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Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 01:09 pm  I have created this thread in response to a rather extensive discussion that has made its predecessor grow far too long. Although the title of this thread probably won't reflect the subject matter of the discussion, I have kept it to indicate its connection with the previous thread and because it is a subject title that should cause little controversy (as opposed to the discussion, which may). The original discussion begins around about here in the old thread. I am continuing it here. Hope that makes sense.
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| Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 01:10 pm Three rather long posts coming up, which is why I've taken so long to respond. I hope you don't mind, but I've moved it to a new thread to reduce the amount of scrolling required! Why the debate about God's relationship to Science is important What I mean is, why does the debate of a God that created the universe vs evolution, the big bang theory and all of that good stuff seem to be mutually exclusive in most peoples' minds? Ah! Yes, that makes more sense. I must admit that I have some sympathy with the argument that the Big Bang, evolution, etc., are merely tools used by a Creator God. It is certainly less anti-science than the extremists who insist that Genesis is literally true and the last thing I want is for people to decide that science (and rationalism) is not the best way of understanding our existence. From my point of view, I get very frustrated with religious people who take some theory of physics and seize upon it as evidence for their particular belief system. Usually (not in your case, I am very glad to say), they have completely misunderstood the scientific theory. I'll give you an example: Some time ago, I saw an interview with a Buddhist Monk who argued that his belief in Karma was supported by Newton's Third Law [every action has an equal but opposite reaction]. At first glance, this might support the idea of Karma - if you act badly, the universe will push back and treat you badly in response. However, when Newton formulated his Laws of Motion, the mathematical notation we use today was still in its infancy and most laws had to be expressed in rather flowery language. Newton was writing in Latin, but the translation reads: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. Most people (including this Buddhist Monk) are more familiar with the modern statement which is far more direct and less flowery. This doesn't change the fact that the Third Law only applies to the action of bodies (meaning objects, particles, etc.) in motion (it is Newton's Third Law of Motion, after all) rather than the conscious actions of human beings. I am sure that a number of people watching the interview would have been swayed by the Monk's appeal to the Third Law and, not having a deeper understanding of it, been persuaded that the Monk's view of Karma had been justified by Science. I'm not saying that half the Christians watching immediately converted to Buddhism, but there may have been a handful that worked an element of Karma into their Christian view of the world as a result of that interview. Now, back to the issue at hand. In principle, I have no problem with religious people accepting scientific views of the world and adjusting their belief system to match. However, it is a different matter when they misrepresent science to support their beliefs. This is not usually done maliciously, but through a lack of understanding. It's compounded by the fact that scientists are not usually particularly eloquent at expressing their position and explaining the science so that the non-scientist is able to fully understand it. So, why does the debate of whether a God created the universe using the Big Bang and Evolution seem mutually exclusive with a universe that 'just happened'? It probably isn't. But people who believe in a God will be on the former side of the debate, and those who don't believe in God on the latter. It is no longer a debate about how the universe came into being, but a debate about whether a creator God exists, and you cannot appeal to science (at its current level of advancement) to prove God's existence or otherwise. The proof is not yet there either way. The thing that worries me about whether God created the universe is that it removes ignorance from the equation. Science thrives on ignorance. I'm not saying that ignorance is a good state to be in, but it is the starting point for science. Scientists must first admit ignorance in order to work out a new theory to fill the gap. I'll argue this from an historical perspective: Newton's Laws of Motion worked supremely well for us for centuries. There was nothing to suggest that they were not absolute laws that cannot be broken. At least, until the beginning of the last century. Einstein tried to apply Newton's Laws to light (which, at the time, was thought to be made up of particles, photons - that's a whole topic in itself, confusingly light is both a particle and a wave) and found they broke down. Suddenly we had a whole new area of ignorance which became the focus of Einstein's work. My fear is that, with all the gaps plugged by God, scientific enquiry risks grinding to a halt. Or worse, to be utterly opposed by more extreme elements in a Religion. It is a fear that was shared by the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (though he is on the other side) - as science advances, these gaps shrink and God is threatened by being left with nothing to do and nowhere to hide. This is the worst aspect of Religion, in my opinion, that we should be satisfied with not knowing or understanding because God did it. And that is why there are two sides to the debate and why the debate continues.
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| Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 01:14 pm Archaeology and the Great Flood I think the reason why we end up on opposite sides is simply because we must be interpreting the evidence differently, and God only knows why that is. Indeed. My position is that there is no conclusive evidence for or against the existence of a God or Gods. In the absence of evidence, I leave a question mark (the area of ignorance that science seeks to fill eventually). You have filled that question mark with the Christian God based on your interpretation of the Bible which you sought to justify in your previous post. I will try to deal with your points one at a time. They have found pieces of pottery throuhgout the Sinai Peninsula in the Judeo style. Which proves that Jews produced pottery and lived on the Sinai Peninsula. It says nothing about the truth of their beliefs. That said, I assume you mention this more as an introduction to what follows, than evidence that their beliefs are correct. There is evidence of a massive world-wide flood all over the world. It is true that most indigenous peoples and religions have a story of a Great Flood sent by a deity as an act of divine retribution. The Jewish story of Genesis is neither the earliest or most recent example. If this is considered to be evidence of the Judeo-Christian God, then you must try to prove that their version is more true than the other versions, or that the Bible is generally true, so that we must accept this part based on the veracity of the rest of the book (which still falls short of absolute proof). I can't find any convincing evidence of a World-Wide flood, perhaps you could point me towards some. However, there are plenty of hypotheses for the origin of the story in Humanity's greater consciousness: see this Wikipedia article. Some of the earliest stories are thought to have originated because of ancient observations of fossilised seashells and fish far inland and on mountains. Plate tectonics is a far simpler and better explanation of how they got there than a great flood. Another problem is that you would need to explain where all the water came from, and where it all went to cause a flood sufficient to cover the entire planet, but that could then drain away again without leaving a layer marking its occurrence in the deposits under the Earth's surface. I remain to be convinced of any Great Flood capable of covering the entire planet. The story of Noah's ark runs into further complications when you take into account the distribution of species following the subsidence of the flood. Conventional thought (and most Biblical scholars) suggests that if Noah had saved all species, they would have spread out after the flood from the landing site of the Ark (usually given as Mount Ararat in modern-day Turkey). Given that no human civilisation, nor other species, had the capability of building such an Ark before, say, 6000 years ago, you would need to explain how the creatures managed to get across to the Americas and spread over the rest of the Earth's surface in such a short time. Some argued that man must have taken them with him following his migration to all the continents after the destruction of the Tower of Babel, but why did Native Americans take rattlesnakes, but not horses? Particularly given that horses are ideal for carrying more than a human can bear. More liberal thinkers argue that the Great Flood was more localised and the story of the Ark (and its later discovery on top of Mount Ararat) exaggerated down the Ages so that the Ark didn't need to be so large, carry quite as many species (and their feed) and stay afloat for quite so long. But that then takes the story out of the divine retribution category and into a local response to local flooding, the story being exaggerated as it was passed down orally from one generation to the next. To me, this indicates that the early Judeo-Christian tradition was heavily influenced by widely-known ideas from other traditions and does not prove that their tradition was any more correct than others. Unless convincing evidence of a truly global flood arises, rather than a local one that may have spawned an Ark and an exaggerated story, I cannot accept the Judeo-Christian version any more than the Greek, Polynesian or Incan versions. Same with the Bimini Road in the Carribean. I doubt that the Bimini Road was man-made. It is equally possible to be the product of natural forces. Take a look at this article about the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. This is a natural phenomenon that was long thought to be man-made (well, Giant-made as its scale was too great to be human), a road linking Ireland and Scotland (there are similar structures in parts of Scotland). Similarly, according to this Wikipedia article about the Bimini Road, there is a possible natural explanation for it. Regular patterns in rock formations are often used as 'evidence' for design (be it by man, or God), but are usually the product of well-understood crystal formations reoriented by fault-lines and earthquakes to point vertically, rather than horizontally. The Origin of Life, aka abiogenesis The "spark" of life had to have only come from God. I just do not at all see how a bunch of amino acids and proteins can come together to form life. It just simply makes no sense to me. Just because you cannot see the natural explanation for something, does not mean that there isn't a natural