rather vague term to describe a biological entity — do you mean cells, molecules, or atoms?
FrankOne wrote:
So, while there is evidence of floods, there isn’t evidence for a global flood that killed everything and put it into the same strata. Also, you did not address how humans can live beyond 120 years of age in contradiction to the Bible. How is this possible, or is it metaphorical too?In regards to the first point, there is evidence of massing flooding in the middle East. If all of civilization originated there, and a flood occurred, in regards to the ancients all the world was flood. You have to remember the “world” was only what was observed. In regards to the second point, what do you mean? If I remember correctly the longest modern human to live was 124, but there were issues with possible errors (lack of birth certificate), and the issue of “our calendar year vs the old argument. I don’t see what the issue is.
Most scholars see evidence that mankind originated in Africa, but civilization originated in Mesopotamia.
Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
FrankOne wrote:
Hitler valued Aryan life; some value all human life; other value human and animal life. I don’t see the point here?There cannot be two separate and complete moralities about a single value (take human life for example.)
Why not? I may value peace and quiet. So I go live in a cave where no one bothers me. You may also value peace and quiet, but choose to live in a large city and work in a corporation, but still keep to yourself outside work hours — or vice versa. The peculiar Nazi view was that even an assimilated Jew was unacceptable because they were a lesser form of a human being than an Aryan. They valued Aryan life but not subhuman Jewish life in their value system.
FrankOne wrote:
To me, peace means you don’t assault people, you respect their property rights. Some rights: the right to choose where to live and work, religious freedom and free association, the right to protest government, etc.How do you define property rights? If the property rights are redefine are they still rights. Who backs up the rights? If one is forced to live in an area they do not want to live in, due to poverty and lack of jobs, do they really have a right? How far is religious freedom permitted before it takes place of the government/vice versa? If the government has to give me permission to protest is it really my right or am I submitting to the government’s demands? You see where I am going? These “blanket” beliefs are not as simple as they sound. And I could ask a hundred more legitimate questions just from these few beliefs.
‘Property Rights’ Laws created by governments in regards to how individuals can control, benefit from and transfer property. We call a lot of things ‘rights’ that I personally don’t think should be — but we will each have our own political philosophies. Government backs up rights, ultimately with a gun. That’s an easy question. The rich and powerful have more freedom even with ‘rights’. But ‘rights’ do create some balance; the rich & powerful can’t kill you with impunity. Yes, even if you’re poor, you typically still have some free time, your boss can’t beat you, you can change jobs, etc. Are there a lack of jobs or a lack of people wanting to work? I see where you are going but my beliefs are not universal or objective. I favor ALL religious freedom as long as it’s entered into voluntarily, but I don’t think Churches should be tax free any more than other entities.
FrankOne wrote:
Temporal consequencesTemporal consequences is what defined the thinking of prior generations and caused all our problems today.
I would say people not ‘owning it’ — lack of personal responsibility — has caused most of our problems. Big government/nanny state, indebtedness on an individual and national level, public schools that don’t train people with jobs skills, kids that don’t work, drug laws that imprison too many people, high taxes and transfer payments.
FrankOne wrote:
My parents might have brought me up in a different religion than yours, one with different values. Even if we have the same values we can still have different moralities because our reasoning process for choosing morals may differ.People have the right to value what they want to value. They do not have the right to avoid the consequences of their actions.
I agree. Young people these days can be a bunch of babies that want to avoid work and personal responsibility. I’m showing my age (mid 40’s)!
FrankOne wrote:
Literalism also limits the texts to being true or false — verifiable statements.Then by default all parables and alleghories are fundamentally wrong. Also true and false in regards to what standards? You have to understand the importance of alleghories, parables, and imagery in acknowledging certain truths. Mathematics and chemistry cannot solve everything, they are limited by there very nature.
Yes. Mathematics and Chemistry aren’t tools to write a good story, achieve compromise, or motivate people.