explanation. I admit that we do not have convincing evidence for the 'spark' of life, but that is just another of those areas of ignorance that we scientists are so fond of (it keeps the grant money rolling in)! If it were true, then where would the line between life and non-life be? I don't think I could ever get my head around that. Hmm, difficult one, this. Organic molecules can arise naturally without life, although it is true to say that they are much much much more common if there is some life around to produce them. But organic molecules are not life (usually just a by-product of it). For something to be defined as life, rather than non-life, then you must look to something that can 'reproduce' in some form or another. Once you have something, even a very simple something, that can copy itself, then Natural Selection can take over and you get gradually more complicated life (over the next few billion years). So, what we need is a primaeval soup of non-replicating organic molecules that, given a one-in-a-billion chance, get the opportunity to form something that can replicate itself. The current candidate is RNA and there are some interesting experiments being carried out to see if RNA can spontaneously form given conditions similar to those of the early Earth. Take a look at this article on Wikipedia for more. We are still short of convincing evidence, but it's a rather elusive goal. What scientists are trying to recreate in the laboratory, are conditions that existed on Earth over a massive surface area for a period of hundreds of millions of years. On Earth life only had to start once, somewhere on that surface, sometime during those millions of years. In the lab, we can't wait that long and we would rather have something that fitted in a test tube rather than extends over the whole planet! To return to what I was talking about in my last post about chance and the origin of life. If we apply the Anthropic Principle to our planet, we can argue that there are literally billions of similar planets in the universe (remember the billions of stars with billions of planets orbiting them). We can look at distant stars and see that they are made up of the same mixture of elements that ours is (search for Spectroscopy to find out how); we know that other stars have planets orbiting around them; so it is not impossible that we have a few hundred billion planets covered in this primaeval soup. That gives life plenty of space to form in (and makes it damn hard to recreate in a sufficient quantity in the lab). So, we lack conclusive proof, but it is far from impossible. Creation of the Universe with or without a God Same goes for the cretion of the god-less universe. One of the biggest laws of physics (I believe was one of Einsteins theory) is that matter is neither created nor destroyed. If that is the case, WHERE would all of this matter come from to begin with? You're close: Einstein's Theory of Relativity states that matter-energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This does not mean that there is a fixed amount of matter and a fixed amount of energy in the universe, but there is thought to be a fixed amount of matter AND energy. The two can be converted according to Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2. Remember what I said about the universe having equal amounts of matter and anti-matter? Well, that is far more matter than there is in the universe today - it annihilated to produce a whole lot of energy. BUT, that still doesn't explain where this matter and energy came from. The truth is, this is another one of those issues where I have to say, I don't know, or rather humanity doesn't know (yet). There are theories relying on multiple universes (which also helps to explain some of the weirder aspects of Quantum Physics), but that only pushes the question further away - how were these multiple universes created? At the moment, we can describe the universe (all of creation as we know it) using six numbers. These six numbers govern the strength of the fundamental forces which govern all the physical laws of nature (motion, gravity, nuclear fission and fusion, and thus chemistry, biology, etc.). So, given that energy can be converted into matter, and both matter and energy are governed by the four fundamental forces which, in turn, are governed by these six constants. To produce existence as we know it, you need an input of energy, plus these six constants which have to be set to particular values for the universe to evolve the way it has. There are suggestions that black holes spew out matter-energy into a new universe with slightly different values for these six constants. If they were too different, then the new universe would be unlikely to be able to form black holes to produce its own daughter universes. We then have an evolution of universes situation which is governed by Natural Selection ultimately to produce a universe with the six constants set to the values we know and love. There is even some evidence for multiple universes but it is far from convincing at the moment (the Cosmic Background Radiation might be slightly warmer in one direction than the other; this might suggest that our universe was spawned off another). In any case, that only pushes the question further away (it's called an infinite regression, I think). The question is either: What created the universe; or what created the multiple universes? You could argue that God created this universe. In other words, God tweaked the six constants until the energy he put into the universe turned into the universe we know today. You could equally argue that God created the multiple universes designed to ultimately produce a universe with the six constants we know today. For simplicity's sake, I will ignore the multiple universes argument - it messes too much with my head. Better to simplify the question and ask what created the universe - God, something else, or nothing? You would answer 'God', I would answer 'something else or nothing' [if nothing else, that puts chance on my side - I get two of the three answers ;-P ]. I don't have proof that God didn't create the universe, but I remain to be convinced that there is evidence that He did create the universe. In any case, if God did create the universe, what created God? We're back to the infinite regression of the multiple universes argument above. You could argue that God didn't need a cause, but if that's the case, why does the universe need a cause? Why can't the universe exist and that be that? Furthermore, if He exists and didn't need a cause, that still doesn't mean that it is the Christian God any more than it could be Zeus, Thor, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster! So, thus far we have not reached any firm conclusions. I agree that the evidence and arguments we have discussed allow for an interpretation of God's existence; I hope you would agree that they could also be interpreted to deny God's existence. One last comment on the infinite regression idea. The following is taken from A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (quoted from this Wikipedia article:
Religious Scientists: Einstein, Hawking
Einstein was not Christian. At least, not by the time time of his death. Try to find Nobel Prize winning Christians (in the scientific disciplines) and you'll find fewer than ten out of the hundreds that have won them. For those scientists who are claimed to have undergone a deathbed conversion, I would be very sceptical. Even Richard Dawkins has suffered reports of a deathbed conversion and he is still very much alive! Here is another quote from Einstein suggesting that he is not Christian (furthermore, he was Jewish and had to flee Nazi oppression so it is doubly unlikely that he was Christian - very few people change religion during their lifetime):
He may have been a deist, someone who believes in a God that reveals himself in the harmony and order of what exists, but does not concern himself with the fates and actions of us humans. This suggests he believed that a God created the universe, and then took no further interest in it. It is also borne out by his opposition to Quantum Physics which suggested that the universe is inherently probabilistic - this was the cause of his much quoted phrase "God does not play dice". Whether his ultimate acceptance of Quantum Physics lead him away from deism towards his death is unclear. I am less familiar with Hawking's view of God although I strongly suspect that it is more along the lines of Einstein's deism than Newton's Christianity. Thanks for the link to his site, the article "Does God play dice?" is certainly very interesting and is a very good introduction to Quantum Physics and its relation to Relativity. Last couple of points on your post LMAO!! That's actually TRUE?? See, I have great common sense. I made that up, because I thought of what happens to a glass of water when you dump it on the ground. Be VERY wary of making things up when discussing philosophical and scientific points. There may be someone like me reading who can point out horrendous errors. You're very lucky you got away with it this time. The analogy with a glass of water is wrong - the water will drain away into the soil or cracks in the pavement, or it will evaporate. The expansion of the universe will eventually make it impossible for the fundamental forces to bind atoms together ultimately resulting in conversion of all matter into energy. This is a fundamentally different process. The sun's rays would not even have been able to penetrate the cloud cover, it was so thick. Look at Venus right now. Even the surface of Venus is not completely dark. There are near continual flashes of lightning. The moon controls the tides, which is a HUGE, but lesser, factor in how life works on earth. Actually, there are a number of theories that suggest that the moon is nearly vital to maintain life on Earth. Tides create pools of water which are replenished on a regular time-scale which act as crèches for various creatures. It also keeps the planet on a much more even tilt. All planets wobble to a greater or lesser extent - Uranus is effectively lying on its side as it orbits the Sun meaning that its poles are pointing towards/away from the Sun for much of its year. The Earth would be doing something similar were it not for the influence of the moon. If that were the case, I don't think complex life could have evolved if parts of the planet were alternately baking and freezing, not to mention the extreme weather conditions that would develop due to this temperature imbalance. Hope this post makes sense. I kind of thought about all this in my own mind a long time ago, but have never actually been able to put it into words, until now. Since you broke it up all nice like that, made it much easier to explain my position. It does, and it is admirable that you have taken the time to think your position through. In my opinion, a lot of the problem with extremist elements in ALL religions stems from the fact that many people do not bother to think their position through clearly. I wish, rather than the Religious Education lessons I had at school (which were more like Religious Indoctrination lessons), we had been encouraged to investigate, debate and argue the points carefully. Fortunately, science and history lessons taught me well in that respect.
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| Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 01:14 pm Moving the debate on I think we could be here until the ends of the Earth discussing individual points about the validity of the scientific claims and interpretations in the Bible. I would like to move on to a slightly more general discussion on the same subject. Yes, the Bible contains a number of accurate scientific ideas, as well as a number of vague ideas that can be interpreted in such a way as to be believable. However, it also contains a vast number of patently false scientific ideas, some of which were already known to be untrue at the time of writing. The Flat Earth theory that I mentioned some while back, for example. The Ancient Greeks knew that the Earth was round (well, close to - it's an 'oblate spheroid', i.e., a slightly flattened sphere) so it is not unreasonable to assume that the idea would have spread to much of the Roman world by the time the New Testament was written. Why did the NT writers not correct the Flat Earth idea (or have I missed it)? To be fair, very few people believed that the Earth was flat until the 19th Century (few thought that Columbus would fall off the edge when he set off for India the long way), but since then a number have used the infallibility of the Bible as 'evidence' for a Flat Earth. Jesus is also well-known for cursing fig trees: Matthew 21:19 And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. Mark 11:13-4 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. Aside from being a rather ridiculous thing to curse a fig tree for, Jesus was passing it in April well outside the fig-season. This is the prompt for the wonderful parody site for Fred Phelps: God Hates Figs. Matthew 4:8 The devil kidnaps Jesus and takes him up to the top of the temple, and then to the top of "an exceedingly high mountain," high enough to see "all the kingdoms of the world." I guess the earth was flat in those days. More Flat Earth nonsense. Matthew 13:31-32 Jesus is incorrect when he says that the mustard seed is the smallest seed. And since there are no trees in the mustard family, mustard seeds do not grow into "the greatest of all trees." Matthew 27:45, 51-53 When Jesus was crucified, there was three hours of complete darkness "over all the land." And when he died, there was a great earthquake with many corpses walking the streets of Jerusalem. It is strange that there is no record of any of these extraordinary events outside of the gospels. Romans 10:18 Paul says that everyone, even in his day, had the gospel preached to them. Even the Native Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders? 1 Corinthians 15:36 Paul shows his ignorance (and God's) of biology by saying that only dead seeds will germinate. Actually, a seed must be alive to germinate. Hebrews 1:10 God set the earth on a foundation; therefore, it does not move. (More Flat-Earth-ism) James 3:7 James says that, even in his day, all beasts, birds, serpents, and sea creatures had been tamed by humans. There are also huge questions about the story relating to Jesus' birth (aside from the non-scientific idea of a virgin birth). Supposedly there was a census being conducted which is why Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem. Although censuses were conducted around that time, nobody was ever asked to return to their city of birth - that's not how censuses were conducted. It is also inconceivable that there would be no records left from this census - if every town and city had to send their data to the capital, then that should mean there were two copies (they would have had to retain one in case the one they sent got lost en route). Surely a few must survive, even if not the one's returned from Bethlehem? We have found none. Now, bearing in mind the historical inaccuracies in the Bible, the dodgy science and the need to re-interpret a lot of it, why do you believe in the Christian God rather than any other? The Qur'an is also full of seemingly correct science (see The Quranic Teachings for example). Have you fully considered the teachings of the Qur'an before deciding to follow the Christian Bible? (The Qu'ran is full of scientific errors as well, see The Qur'an and Science). Given that the Ancient Greeks were aware that the Earth was round, whereas the early Christians and Muslims were not, does this not support the existence of Zeus and his pantheon of Gods? My fear is that you have taken Pascal's Wager but only considered the Faith that you were brought up in. Your interest in science would lead me to believe that you were more of a deist along the lines of Einstein than someone who believed in a specifically Christian God. Whether or not you believe that Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe in the same God (as you said in your first post), you have decided that the Christian version of things is the one for you. Why?
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| Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 07:39 pm I only made it through about 30% your post (TLDR syndrome here) but I thought I'd chyme in for the hell of it. As for my beliefs, I believe in God. I'm really not too sure what/who god is, because I disagree with basically every established religion out there. Spirituality, or a belief that there IS something greater than us out there, is as much faith as you're going to get out of me. I kid you not, I hold NOTHING in as much contempt as I do someone who quotes the bible in an argument in order to prove their point or someone who makes judgement on me because I don't blindly share their beliefs and customs. Where science trumps religion is thus: Science methodically attempts to theorize and prove based on cause-effect, mathematics etc. Religion largely takes old stories written thousands of years ago by men who usually had only their own interests in mind and present them as fact.
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| Saturday, August 16, 2008 - 01:32 am Zet, I read through all of your posts. I have not the time right now to give any arguments, point-by-point, like I have been. I will reply soon, in the next day or two. I have to get to the gym before they close and I have a school project to work on. Hopefully by Sunday I can reply. The only response I want to give for now is about this: "LMAO!! That's actually TRUE?? See, I have great common sense. I made that up, because I thought of what happens to a glass of water when you dump it on the ground. Be VERY wary of making things up when discussing philosophical and scientific points. There may be someone like me reading who can point out horrendous errors. You're very lucky you got away with it this time. The analogy with a glass of water is wrong - the water will drain away into the soil or cracks in the pavement, or it will evaporate. The expansion of the universe will eventually make it impossible for the fundamental forces to bind atoms together ultimately resulting in conversion of all matter into energy. This is a fundamentally different process." Sorry. I know I should not be making any assumptions, especially when making arguments with someone who is far superior in scientific knowledge than I am. I was also thinking more along the terms of dumping a glass of water into an empty swimming pool. The water would be about 6 inches deep in a glass, but would spread out to nothingness in something as large as a swimming pool, with a liner so it cannot seep into the ground. It would eventually evaporate, but before it does so, it does spread out just to make a small portion of said pool a bit damp. And if you were to put...say...a few seeds or something in the glass, they would certainly spread apart from one another. That was what I have always attributed to what they mean by "the universe is expanding" theory and some of the problems it would create for anyone who is alive to see the universe just kind of "float away." Only in the universe, the "seeds" (planets and starts and such) would, themselves, tear apart as well, whereas seeds in a glass being dumped in a pool would not, and I do understand this. As for the whole "multiple universes," and "where did God come from" thing, if it makes YOUR head hurt, imagine what it does to me! which is why I did not want to go there to begin with. I would just rather assume this is the only universe (even though I understand this may not be correct in any way), just for simplicity sakes. Especially considering this is the only universe with any significance for us meer humans, as far as we know. Or may ever know. Also: The Wiki is a great source of info, and will take it for granted that it is correct, knowing the things published were written by random people. But for simplicity sake, especially with all the links to outside sources at the bottom of the pages, I will consider everything in these articles to be true, in order to give your arguments more credence. I rather enjoy this debate. Also, the whole Bible thing with the mustard seed, and fig trees and things, I'll get into that with my other post. But for now, I just want to tell you that, again, the Bible should not be taken literally all the time. Jesus constantly used parables, which are stories that are not literally true, in order to describe the order of things, such as morality, healing, and beliefs and such to regular people with no prior knowledge of much of anything. I think all these stories handed down through the generations are used in much the same way. I would like to explain the fig trees and others when I get the chance. But for now: Ciao!
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| Saturday, August 16, 2008 - 03:58 am Ok, so I am not going to the gym. My sister-in-law ended up getting hurt, and my twin had to drive her to the hospital. Nothing serious, she was playing softball, and is the catcher. The batter swung the bat, slipped out of her hand, and caught her on the wrist. I guess there is a small hair-line fracture. I don't like to work out without him. It just isn't the same.... Anyway, I have time to make my response now. First off: your entire first post. I do not have much to say except that, no matter what I say about proof/evidence for a God, will not sway your beliefs to mine, nor do I intend to try to do so. And your views and interpretations of the so-called "evidence" about God, will like-wise not sway me towards yours on the subject matter. We seem to be at completely opposite ends of the spectrum on that. And seems, like-wise, from your previous posts, that we are from opposite ends in our political views as well. But that is ok. You say tomahto, I say tomato. Neither one of us is going to be "right" in the others' view on that. As for the "Great Flood," the earth, remember, goes through many cold and warm periods. Maybe, during "The Great Flood" the earth happened to have been passing through a particularly warm period, and so the ice caps could have been melted away, thereby leaving very little dry land in the world. Places like the Himalayas, and the Rockies would have been paradise-type islands. Now, that point is only made for the possibility that such an even COULD have been possible. Do I believe the earth was that compeletly covered in water: Of course not! Maybe the caps were not totally melted, and so left more vast lands than merely islands, dry. I believe Noah's Ark actually did exist, but, like you had mentioned, could have ended up being totally exagerated. I also do not see how it is possible a boat could have been filled with all the species of the world, no matter how well the engineering was. I believe the boat DID carry, what could have seemed, to have been a great many species. I also do not know about the whole 40 days and 40 nights on the boat. But I do believe the purpose could have been the same: a group of people...in this case, the ancestors to the Jews, could have built such a vessel to escape some sort of calamity that God was bringing to the Earth. I guess you could consider myself to be one of those "more liberal thinkers" on in that regard. I don't really want to get into the whole "God-created universe," vs "godless universe that just happened with mulitple universes," thing again. I just say that God is a computer programmer, and intervenes in human affairs from time-to-time. Mostly when He just feels like it. He is so eternal, that us humans who happen to live in times in which God does not intervene (mostly in the past 2000 years) seems like He takes no interest in the human race at all. Which, I