FrankOne wrote:
I will have to disagree, when you choose which biblical rules to adopt (e.g. usury, apostasy, etc), and then exercise reasoning to make a morality out of it, this is necessarily SUBJECTIVE. You’re going to do it differently than some other Christian. If that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t have all these denominations.Denominations prove that some things are not subjective, otherwise everyone would be “going their own way” and groups would cease to exist. The issue of adopting “which biblical rules to adopt” is less about personal choice and more to do with understanding the scriptures in there entirety. It requires a lot of specialization and knowledge in many different respects.
If that’s the case I’d expect theologians in various denominations to heal the rift & re-unify. The scholars in the different denominations typically don’t change denominations because they find theirs flawed. You don’t choose, join, and follow a religion based on reasoning, but instead, by Faith or circumstance.
FrankOne wrote:
Yes, I am familiar with Peter 1:20 but that pertains to prophecy. You’re going to have personal interpretation unless you, say, follow every Papal edict if Roman Catholic — if you pick which rules to follow and you pick differently than a Luterhan, or other denomination, isn’t that the very definition of subjective? If you read the Bible and make your own subjective interpretation about killing apostates or slaves, that’s subjective morality.You are correct in the last point, however there is an interpretation. In many respects this is what authorities are for. You are also incorrect, as it is not only subjective but going against certain moral codes. A Catholic follower, cannot pick and choose right or wrong. They may commit right or wrong, but they cannot define it. Same with the Orthodox, Lutherans, etc. I think you are mixing up subjectivism with immorality.
But isn’t the first subjective decision choosing your religion; another subjective decision: choosing a denomination — isn’t this just as subjective as starting your own new denomination? A follower can’t pick and choose right or wrong because the thinking has already been done for him/her — by a higher authority. And THAT authority is certainly subjective and changing; infallible Pope Paul V had Galileo indicted for beliefs in conflict with the Scriptures; subjective Pope John Paul II later said ‘Oops’ — guess Paul V wasn’t infallible that day. Other doctrines are made up as they go (assumption of Mary into heaven); heretical in one age, Official Dogma in another. This isn’t so much a criticism of Roman Catholicism as of all religion.
FrankOne wrote:
I’m not hypocritical if I make a moral statement based upon my values, any more than if I say, ‘I like the color blue’.If I decide to “create” my own morality, I would be morally wrong if I did not create my own morality. So in many respects I cannot create something that I would be guilty of committing prior to creating it. To create ones own morality in many respects would be to create one’s own damnation as any uncreated moral code (regarding anything) would deem me guilty. Unintentional ignorance would lead to guilt. Also if you value the same thing as someone else, your code cannot be subjective or different, as one value cannot have two separate moralties contradicting eachother. Also if you say all morality is subjective, you are damning those who do not choose their own. To have a concrete morality would be immoral, however saying “all morality is subjective” is a concrete moral statement.
I think I’ve already covered most of this. Let us say two people both value human life. You regard a fertilized egg as life and thus abortion is immoral; the second person does not. Thus, the two disagree on the morality of abortion. Subjective morals doesn’t equate to unimportant or arbitrary morals. Most legal codes strongly overlap, such that I could drop you in a foreign country, and many laws would be similar — e.g. prohibition of murder — but you’d need to adjust for some local customs. Moral codes are also typically communal and society doesn’t regard a sociopath’s morals as acceptable & we still throw murderers into jail. Our morality has changed over time. Killing apostates and witches may have been deemed moral 600 years ago but it’s no longer deemed moral in the West. Rooting morality in God is still arbitrary; why is God’s opinion better? Because God said so is circular. And you still have to choose which God and sect (denomination in Christianity), which makes for subjective morality. So I’d disagree with both you and BTL on objective morality.
If other life exists in the Universe with a different form than ours, will it have the same morality?
FrankOne wrote:
Why all Christian miracles? Are all the other miracles false?Go look up the others. It just appears that the Christians have the majority and greater depth.
Greater depth? There are many miracles reported in India. And Muslims report miracles — e.g. mosques surviving the Tsunami in Bandi Aceh. Link But did these buildings survive due to the power of Allah (pieces of shrapnel be upon him), or due to good construction and foundations relative to surrounding structures, with high arches and a path for the water to flow through? Statues seem to do a lot; Mary’s cry, Ganesh’s drink goat milk… I wonder if I could find a statue of Venus… http://themiraclespage.info/phenomena/index.htm And Allah’s name sure does appear on a lot of stuff!