guess, is the reason for sending His Son to save us, because maybe he is getting tired and saddened of constantly having to berate us evil humans all the damn time. "Actually, there are a number of theories that suggest that the moon is nearly vital to maintain life on Earth. Tides create pools of water which are replenished on a regular time-scale which act as crèches for various creatures." Something happened to that crA-ish kind of word..... But you go on explaining about lightning on Venus. Lightning is HARDLY day-light...sorry, but I do not know what you were insinuating on this point, and I kinda think you missed my point on that particular subject. The Earth...being Venus-like...of course would have a ton of lightning, but can hardly sufficiently be called REAL light, as compared to the light from the sun. My point is that, at some point in time, sunlight finally filters through the immense cloud-cover, and finally brings potentially life-supporting energy to the planet. And about the moon have nearly the same effects as the sun in supporting life: I went back and read the part of Genesis where God divides the day form the night, after reading what you posted about the moon being nearly the equal of the sun in supporting life, and was quite surprised: The Bible does not seem to favor the sun over the moon...or day over night, if you read the text. So your "theory" would seem to corroberate with the Bible on that point! Jeez, there are always new surprises in The Book, when one continues to study it. I guess that is why many scholars, both Cristian and secular, study Scripture their entire life. There seems to be always something new that pops out. Now: to get to the MEAT of my post. (I am going to use caps on key words, in order to emphasize my points. I apologize if this irritates you.) The fig tree that Jesus cursed, is because the tree did not have any fruit for him, despite the fact that is was not the season for fruit. Fruit is VERY VERY representational, both in the Bible, and in literature in general! Like I have said in the above post, Jesus uses parables in his teachings all time. His parables are not LITERALLY TRUE, they just REPRESENT the truth. Actually, I was searching on Google for a better way to explain this, since I always seem to write things that are confusing, and not clear enough. That is one of my huge downfalls in a debate. I know what i WANT to say, but just can't seem to be ABLE to say it. So, heres the link to the fig tree thing. http://atheism.about.com/od/biblegospelofmark/a/mark11b.htm It is VERY short, but does a great job in describing the Fig Tree thing. I am going to the final thoughts of this for a second, because I happened to have found this quite interesting: "The second thing to note here is that incidents like this in the gospels were part of what helped fuel Christian antisemitism. Why should Christians harbor warm feelings towards Jews when they and their religion have been cursed for not bearing fruit? Why should Jews be treated well when God has determined that they should reject the Messiah?" For those who believe the Apocolypse will happen (I have yet to find my true beliefs on this subject), this very passage here is proof positive that the apocolypse is going to happen soon. Christians are SUPPOSED to treat Jews with contempt. It is in God's plans, whatever they are. That fact that Christianity, even more so after John Paul the II became the Pope during the Cold War, is beginning to not only respect the Jews, but actually WELCOMING them, and considering them to be our BROTHERS can be taken as a sure sign to some that the apocolypse is, indeed, at hand. I don't really intend for that last message to go much further. I just found this very interesting as I was reading that passage. But if it does...it does....Just kind of intrigued me a bit. I know that Fred Phelps thing is mostly just satirical, just to get a few laughs, and you probably just posted that in jest. I have no idea. but in case is was not, I wanted to provide further insight into those particular areas in Matthew. Actually, this is a very interesting section on about.com. It pretty much sums up the beliefs of the Non-demoniational Christian, such as myself in plain, simple arguments against agnosticism. The mustard seed: The Bible makes it VERY plain that says, right off, that the mustard seed is used as a metaphor: Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God LIKE? and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is LIKE a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it. – Luke 13:18–9 And again: And he said, Whereunto shall we LIKEN the kingdom of God? or with what COMPARISON shall we COMPARE it? It is LIKE a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. – Mark 4:30–2 Again in Matthew: Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is LIKE to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. – Matthew 13:31–2 And in Thomas: The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us what Heaven's kingdom is LIKE." He said to them, "It's LIKE a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky." – Thomas 20 Quoted from Wiki: The Complete Gospels notes for Matthew 13:31: "The mustard seed's smallness was proverbial, but it hardly grows up to become a tree." and for Luke 13:19: "Jewish law prohibited the growing of mustard seed in a garden. Mustard is a shrub, not a tree." The Jesus Seminar, which produced the Complete Gospels, rated this saying as one of its 15 red sayings. John Dominic Crossan has proposed that this parable[1], and others, are intentionally provocative. He points out that in Mediterranean climates, such as Galilee, black mustard is a managed weed. The analogy may be that the "Kingdom of God" is ubiquitous, persistently in our presence in the here and now. It also satirizes the aggrandized simile of temporal power as a mighty oak or cedar It would be obvious to state that the Kingdom of God is like the mighty Lebanon cedar which also starts from a small seed, but instead Jesus says it's like the mustard weed. Does that mean the kingdom is something people try to control? Crossan claims this is part of the Historical Jesus' style, rather than taking literal quotes from the Bible and commenting on them, HE USES THE PARABLES TO GENERATE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE TOPICS WHICH JUST HAPPEN TO BE PART OF THE BIBLE. Crossan also points out that by TEACHING IN PARABLES, RIGHT FROMT HE START JESUS WAS OPEN FOR INTERPRETATION, WHICH HE WOULDN't HAVE BEEN IF HE MERELY TAUGHT SERMONS AND DIRECTLY TOLD THE PEOPLE WHAT TO THINK AND HOW TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE. Evangelical scholars would dispute Crossan's hermeneutic, seeing it as faulty in that it would in their understanding distort Jesus' intent in using parables. I happen to agree with Crossan on this point. I very much dislike Evangelicals anyway. They are the ones that shove Christian beliefs down other peoples' throats, using all kinds of flowery words, but are, themselves, only human as well, and thereby, seeming to be hipocrites by others. I would rather try to come to an understanding with others' beliefs, and explain my own position, as well as try to spread Christianity through actions, rather than words. That is rather an impossible thing to do on a forum, which is why I have no intentions on trying to "convert" you, or anyone else for that matter. I am just merely stating my position on things. Besides, if I were to preach, I would ALWAYS start out with "What Would Jesus Do?" Or "What does the Bible say that Jesus Said?" I do not try to tell other people what they should or should not do. Besides, I do not preach anyways. I also happen to believe that if humanity has survived as long as it has without completely killing ourselves off to discover all the great things that science has discovered, we were meant to make these discoveries. Maybe God just wants, desperately, to reveal ALL of his great works, and the immense complexity that went into them, to us humans, and any other intelligent creatures that may be out there. (I do not reject the idea of life on other planets out of hand at all.) Which is why Jesus would WANT the Bible to be open for interpretation. Maybe it is His way of teaching us to be more open-minded towards other people's feelings. That would go perfectly hand-in-hand with loving one another. And all of His other great teachings. If nothing else, even atheists, such as yourself, can learn a thing or two in the Bible. Even if it only from the Wisdom Books. You may not believe in the Bible, but you cannot completely reject the Wisdom and insight it can provide. This is VERY apt here: Proverbs, 24:3: By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. (From the NIV). This verse here seems to be convincing towards Crossan's view of Jesus' teachings. I like the language used in the NIV. It is, by far, much more beautiful, and I happen to take the meaning a lot easier. About the Quaran, and why I believe what I believe over other religions: Well, first off, I reject the Quran right off hand from what I have heard is written in the book. Mostly because I hear from other researchers/scholars and others of that type how Muhammed's teachings are not consistent with the Christ Jesus. The Muslims take Muhammeds word as being SUPERIOR to the Christ's. Any mere human prophets whose word is taken over Jesus, I immediately take as false. Now, a couple of things here about this: I have not read the Quaran. I should, and probably will at some point. (Is it printed in English? If not, I will end up never reading it, and will only HAVE to go on what scholars say about it.) And since I have not read it, my opinion on this subject cannot be taken too seriously. I am sure there are many things I could learn from the Quran, as there are for any religious text, just like there are things for OTHER people to learn from the Bible. I almost fall into the whole "radical religious" person on this matter. But one can only read so much in one's lifetime anyway, especially if one is in college, trying to start a new career, and thinking of making a family someday. So, it is what it is I guess. The Jews: I know a lot about Judaism. The ONLY difference I kind of clash on with the Jews is, of course, VERY obviously, the issue of Jesus as Messiah. Other than that, our history goes hand-in-hand with the Jews, and I would welcome any Jew into my home any time...Well, I would welcome any human being, of any nationality/religion/non-religion into my home, for conversations with others' can be quite....interesting.... There are many, even more liberal, Christians who believe that Jesus actually STUDIED Buddhism, for his teachings of morality seem to be very consistent with the Buddhists. I just do not happen to agree with that too much myself. There is always the possibility this is true, I just think the chances are quite slim. Moonbox: "I kid you not, I hold NOTHING in as much contempt as I do someone who quotes the bible in an argument in order to prove their point or someone who makes judgement on me because I don't blindly share their beliefs and customs. Where science trumps religion is thus: Science methodically attempts to theorize and prove based on cause-effect, mathematics etc. Religion largely takes old stories written thousands of years ago by men who usually had only their own interests in mind and present them as fact." You would do well to actually READ the Bible if you were to try to debate with a truly non-denominational Christian, such as myself. You will get slaughtered with any scientific data/ Bible quotes that they can find. If nothing else, like I have already mentioned in this post: Even the Wisdom Books can teach quite a bit to even non-believers. I'll let you know that many non-denominational Chritians study, or HAVE studied science in their lifetimes. Likewise for Muslims and Jews I am sure. So, unless you come to accept SOME of the teachings that you could possibly find in these books, what you say without any kind of scientific/religious backing (and if arguing with a scientist, religious writings have to be backed up with interpreting the text, in order to have a valid argument. The reason for having to interpret text, has already been covered in this post: We are SUPPOSED to interpret, and NOT take it literally. My largest opinions have already been formed, and the more minor ones are still being formed. Others probably will never be formed at all, due to the limit of my intelligence.) At least I am willing to learn.