FrankOne wrote:
I’m not sure how skepticism is self defeating?Because a true skeptic would have to be skeptical about skepticism otherwise they are not a skeptic and just subjective.
Questioning is a good way to learn more about something. Subjectivism is a part of the human condition. You do not necessarily perceive reality as I do. I may be color blind, you may not be. We each perceive reality differently so we are subjective, even if reality is objective and exists independently of us. It is not even possible to prove objective reality vs subjective reality; does everything exist in my mind, or are other people real and conscious like me? How do you ‘prove’ one or the other? You can’t.
Frank, I applaud your efforts to be a voice of reason. Unfortunately, it’s futile. John just can’t be reasoned with. I hope you know he doesn’t give a s~~~ and you haven’t convinced him of anything.
He’s a guy, claimed mgtow, who literally doubts the validity of evolution and a 4 billion year old Earth. He’s thinks Biological Determinism is a joke. He believes in an imaginary god who pardons his perceived sins he committed with freewill that he also believes in real.
He has no idea what intellectual honesty means or objective reasoning. Its all completely foreign to him. Whats worse is he is comfortable this way and has no desire to even consider otherwise. Instead of taking small steps at resolution, being humble at admitting his delusion, he just spends hours selling himself his own bulls~~~. You can see when he is trying to reaffirm his own delusions when he writes books on here, endlessly rambling on about metaphysics and Crustian pseudo science.
We’ve all tried to help him. There’s just no point to try and reason with him or refute his failures of sound reasoning.
“What logical argument are you going to provide for someone who doesn’t value logic; what reasonable persuasion are you going to provide for someone who doesn’t value reason?” -Sam Harris
The main reason I want you to stop is because this thread, like many others, has been ruined by his essays in incompetent thought. He’s like the Pee Bandit, going around p~~~ing all over perfectly clean bathrooms.
Yet you state literal interpretation has NOT been the case for thousands of years. 2015 – 1633 = 382 years, not thousands.
I know back to the early centuries, 300-400 a.d., because of several philosophers I read who came from the time. This is off of memory. I know the Jews, and certain sects interpreted it symbolically prior to Christianity.
Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, were denounced in 1615, to this Holy Office, for holding as true a false doctrine taught by many, namely, that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion;
He did not have evidence at the time. It was strictly theory. The church permitted him to present his argument, both pros and cons, however he did not have evidence. He was permitted to do research, just not espouse it as fact. Gallilleo, in many respects, is guilty of hypocrisy in that he espoused as fact only that which was known as theory at the time due to lack of evidence. All theories are not correct, neither are all wrong, however to say something is a fact when no proof is evident at the moment is unscientific.
I explained why Galileo was brought to trial. This is the letter. I do not see what the issue is, because he was not permitted to publish his work. The church was not against heliocentric. It supported and acknowledged Coperinius’ research. It was received favorably by Pope Paul III. And this was over 100 year prior to Galileo.
I see no point in including the rest and making this even longer. Suffice it to say, Roman Catholic views on literalism of, say, Biblical cosmology, have changed radically in even the last 400 years.
The above point proves you are incorrect and illread on the subject. Also, early converts (who became theologians [such as Augustine]) acknowledged that literalism is not the only way, or even correct way, the scriptures are read.
You neglected to respond to any of the criticisms of the Sumerian tablets; people mythicized the early leaders so their reigns are much longer than human lifespans
What criticism’s? You made a joke about the subjects cutting off the king’s heads after a certain amount of time. The point, of the Sumerian tablet example, is that several sources acknowledged a time in which people lived longer than they did today.
After the flood, they still had lifespans greatly exceeding God’s longevity limit as spelled out in the Bible to which you admitted (120 years = God’s post-flood lifespan limit). That limit has also been exceeded today which you failed to explain away.