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 04:21 am My main issue with organised religion is that it tends encourage blind faith in some instances when it's not appropriate. Conflicts in religious beliefs have also been the cause of many of the worst atrocities ever conducted by mankind. Does this make religion "evil?" No. It's the people acting in the name of religion that are the problem. People should be willing to die for their beliefs, but not to kill for them. Belief in itself is a beautiful thing. It can inspire hope, love and drive us in our darkest hour. But then religion and belief/faith do not have to be one and the same. I do not believe that Science and Religion are mutually exclusive. They both clearly play an important part in the nature of the collective human psyche. There is even room for some overlap between the two. The realm of science should be in helping us understand the world and universe arround us. The realm of religion should be in helping us understand and explore within ourselves. My own belief system doesn't hold much space for a diety. The deck seems heavily stacked against him/her from where I'm sitting. But who knows; maybe they're hiding a royal flush? We just can't see it. Belief systems change. Religion evolves. Christianity takes many of it's most sacred events and beliefs from a whole array of pagan celebrations, and even a Roman event or two. The midwinter's celebration which we now know as Christmas seems the most obvious. Celebrations and feasting the winter solstice has been a common theme throughout human civilization since it first emerged on this little planet. The place in the world where Religion and Science should meet is in that place between fact and faith where we can all find ourselves. It's that feeling of curiosity you get when you utter the phrase "I don't know." That statement is the most important in all of science and religion. It invariably leads us to the question; "Why?" And why leads us on to the one goal which Science and Religion do share. The search for truth.
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 05:31 am Have any of you read Genesis in the original Hebrew? What you are disputing is the King James translation. 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. The original Hebrew... 1 In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth -- 2 the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness is on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters, Thus we have a beginning. Not a singular earth centered creation but the entire universe being created from a specific point. I think creation would be a loud process so Big Bang is as good a term as any. It makes no mention of how long this planet existed waste and void. Or how long the creation actually took, 6 billion years is as good a number as any. The problem is not in God its in our limited ability to think outside our narrow comfort zone we call reality. As we are created beings and have a limited life span the idea of an uncreated creator who has always existed is difficult to really understand. So we invented religion to explain this to ourselves. Bad idea. Anytime other people get involved in such a personal journey it turns out poorly. I use the Bible as it is one of the words of God the vast bulk people are familiar with. The Torah, The Quran, and the Bible are so interrelated its difficult to seperate them in the first few chapters. I would also suggest The Gospel of Buddha, The Tao Ching, The Bhagavad-Gita , Guru Granth Sahib, and the Masnavi. Each has important lessons to teach. Zeta its ok if you dont believe in the Creator...You just have not started looking yet 
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 07:10 am Wow, very good posts, both of those. Seems both you, Zeta, and Guru have finally found the middle ground in this long debate between me and Zeta. I never really believed the KJV, the NIV, or any other versions after the KJV saying how God created the Earth in 7 days. I was always trying to figure out, for myself, what "seven days" actually meant. The only real conclusion I was ever able to come up with is that whoever wrote those versions wanted to explain where we got the seven days in the week, and why the last day (whether it is saturday or sunday, depending on the culture) is reserved for worship time. I never once believed, even during my Catholic School Indoctrination Days, that the Bible literally meant "seven days." Weird how on the one hand I had a science class being taught by a nun (Sister Demontfort...aka: Sister Demon Fart LOL) in which she taught Earth Science. Plate Tectonics, the fossil record, the weather and all of that. And on the other hand, that very same school was teaching about creation, and how God literally created the Earth in seven days, and Adam and Eve were created soon thereafter. Just made no sense, and confused this former seventh grader to no end. So I had to do my OWN reading, and come to my OWN conclusions in later years, which makes FAR more sense. I like how you put it: that when everything was created by the Great Creator, it had to have been loud. That is so very true. Who says that when God, or any other Being by any other names, created the universe that it was silent? notice the Bible never once mentioned anywhere the creation of sound, or sound waves? It mentions light being created, but not sound. Maybe that is the very first thing that happened? Huh. About the religions causing all kinds of undue hardships throughout human history: While that may be true, it was here in America and Great Britain, around the same time period, in which harmonization FINALLY occured. All the good Christians of these two countries realized, "Hey! There is no way Jesus would want to see us killing, and torturing others' because of their different faiths, or lack thereof." And so it started to become fashionable to condemn persecutions based on differing faiths. The United States would eventually pass many racial hatred laws after the Civil War. War crimes trials became huge during the 20th century. And now there are massive protests around the world over events such as Darfur and Tibet. Organized religion has played a key role trying to end what it started. Pope John Paul II is one of my favorite heroes of all time, even though I do not consider myself a Catholic anymore. He did so much work in peacufully opposing, and putting pressure on, Communism, fascism, bring Catholics and Jews closer together in their relations. In fact, he even welcomed people of other faiths besides Jews and other Christians. Anyway, I am just curious. Do you believe in any kind of after-life at all Zeta? Like ghosts and things, or do you think that when our bodies die, we no longer exist? I am only curious. Death is one of the greatest mysteries of all. One in which science will never be able to determine what happens in death.
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 11:55 am I'll let you know after I die. I don't believe in the theological heaven and hell. But I believe in the soul. I believe that every living creature has one. But what happens to it when the body dies is anybody's guess.
I don't intend to start looking. If any all-powerful being wanted me to believe in them, they would have made me. If free will is truly something given by a God, then the fact that I don't believe in one suggests to me that that is the way they want it to be. If God does exist, he doesn't want my belief just yet.
True, perhaps. But I don't think religion could ever explain it fully either. When it comes down to it, even the book of God was written by man. And humans err. It's nature. And there have been far too many cases of religion getting the facts wrong in the past for me to put all of my eggs in the one basket. My religious beliefs, whatever form they may take, let me explore who I am within my own moral framework. It's a poor way to explain the world around me, because blind faith leads to so many errors when understanding the universe. On the other hand, science and the ever expanding boundaries of knowledge explain the universe around me in a way I can see, understand and fully comprehend. But at the same time, it does nothing to help me through my inner troubles or develop as a person. I think I may just go off and join the Q continuum. Gods, with a sense of humour. Can't be too far wrong.
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 05:57 pm Science was created by man. Far too many theories and postulations to be truth. Truth is self evident and needs no further validation. I am not disputing its value in creating products for commerce. But in its totality science has created far more problems for mankind than solutions.
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 06:33 pm Truth is self-evident, my ass. Those are axioms, not truth. Which are still very dogmatic, but necessary. "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde has spoken! Bow, heathens!
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 07:23 pm Three things cannot be long hidden: The Sun, The Moon, and Truth. The Gospel of Buddha
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 07:26 pm Oscar Wilde > Buddha. Pwned.
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 08:49 pm If truth were self-evident, then why did it take the Catholic Church until 1992 to accept the heliocentric nature of the solar system? (Sorry to pick on Catholocism, but is was the first that came to mind) Some truths are self-evident. Many more are hidden and obscure. You have to look for them. Science only creates problems in the wrong hands, like any tool in the untrained hand.
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| Sunday, August 17, 2008 - 11:31 pm No, not all truths are self-evident, as zeta and JR have said. Most people who believe in a god, believe also in an anti-god. That would be Satan's job. The anti-god is pretty darn successful in hiding the truth form us mere mortals. All truths ARE self-evident ONLY to God. But to us, they are not. Maybe they also are for those who have already died, but who knows? So you DO believe in an afterlife, like souls and things? Where would they come from then, in a purely scientific sense I wonder. Huh, that is kind of interesting...
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| Monday, August 18, 2008 - 12:50 am You are confusing Religion and Faith. The two are mutually exclusive topics. Science creates a problem and then works to solve it. Its job security I suppose.
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| Monday, August 18, 2008 - 01:25 am Your right. Catholicism is a religion. Christianity is a faith. The difference: Catholics have all these ritualistic ceremonies that seem to not mean anything to anybody. Christianity does not go through all of that. Either you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, or you don't.
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| Monday, August 18, 2008 - 01:45 am Christianity is a religion. Faith is a universal human trait. It has no doctrines or dogma. It simply is.
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| Monday, August 18, 2008 - 01:54 am Yeah, its biological. It could only mean that, but the gene has been identified to support the claim, as if it wasn't enough. And that's a kick on free will right in the kidneys, for future reference.
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| Monday, August 18, 2008 - 03:46 am I see my point was missed. Quite sad really.
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| Monday, August 18, 2008 - 05:04 am Not at all Zeta. I don't think we are looking at the same point in the conversation. I was pointing out that any particular religion you can name is not Faith. All religion is a man created explanation of our existence. As such it is fallible and biased from a human centric point of view. Its acceptance of any other perceived truth would naturally be biased to protect its own perceived truths. Be it science, religion, or philosophy each path is equally reluctant to "share the spotlight" so to speak with the others. Each path requires faith but none are Faith.