In regards to the first point I never claim that the tablets were correct, only that they acknowledge a long life of humans. They are two separate accounts. It is the same as if a group of people witnessed a murder. An officer can interview the group of people about it and end up with several different stories, however all acknowledge the murder. However, this point I keep mentioning and you keep forgetting: there are certain “myths” that keep reappearing regardless of the culture.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to assert about the ‘barely knowing what happened with the Holocaust’; The Germans were great recordkeepers;
I had honors college course on the holocaust. Some camps were “responsible” for the deaths of 70,000 to 300,000 people. Several hundred thousand people are a lot to misplace. Also they kept no records of Gas chamber in some of them. I will have to disregard your point as opinion. My point is that written records do not always provide a clear story. If you want to argue against written records, with written records, you have to understand the nature of the written records being dealt with, and acknowledge that not all records are inherently accurate.
The recorded history of heliocentrism goes back the 8th to 9th century BC India, so it isn’t a new idea, either. Heliocentrism lacked evidence? But didn’t the resurrection lack evidence? And nobody was being persecuted for that. Was there more evidence for one religion’s Truth than another’s?
True, regards to the first point. However your point of the church going against heliocentricism was that it was because it went against “literal interpretation of scripture, however that has never been the case (Copernicus as example.) because the Galileo incident had a lot of factors. Also you seem to ignore how well he was treated, he was far from “persecuted” and more like “slapped on the wrist” when compared to other punishments of the time. In regards to heliocentrism lacking evidence, it lacked evidence at the time Galileo was promoting it as fact. That was one of the issues. Also the Christians were persecuted heavily from several Roman emperor’s and due to the resurrection argument from several other groups (religious and non).
There are also modern day accounts where people have observed UFO’s. Should we then join the Heaven’s Gate cult?
We do not have enough information, nor a complete picture, in order to make anything but brief opinionated judgements on UFO’s. Remember UFO means “unidentified flying object.” They could be anything from a seagull to space alien or supernatural apparition. The truth is that we do not know.
How does a disbelief in deities lack logic?
-Because one is trying to prove a negative.
-The axiom required for the argument (God) is the same one being disproved.
-By disproving one thing we only prove another, leaving the physical realm or people “contradictorly” to fill the role of a diety/dieties.
-No standard for “proof/evidence” is given, leaving the argument fundamentally subjective and based on personal opinion.
-It is an argument based solely on skepticism which lacks reason in itself and is fundamentally reactionary, leading to the next point:
-The atheist argument cannot exist without acknowledging God. It cannot exist on its own terms.
-Atheism would leave us having to disprove many of the philosopher’s (Aristotle, descarte, Ibn Rushd, etc) which helped pay the way for the scientific method.
-Atheism depends on a lack of belief, but requires in the belief of other things (people’s observations, etc.) for it to work.
-It elevated human observation to a God like status, but also lowers others who have different opinions.
-There is no set value system.
-and I can go on and on……
I don’t understand what you’re saying about ‘particles’; a ‘particle’ doesn’t reason, or at least, there’s no evidence that it does, so how can it be irrational/unreasonable?
Because, according to the athiests, that is all human beings are made of. If that is the case than all reason, belief, etc. is the responsibility of the particles thereby making them fundamentally irrational by there vary nature.
To put it simply (through the atheist perspective): All people are particles. Some people are irrational. Therefore some particles behave irrationally.
‘Particles’ is a rather vague term to describe a biological entity — do you mean cells, molecules, or atoms?
The core physical material at the fundamental level.
So, while there is evidence of floods, there isn’t evidence for a global flood that killed everything and put it into the same strata.
It would be if the flood only covered the regions people were living in at the time. Remember, the “world” in antiquity was where humanity was in many respects. The same as if someone claims to want to leave “the world” behind, they are referencing people.
Also, you did not address how humans can live beyond 120 years of age in contradiction to the Bible. How is this possible, or is it metaphorical too?
Actually I did (post 43813):
In regards to the second point, what do you mean? If I remember correctly the longest modern human to live was 124, but there were issues with possible errors (lack of birth certificate), and the issue of “our calendar year vs the old argument. I don’t see what the issue is.