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| Monday, August 18, 2008 - 05:17 am Faith= belief in that which cannot be proven
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| Monday, August 18, 2008 - 05:55 am Umm, Guru, Christianity IS a faith, not a religion. I say Christianity, not Baptist, not Catholicism, not Protstantism, all of those are religions. TRUE Christianity...I mean the one in which you TRULY HAVE FAITH in Jesus Christ as being your Lord and Savior....THAT is Faith. That is what Christianity is supposed to be all about. It is all about Jesus as Messiah. That is the fundamental difference between judaism and Islam. The traditions are make religion, religion. I can also be the glue which binds the people of the same FAITH. They go hand-in-hand, really. But they are not the same, and are not to be confused with one another. Where my faith, according to the definition used by Bob, comes from, is the fact that I have faith in Jesus Christ, that He can make all things better in the end. That is the only faith I have. That is also the only faith that I need. All that other stuff, such as the long debate between me and Zeta about Creation vs Evolution, is what I believe to be truths which can be proven through the use of science. I just happen to believe that there is mixture of both Creationism and Evolution. That they are not mutually exclusive. I have already pointed ell of this out throughout this thread. And have listed, point by point, why this makes sense to me. The only thing I happen to take on what Zeta would called being "blind faith" is over the fact that I know in my heart that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross in order to cleanse our sins away. Everything else does not matter, and pales in comparison to my one and only Faith. There are millions more Americans who are non-denominational Christians as well. It is actually a very fast growing movement. There are two major non-denominational groups that are growing very quickly in this great country of ours. There is Evangelism, and then there are those who are opposed to Evangelism. There is no name to people like me. We do not believe in labeling ourselves other than just simply "Christian." We live our lives, and "preach" though action, not words. Well, not so many words anyway. We do not get up in front of huge crowds wearing $1000 + suits and ties with $300 microphones, with $3500 LCD screen monitors using $1500 projectors projecting lyrics typed on a $2500 computer onto a $500 50 ft. screen. All the while singing touchy-feely songs, while each person only donate maybe a buck in order to support all of these overly flashy expensive technologies. No, I would much rather become a teacher in a high school, maybe in Philly, or Pitt or somewhere. I would love to travel to Africa as part of an American Red Cross team during summer breaks. I would only drive a Hybrid car (if I can ever afford one) to get to work during the winter. Now here I am bragging about what I want/plan on doing in the future. Now you can go ahead and label me as a hipocrite. The point is, I would much rather have hope in a loving Father, who loves us so much, he is willing to suffer and die on a cross in order to relieve us of our sins so that we can get to heaven when our physical bodies die, than to think that when I DO die, there is no god, and either I am going to cease to exist all together, or just float around for the rest of eternity as a ghost somewhere. Or constantly having to be reborn and suffer through another lifetime full of hardship until I live "the perfect life," before I can achieve paradise. Or having to commit suicide killing a bunch of "infidels" to get to heaven. I dunno, just seems the first priority is the best option IMO.
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| Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - 09:29 pm Michael. 'That is the only faith I have. That is also the only faith that I need.' God gave you a soul. God gave you a conscience. God want's you to use them. For you to use then, you need to have faith in your own understanding of what is right and wrong. Faith in your own interpritation of the word's you have read. God want's you to work it out for yourself. For what other reason did he make us free. Only with faith in yourself can you recognise the work of the Anti-Christ(the son/daughter of the Devil). Only you can determine how to fight your battle, for each one of us have a unique fight to fight, for the fight is with ourselves. Faith in God is what the Devil want's, for it know's God can't help us on the day of judgement, leaving those with only faith in God weak. Jesus was here to give us faith in ourselves. To show man that he has to deal with life and that if he is good, life and death are painless. I think if Jesus was here today he would say: God wont resurrect those who wont save his creation Mother Nature. It's the Devil that want's end of days. Yet it seem's to be the believers in God that's making it happen. Oh ye. And the capitalist's, who proclaim themselves to be people of God, but are infact ASSHATS.
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| Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - 09:58 pm "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing" -edmondt Burke
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| Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - 10:31 pm Which is why we should walk in Jesus's shoes at time of peace, and Mohamids shoes in times of war.
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| Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - 10:34 pm I think it's about time humanity stopped letting religion interfere with the running of it's nations. Religion should be a personal thing, not a way to run the world.
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| Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - 11:05 pm Here here! /me raises glass to Zeta's statement
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 12:08 am The only reason humanity exist's is because of God. Why do you think God was created? It was to teach man how to be humaine.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 12:56 am God and religion were created as a means of control.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 01:10 am "Religion is the Opiate for the Masses" -Carl Marx Most christians don't follow the teachings of Jesus. Therefore those who claim to be christian are only fronting. You must remember and follow the Ten Commandments. They serve a purpose.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 01:12 am I follow the Little Laguna and Animated Vegetables Church. I'm a daily practitioner. I specially like to worship the bananas.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 01:28 am I wonder if Jesus had had a child, whether he would have done what he did?
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 02:49 am I think we will lose this war, for this reason: The army of God(Islam) is here to fight the army of Satan(Capitalizum). The strength of God's army comes from Faith. The strength of Satans army comes from Weapon's. We are about to experience the biggest alteration/failure of Capitalizum since it began(around 1904). This mean's the Army of Satan will soon be without it's weapon's. We know alot of soldiers don't think the war's worth fighting anyway, let alone having to fight it on a level playing field, meaning more soldiers will leave, less will be recruited and the Army will dwindle. Unlike the Army of God. The harder life becomes the more people turn to God, meaning more soldiers will join. If only Capitalizum would realise that it only has a part to play in life and that this idea that it is a way of life is whats causing most of the worlds problems. Satan will then be without an Army and the Army of God could disband. This will then give Islam time, like the christian's, to take a good look at it's self and focus on doing God's work, instead of fighting God's war. Why is Islam God's Army? Mohamid was a man of war. Jesus was a man of peace. 2 sides of the same coin. Peace&Hardcore.................Nix001 MNA
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 03:24 am OMG! We have an heretic among us!
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 05:19 am Islam is just another tool in a long line of excuses to wage war. God's Army? Please. Yes. The Taliban was sure doing the Lord's work in Afghanistan. No doubt.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 06:06 am The world has had problems since Day One. Changing economic theories is not going to change it in the slightest. I find it amusing the ones screaming the loudest about capitalism usually suck from its teats the most. Nix is a perfect example of why State Welfare is a crime against the natural order. In any reasonable society he would be working 18 hours a day instead of complaining and forumlating moronic theories about economics.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 02:25 pm I do not desire. I have no children. I am a gardener. FU
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 02:43 pm What are You Sam?
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 04:23 pm Sam is the Angel of Death... and a part time WalMart greeter during the holidays.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 04:33 pm I like cake
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 04:51 pm I am an unrepentant, capitalist, warmongering, red meat eater, or simply a Texan.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 09:50 pm MM: Well, first off, I reject the Quran right off hand from what I have heard is written in the book. Mostly because I hear from other researchers/scholars and others of that type how Muhammed's teachings are not consistent with the Christ Jesus. The Muslims take Muhammeds word as being SUPERIOR to the Christ's. Any mere human prophets whose word is taken over Jesus, I immediately take as false. As far as the Muslims are concerned, Mohammed's teachings replace Jesus' just like Jesus' replaced those of Moses. For you to stop at Jesus, you need to prove either that Jesus was the son of God (virgin birth, etc.) or that Mohammed was a false prophet (which I think would be equally tough to do effectively). So, unless you come to accept SOME of the teachings that you could possibly find in these books, what you say without any kind of scientific/religious backing (and if arguing with a scientist, religious writings have to be backed up with interpreting the text, in order to have a valid argument. The reason for having to interpret text, has already been covered in this post: We are SUPPOSED to interpret, and NOT take it literally. If arguing with a scientist, you need evidence to have a valid argument. Your interpretation of the text is not likely to be convincing - I'm planning to come back to interpretation later in this post. At least I am willing to learn. I cannot applaud this enough. One should ALWAYS be open to challenging views and do everything one can to educate oneself. (God! How British does that make me sound! One must refrain from using 'one' too much!) Anyway, I am just curious. Do you believe in any kind of after-life at all Zeta? Like ghosts and things, or do you think that when our bodies die, we no longer exist? I am only curious. Death is one of the greatest mysteries of all. One in which science will never be able to determine what happens in death. Although not directly addressed to me, here is my ten cents on death. I do not believe that any part of us (including consciousness) survives death. In other words, we cease to exist. Some would say that that amounts to a very depressing view of existence. Personally, I find it very liberating. It focusses me much more on the one life that I do have rather than deferring certain things to a life after death that may or may not come. I cannot understand the idea of Heaven or Hell - if an atheist's (religious) parents went to Heaven, would they not wish to be reunited with their child? What if that child, despite living an otherwise good life, ends up in Hell because a petulant God insists on belief as an entrance exam? If Heaven is a state of eternal bliss that doesn't require the ones you love to join you there, then I don't believe that it is really you that has reached Heaven. In any case, not all denominations believe in Heaven and/or Hell in a clearly personalised form such as this. And why are religious people often so depressed when a loved one dies? Surely it should be a happy time: they are hopefully heading to Heaven (perhaps after a spell in purgatory, if Catholic). Why not give them a cheery wave and ask them to say 'Hi' to Uncle Fred? Death is a natural part (end) of life and I