It can be interpretted literally, and still be correct. Also it can be interpretted metaphorically as a set number
number of years (limit) was given to men. Or that man’s years were shortened. Or one would have to come from a
numerlogical perspective (significance of numbers [Jew’s apply numerology alot]) in order to understand what 120 means.
There are several ways this can be metaphorically interpretted.With that being said, you have to understand that scripture is not meant to be understood in a linear fashion. There
are many layers and “depths” to it. To say it must be understood is a heresy in several respects: First it is not
required to be read that way. Second a linear interpretation is not condusive to a reality which is fundamentally not
1 or 2 dimension in many different respects.Getting back to previous points; “Your” requirement that is must be read “literally” makes it fundamentally subjective
in that you limit it to your interpretation only.Why not? I may value peace and quiet. So I go live in a cave where no one bothers me. You may also value peace and quiet, but choose to live in a large city and work in a corporation, but still keep to yourself outside work hours — or vice versa.
You are equating morality (certain right/wrong conduct) with lifestyle choices. “Thou shall not kill”, although it may affect
a lifestyle choice is not a life style choice in and of itself. There are certain choices in life which are fundamentally
subjective and morally neutral. Living in a city or cave is not a moral choice in an of itself, but how I live in the
city or cave is.The peculiar Nazi view was that even an assimilated Jew was unacceptable because they were a lesser form of a human being than an Aryan.
Using this an example, having a value also determines one fundamental understanding of the nature of things and existence
itself. A value does not just limit itself to the creation/observation/interpretation of morality but all the objective
nature and understanding of both physical and non-physical existence. Values reflect a metaphysics of existence in that
it reveals the existence and nature of things through certain perspectives.‘Property Rights’ Laws created by governments in regards to how individuals can control, benefit from and transfer property. We call a lot of things ‘rights’ that I personally don’t think should be — but we will each have our own political philosophies. Government backs up rights, ultimately with a gun. That’s an easy question. The rich and powerful have more freedom even with ‘rights’. But ‘rights’ do create some balance; the rich & powerful can’t kill you with impunity. Yes, even if you’re poor, you typically still have some free time, your boss can’t beat you, you can change jobs, etc. Are there a lack of jobs or a lack of people wanting to work? I see where you are going but my beliefs are not universal or objective. I favor ALL religious freedom as long as it’s entered into voluntarily, but I don’t think Churches should be tax free any more than other entities.
My point was not for you to answer the questions, although there is nothing wrong with that, but rather showing when one
acknowledges there values it is not just a simple thing in and of itself, but rather something which gives defintion to
reality and requires an understanding. Because this is the case, one cannot create their own morality, because it
would require them to have a full understanding of existence/cause and effect/the nature of things/etc. To say one
must create their own morality would by default condemn anyone who is ignorant of the nature of the things they are
forming the morality around. In many respects, ignorance condemns us if one is to come from this perspective.I would say people not ‘owning it’ — lack of personal responsibility — has caused most of our problems.
A temporal way of thinking is fundamentally being irresponsible of the future, so your assertion that atheism can
create a morality that can only affect certain temporal aspects of humanity is to create a morality which is fundamentally
self centered by its very nature.Yes. Mathematics and Chemistry aren’t tools to write a good story, achieve compromise, or motivate people
And I will expand on this point. The observation of mathematical/chemical/physical laws, etc. required motivation from
the beginning. However if we are fundamentally only made up of such reactions then motivation cannot be the source of acknowledging these laws
through the sciences. In other words, if we are only a manifestation of physical laws, then all physical existence is
reflecting back on itself. However if that is the case, then physically existence is unaware of certain aspects of itself
since we (a combination of particles) are unware many of the physical laws of the universe.To put it simply. If we are just particles and we are seeking deeper knowledge of particles (chemistry/physics/etc.) then
that means particles are seeking knowledge about particles. If that is the case than particles are unaware of the many
laws which govern themselves. This is assuming particles are aware, and according to the atheist, they would have to
be since we are only particles. However this cannot be the case since, particles (manifesting themselves as “Humans”)
lack an awareness of themselves in many different respects.If that’s the case I’d expect theologians in various denominations to heal the rift & re-unify. The scholars in the different denominations typically don’t change denominations because they find theirs flawed. You don’t choose, join, and follow a religion based on reasoning, but instead, by Faith or circumstance.
To the first point: That is happening with the Anglicans and Catholics and in a lesser degree with the Orthodox too.
In regards to the seconde point that is a false assumption. I heard many stories of people leaving a faith due to it being “flawed” or at least
percieved to be flawed. In regards to the third point: That is also false in several respects. Some people leave to
another faith becausing of “reasoning”. Also “reasoning” is the basis with which people make many of there decisions.
Also we all operate on some level of faith. We have to in many different respects because we cannot observe everything.But isn’t the first subjective decision choosing your religion; another subjective decision: choosing a denomination — isn’t this just as subjective as starting your own new denomination?
In one respect yes you are correct.. However one choosing a denomination cannot define the denomination itself, so in many respects
it isn’t subjective. Also, to expand on a point subjectivism, although false in defining universal truths, is also
unavoidable in many respects because of the nature of human observation. Some personal truth, can be found in
subjectivism (and also illusions.) My point is, that although both of argue against subjectivism, it does have some
place and value as subjective experience does alter and shape views which in turn manifest themselves in one form or
another into physical reality.Take for example a mother losing her son to a car accident. Her grief is subjective, but her repeals for safety devices
of some sort take on a physical reality as we created new technology and gain a deeper understanding of physical reality
in order to create that technology. Our discussion is about fundamentally non subjective truths, however we cannot
ignore the nature of subjectivity, manifestted through personal experience, in determining physical reality.Let us say two people both value human life. You regard a fertilized egg as life and thus abortion is immoral; the second person does not.
I covered this above. You say the value is “human life” however that value is manifested differently so one must question
what that value is. The person who interprets the value of “human life” through a faith based premise has one understanding
of human life. The other who interprets the value of “human life” through the acknowledgement of human pleasures
has a different understanding of human life. The example is flawed because the premise defining the two seperate values
is inherentally different.Moral codes are also typically communal and society doesn’t regard a sociopath’s morals as acceptable & we still throw murderers into jail.
Not always are morals communal or people oriented. Take for example, viking society, one among many, which acknowledge
raiding/pillaging/and violence for the sake of violence as fundamentally moral. We defined (for the sake of argument)
morals as a means to a value, however values vary among societies. Some value human life more than others. Also some
interpret human life in a different perspective than others.Rooting morality in God is still arbitrary; why is God’s opinion better? Because God said so is circular.
To say our opinion is better than God’s, makes us take the place of God, and is self defeating. Also you started this
point with a false premise, that God had an opinion. To say one has an opinion, is to imply that one is not fully aware
or in some respects is uninformed. If God is unaware of somethings, then he is fundamentally subjective to what is hidden
and therefore cannot be God as something hidden from him in many respects overpowers his awareness.And you still have to choose which God and sect (denomination in Christianity), which makes for subjective morality.
But you cannot define the sect for yourself. The evidence of a present choice makes the “choice-bearer” subjective
to laws outside their own influence meaning there are concrete morals in some respects.And THAT authority is certainly subjective and changing; infallible Pope Paul V had Galileo indicted for beliefs in conflict with the Scriptures; subjective Pope John Paul II later said ‘Oops’ — guess Paul V wasn’t infallible that day. Other doctrines are made up as they go (assumption of Mary into heaven); heretical in one age, Official Dogma in another. This isn’t so much a criticism of Roman Catholicism as of all religion.
Actually it does specifically go against Catholicism, for the most part, because it is one of the few religions (if only
one) that claims infallibility as an actual law. The church never claimed “infallibility” for any ordinary trial (including)
Galileos’. The tribunal had judicial and disciplinary authority only. No ecumenical counsel or the popes authority were
central in defining the decision of the tribunal. Both of these would be required for an infallible statement.Infallibility goes like this:
“Three conditions must be met for a pope to exercise the charism of infallibility: (1) he must speak in his official capacity as the successor of Peter; (2) he must speak on a matter of faith or morals; and (3) he must solemnly define the doctrine as one that must be held by all the faithful.”