think it is absolutely necessary for the vitality of our existence as a species and a society. We should obviously try to put it off as long as we can, but so long as we have lived a full and happy life, it does not need to be a sad occasion for yourself or those around you. Irrespective of belief, I have always thought of funerals as more for the living than the deceased - a way of celebrating a life lived to the full and saying 'goodbye'. Those who are close to us still live on in our memories and thoughts, even if only for a generation or two. For me, that is all the immortality I need. Guru: Science was created by man. Far too many theories and postulations to be truth. Truth is self evident and needs no further validation. Truth is rarely self-evident. The theories and postulations are merely means of expressing truth. Refinements to those theories make them ever more accurate in representing truth. If you believe in moral truths, they are even muddier. Try taking this test at the Philosopher's Magazine. How much of a guide is science or religion? I would argue neither is a particularly good guide. Understanding science is an excellent way of learning to express your thoughts which can help your decision making even in tough moral dilemmas. FarmerBob: Faith= belief in that which cannot be proven Quite. Just to extend your definition a little: Faith = belief without evidence Fundamentalism = belief in spite of evidence to the contrary MM: The point is, I would much rather have hope in a loving Father, who loves us so much, he is willing to suffer and die on a cross in order to relieve us of our sins so that we can get to heaven when our physical bodies die Do you believe in original sin then? It was my understanding that Jesus was sent to cleanse the world of original sin and that, by following him, you could cleanse yourself of any future sins. A sort of sin now, confess later type-deal (paraphrasing the comedian Peter Kay from another post). Interpreting the Bible If you ask a fundamentalist about different interpretations of the Bible, you will possibly get a response along the lines of "interpreting the Bible devalues the message". They probably won't phrase it that way, but I suspect that that is what it will boil down to. In essence, the argument that the Bible must be interpreted places power in the hands of the individual. Many are quite happy to pass on this power to some sort of authority which is the basis of Religion (Catholicism, Anglicanism, etc.: Religion as opposed to Faith) others prefer to wield it themselves (non-denominational Christians, etc.). As an outsider, how do I know who has the 'right' interpretation (insofar as there can be a 'right' interpretation)? This is one of the reasons why people often find themselves 'picking on' a particular denomination (as happened somewhere above in this thread) as they have a ready-made list of beliefs that can be 'picked on'. Furthermore, as an individual, how can you know if your own interpretation is 'right'? You then have a choice between picking an off-the-shelf interpretation (a particular denomination) or carefully reading the Bible and making your own interpretation. Inevitably, individuals will disagree and we will end up with a vast number of interpretations. This is what the fundamentalist would count as devaluing the message (partly because they would say they have the One True Message). What value is there in the Bible if everybody is allowed to come up with their own interpretation? Bearing in mind that there is even an Atheists for Jesus group who believe in Jesus' message but deny his divine credentials, why not just boil the message down to its essence and tell everyone to be nice to each other? Secondly, and I suspect this will prove pretty controversial, by allowing different interpretations of the Bible, you are permitting people to hold a fundamentalist interpretation. You might not agree with their interpretation and you might argue against their views, but by admitting that you interpret the Bible, you admit that there may be other interpretations, no matter how horrid they may be. This ties in with the issue of respect that I posted about ages ago. Even many moderate Christians want a certain level of respect for their beliefs that goes beyond the respect accorded to science - some use their faith to justify their opposition to abortions. I would have no problem with this if it extended only so far as not having an abortion themselves (or not using contraceptives, or not taking part in a gay marriage), but it doesn't. They are intent on stopping ALL people from having abortions (not just men!) because it is a matter of faith. Their faith is important to them and we are supposed to respect it. Whether it is intentional or not, fundamentalist interpretations sneak in through the back door by making use of the respect we are supposed to accord to moderate Religion.
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| Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 09:51 pm Damnit. Was really trying to keep that post concise. Oh, well. One last thing to say in response to Zeta: YAY, CAKE!
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| Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 01:45 am kill them all and let God sort them out.
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| Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 05:33 am That quote originated with the First Crusade as the "Christian" army slaughtered its way through the Balkans, killing Christian and Muslim alike. Probably a lesson in that.
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| Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 07:42 am Wow, I loved your article Zet. I'll get to that in a moment. To nix, JR, bob, and anyone else who mentioned capitalism: Understand, that I am opposed to capitalists...I downright cannot even stand being in their mere presence. (Working at corporations will do that to you.) Case-in-point of my...hatred?...for capitalists is the fact that I am currently working at Arby's Roast Beef. The policy at Arby's is that no employee is allowed to date, or hangout with any other Arby's employee. UUMMM... WHAT?!? Am I to understand that Arby's is trying to take away my CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS of assembly?? You mean to tell me Arby's has the right to tell me with whom I can date, or be friends with?? No...no, no, no...THEY have it all wrong. That is only 1 example out of many others of why capitalism is not a very good system. Is, in fact, downright evil! :P I still believe in a free-market system though, before all the Rockefellers of the world made the free market completely collapse, and become capitalism. Anyway, to Zets long post: First off, every time I have argued/learned things from a scientist, I have yet to walk away being completely convinced that life "just happened." I also remain unconvinced that everything could have fallen into place to create even just 1 place in the entire cosmos, to have the absolute perfect conditions for abundant life. (Note here: I have used the word "ABUNDANT." That does not include a planet with a few extremophiles scattered around its surface. I mean REAL abundant life...fish, trees, dinosaurs, insects...those sorts of things.) Even with the trillions and trillions and trillions of stars in the entire cosmos, the chances of having a breatheable atmosphere, the perfect amount of solar radiation, with a magnetosphere to protect the planet from periodic solar flares, coupled with a thick ozone layer to further protect the planet. The planet being in the perfect "habitable" zone in its orbit around its star. A stable rotation, with the perfect-sized moon, to keep the planet that stabilized on its axis. UUMM...the right chemicals coming together...proteins, amino acids, and RNA, and whatever else was required....I mean the list just goes on and on and on about the ABSOLUTE PERFECT conditions on our planet to have life, literally, BURSTING out in every square inch of this planet. So science is hardly capable of explaining all of this...at least at the current level of research we have. The rest of your post, I must say, you got down right to the point that it took the creator of Zeitgeist 2 hours to give. I applaude you in that regard. Despite what others may believe, or have faith in, ultimately, we are ALL humans, deserving of such respect. Seeing HUMAN BEINGS being torutured, and chopped into bits by OTHER human beings, is such a disgrace to every single living organism. Look at me, I am almost sounding like a pacifist.... The point is, is what nix was getting at. Jesus was a man of peace. There are a billion+ self-proclaimed "Christians." A Christian is one who follows Christ. Each man is to try to improve himself through the teachings of Jesus. That means, to sum up the 10 commandments, to "love one another, as I have loved you." If you love someone, you don't go out to kill them, rob them, covet their wives/property. And by following these basic things, you are honoring His teachings. Christians are also to confess Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, and offer your sins up to him. You will then be forgiven your sins. The last part, about confessing to Jesus, is following the last couple of commandments, about not having other gods, and such. We are not perfect, no Christian follows all of these doctrines. That is the point of going to Jesus, and saying "I'm sorry, I'll try to do better next time," and that is how you grow. Ok, so that last topic is covered....Moving on... It is funny how you find it hard to imagine the existence of heaven/hell/purgatory, or any other kind of afterlife. (Catholics no longer believe in purgatory, because the Pope said so quite recently, btw.) I find that funny, because I find it hard to imagine there NOT being an afterlife of any kind. I have heard another belief system that was rather weird. When you die, your "life-energy" flows out of your body, almost like steam rising from boiling water. It mingles with other life-energies, and mixes/matches, to form a new human, that has a completely new conciousness, that never existed before...er something like that. I always thought it was like water. Take water in a water bottle. Every molecule in that water currently forms that one "body" of water. If you were to...say....boil it away rapidly, all the molecules would float up into the air in the form of steam, and kind of disperse into the atmosphere. Those individual molecules that were stuck in that bottle together, will never again come back together, but will, instead, integrate with OTHER individual molecules to form ANOTHER completely seperate body....dunno what the point of that was, just another belief system that I heard of a looooong time ago, and just now thought of for some strange reason. Anyway, moving on once again...(dammit, I say "anyways" too damn much!) Every single thing anyone reads, or watches, they automatically interpret in their own way, no matter how much people oppose "Fundamentalist" ideas. Even the most die-hard, strict, Bible Believers STILL end up interpreting the Bible in their own, uniquely personal way, no matter how much they say they don't As for MY interpretations that I have provided (The Genesis examples that I have used,) I, personally, find it "convenient" to interpret that particular book the way I did. The evidence science DOES provide for evolution, and other theories is way too compelling to deny. My own belief system, coupled with the LACK of evidence for the "spark" of life, and the unsolvable mysteries of the universe (death, for example,) leads me to conclude, with the highly compelling order of the wording in that book, that there IS, indeed a God, and that God DID, indeed create the universe, and ultimately, us. (Wow, that last sentence was pretty ragged...lol!)
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| Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 02:29 pm Life is as simple as Black and White, Right and Wrong, Up and Down, In and Out, Love and Hate, Life and Death, Hot and Cold, Hard and Soft, Happy and Sad, Good and Bad, Woman and Man. Life is Positive energy and Negative energy. These two entities are the by product's of the impossible creation and subsequent failing of perfection(all things becoming one). This perfection had come about from the order of chaos. Chaos is what we see in the universe today and with time it will become one again, creating and so on. At the centre of 50% of entities there is positive energy and at the centre of the other 50% is negative energy. Creating a situation of forces which over time, has moulded what we are apart of today. I think an atom is a mini solar system in a solar system which is an atom.