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversyHowever, I am sure I stated this already. Yet you ignored it.
Greater depth? There are many miracles reported in India. And Muslims report miracles — e.g. mosques surviving the Tsunami in Bandi Aceh. Link But did these buildings survive due to the power of Allah (pieces of shrapnel be upon him), or due to good construction and foundations relative to surrounding structures, with high arches and a path for the water to flow through? Statues seem to do a lot; Mary’s cry, Ganesh’s drink goat milk… I wonder if I could find a statue of Venus… http://themiraclespage.info/phenomena/index.htm And Allah’s name sure does appear on a lot of stuff!
The quantity and depth (difficulting to explain away) lies with the Catholic church. At the end of the day, there are
many things that cannot be explained away. Here is a list by a less bias source of some top 10 ones. There are
stories of miracles, in scriptures, of Christians going against the miracles of other faiths and not only rivaled, but
outdid the others. Also many of the Miracles, relate to some Christian influence on one way shape or form. Most
muslim miracles refer to seeing a name in something, not far from the example of Rorsach cards.Miracles aside, the Catholic church in more universal as it accepts the possiblility of someone reaching salvation
regardless of their faith, under certain conditions (specifically those of genuine ignorance.) It does take a
universal approach to faith and people, but at the same time acknowledges certain truths as right without compromising them.
So with miracles aside, although and important part, the rationality is not deficient or excluding to everyone. If anythiing
it brings about a “fullness” of truth in many different degrees.How do you ‘prove’ one or the other? You can’t.
Some things are subjective, others are certain. Constants are required for a subjective experience. Also, by default, your statement gave concrete evidence of some certains, in the form of an abstract thought.
Not everything is subjective. I am ignorant of the symbolism here, but I am guessing it is something to do with the “futility” of discussion?
umm.. excuse me ..i think i am going to f~~~ my toaster oven now..what a giant load of s~~~ ! i mean that in the nicest way possible ;} ha ha ha !LIGHTEN THE F~~~ UP !!!!
Chill out dude… this is just a very basic mutual evening discussion.
Frank, I applaud your efforts to be a voice of reason. Unfortunately, it’s futile. John just can’t be reasoned with. I hope you know he doesn’t give a s~~~ and you haven’t convinced him of anything. He’s a guy, claimed mgtow, who literally doubts the validity of evolution and a 4 billion year old Earth. He’s thinks Biological Determinism is a joke. He believes in an imaginary god who pardons his perceived sins he committed with freewill that he also believes in real. He has no idea what intellectual honesty means or objective reasoning. Its all completely foreign to him. Whats worse is he is comfortable this way and has no desire to even consider otherwise. Instead of taking small steps at resolution, being humble at admitting his delusion, he just spends hours selling himself his own bulls~~~. You can see when he is trying to reaffirm his own delusions when he writes books on here, endlessly rambling on about metaphysics and Crustian pseudo science. We’ve all tried to help him. There’s just no point to try and reason with him or refute his failures of sound reasoning. “What logical argument are you going to provide for someone who doesn’t value logic; what reasonable persuasion are you going to provide for someone who doesn’t value reason?” -Sam Harris The main reason I want you to stop is because this thread, like many others, has been ruined by his essays in incompetent thought. He’s like the Pee Bandit, going around p~~~ing all over perfectly clean bathrooms.
Glad your back….now lets hear some more of Sam Harris!!! Jokes asides, Frankone gave a better argument than you did.
At least his opinion was better educated, and less bias.- AuthorPosts
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
921526
921524
919244
916783
915526
915524
915354
915129
914037
909862
908811
908810
908500
908465
908464
908300
907963
907895
907477
902002
901301
901106
901105
901104
901024
901017
900393
900392
900391
900390
899038
898980
896844
896798
896797
895983
895850
895848
893740
893036
891671
891670
891336
891017
890865
889894
889741
889058
888157
887960
887768
886321
886306
885519
884948
883951
881340
881339
880491
878671
878351
877678