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| Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 03:09 pm Galvanization Of Diminutiveness G O D
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Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 07:48 pm
You kinda answer your own question here. The chances of a planet being perfect for life to form are, as you say, trillions to one. But then, it only has to happen once, on one planet orbiting trillions upon trillions upon trillions stars, at only one instance over the past 15 billion years of the Universe's existance. So it is not really all that unlikely. Also, life is a resilliant thing. Just look around at nature. Life exists in places that defy belief. At the bottom of vast oceans, so deep the sun has never touched them. Places unimaginably cold, environments so hot that lead would melt. Almost everywhere on earth, there is life. And although Earth may seem well suited to life, you will actually find that it is life that is well suited to Earth. The environs of our world are varied and innumerable. And yet, life exists in them all. Life doesn't need perfect conditions to form, only a range of factors which turn out to be quite wide in scope, moving from extreme to extreme. Indeed, the Earth on which life formed was far more hostile to life than the one we live on today. When life formed, earth had a toxic atmosphere of methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide, along with water vapour. None of the surface-dwelling life of today could survive, except maybe the most hardy of microscopic flora and fauna. No ozone to protect life from harmful radiation - indeed this only becomes possible once you have free oxygen in the atmosphere. Life is most likely to have formed around the volcanic trenches at the bottom of the oceans, where the water would protect it from harmful radiation. Of course, life adapts. It evolves to suit new environments as it attempts to expand into them. The survival of the most fit, or rather the death of the least fit, producing creatures which can flourish where life may once have perished. Life takes advantage of natural resources, it exploits energy stores. It uses what it can to it's advantage, over the long term. Eventually, this gives rise to creatures which can "break down" the carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans and extract the carbon, giving rise to free oxygen. It makes it's way into the atmosphere, reacting to produce O2 and O3, creating the Ozone and what we would consider a breathable atmosphere. Eventually, life evolves to exploit this new resource too, and now finds itself able to survive on land - no longer bombarded as heavily with harmful radiation. This adaption and exploitation of environments never ends, and we still see it today. Life does not need "perfect" conditions. All it needs are the basics for chemical reactions. As you say, the chances of it forming on any one planet are trillions to one. But taking the universe as a whole, over it's entire history, it becomes a near certainty - and we are the proof. When there are trillions and trillions and trillions of stars out there, each with the potential of a planet to be the cradle of life, the odds of a trillion to one event occuring are multiplied by that trillion, trillion, trillion. And, it only has to happen the once for life to exist. It seems absurd to believe that it could never happen naturally. And it's also somewhat conceited to believe that the earth is a special case. As for science not being able to explain it all... Well, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I would suggest reading a book called The God Delusion, by the biologist Richard Dawkins. Not so much for his arguments against religion, but for his succinct explanation about all of what I have mentioned above. He does it far more clearly than I ever could, and dispells this myth that it is "impossible" for life to have formed naturally. All it requires is a little bit of lateral thinking.
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| Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 09:23 pm hhhmmmm, I think I'll look around for that particular book you mentioned at my local bookstore. Sounds interesting. "Well, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." That quote is a double-edged sword ya know. That fits perfectly for my case in the existence of God. I would be a little more careful about how you would use that. I like nix's definition of "God." He (she?) does not really have any exact definition of God. The way that I take it he means in his posts, is that God is undefinable. God is just...well...God...And that He is everywhere, and nowhere. From the least, to the greatest. Also, I do not mean to say that there is NOT any other planet, or body out in space that does not support a lot of life. For all I know, most stars could be harboring life somewhere in their systems. Hell, there could be very intelligent beings, like us, who breathe methane, and oxygen would be toxic to them. Unfortunately, the only evidence we have for the types of environments that life CAN evolve in, and flourish, is right here on our little round ball. The only rational conclusion we can come up with, about where and how life can evolve, is by looking at all the conditions of our planet. Not only the SURFACE conditions, but the SPACIAL conditions as well. Out of a solar system that is, for the most part, dead, this is the only place to harbor such extreme amounts of life. So, we look at its position in the system. The types of planets around ours (A gas giants acting as a huge sweeper, sucking up all the potentially earth-shattering asteroids, for example.) Without an asteroid belt, the inner, rocky planets would not have even formed to begin with. Comets full of water-ice bombarding the planet in its infancy, delivering water to the surface. The volcanic activity at the bottom of the oceans to provide a heat/energy source for life to even begin, in the deep oceans, which protects that life from deadly radiation in the early years. The life that forms, happens to spew off oxygen, creating a thicker, very protective atmosphere.... Sorry, I'm making that same damn argument all over again. My point is that, it all seems so purposely done. Perhaps a little TOO purposefully. Even with trillions, upon trillions time tens of billions, of chances...Those number are SOOO far out of my mind...in fact, not even the most genius of hums could EVER imagine such a number...actually, not even the most intelligent genius can imagine much beyond the number 10. Beyond 10, the human brain actually can no longer comprehend what, exactly, that means. So trillions times trillions times trillions is absolutely meaningless. Even the CHANCES of life happening, that I have been arguing about, is pretty damn meaningless. Hell, for all we know, we are just stuck in a tiny little glowy-ball around some dogs neck, like in the movie MIB... Well, anyway, we can sit here and argue day and night about whether or not God exists, but I do not believe that I would convince you of my point of view, and you could not convince me of yours. The only other option, is to just respect a different point of view...that is all. Now, if only the rest of the world could be convinced of that last thought.... But yeah, anyway, I have read an equal amount of books, and essays saying how God does not exist, as I have read books and essays on why God HAS to exist. Both arguments are very compelling, and very much valid, I just am not convinced that there is no God. I probably never will be either, no matter WHAT scientific discoveries are made in the future.
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| Friday, September 5, 2008 - 03:03 am Should have kept it at the last thought
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| Friday, September 5, 2008 - 03:21 am We make the world go around. We might also be the cause of the world not going around for as long as it should have done. With all the burning of the sub fuel's that the world(Earth) will need to keep her furnace's burning strong enough to create enough positive energy to compensate for her negative energy's(The rock) attraction towards the sun's thurst for negative energy to keep it's furnace burning. Opposite's attract. We need to stop burning the sub fuel's. The war on the horrizon for the US and the whole of world's population is........ To Desireless. WHAT NO POLE 
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Friday, September 5, 2008 - 01:42 pm
Far from it, actually. Add in Occam's Razor, and you will find that there is no way that this argument can fit for God. The simple truth is that using a God as an answer to any question raises far more questions than it answers, which makes any God inherently untenable as an answer to the grand question of "Why?"
You've made a couple of mistakes here. What evidence is there that all locations outside of our solar system are dead? Every star out there has a zone around it in which an earth-like planet could form and comfortably sustain life as we know it. Some have even been observed, and analysis shows great promise in their atmospheres for the potential of life. So it is hardly safe to argue that all but the Sol are dead.
This statement is false. You see, the evidence strongly indicates that all planest - rock and gas alike - form within what is essentially a system-wide asteroid field, colliding with eachother and forming progressively larger and larger bodies in space, which then attract even more of the rocky debris... Until we're left with the solar-system of today (which is still strewn with rocks and debris throughout). The asteroid belt is the result of a failed planet - indeed, Kepler's laws predict the existance of a planet where the asteroid belt is. But the tidal forces of the sun and Jupiter prevented it from forming.
It is more likely that the water came from within, and was emitted into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions. Comets as we see them do not exist in any great number in the inner solarsytem. Indeed, they mostly exist in the Kuiper Belt, and are only occasionally knocked out of orbit by collission or a passing star. The comets which DO enter the inner solarsystem tend to be those on large, stable orbits around the sun. It also leaves the question of why the other planets weren't simmilarly bombarded with ice and water. Indeed, chemical composition provides a far greater insight into the formation of the early planets.
It only seems purposefully done because you're turning the system on it's head. Your reasoning is that the ends influenced the cause. That the earth and it's environs formed the way they did to suit life. But every observation we make tells us the exact oposite. That life has changed itself to perfectly fit this planet on which it formed. That does not make the earth perfect for life, but life - through it's own development - perfect for this earth. It's called the survival of the most fit.
But you miss the point. Even the rare possibility of life becomes a near certainty because of these very vast numbers which you claim we cannot comprehend. Incorporate into the idea that it only has to occur the once in the entire ancient history of the universe, and then that's it. Life has formed. It doesn't have to happen again for it to be true, although it is likely to occur again and again and again. Anyway, the point is simple, regardless of the huge numbers involved. Eventually, the probability of life forming somewhere in the universe becomes a near-certainty. The only reason people have trouble with this idea is because they are looking at it from the one place we know this to be true. And - unfortunately - that hinders their capability to look at this with an objective mind.
Oh, I do believe in a god. But in the Einsteinian sense. God, to me, it a synonnym for all the forces of nature. Rather than being a creature of ligts or power or creation, it is the collective forces which form the cosmos. I simply don't subscribe to human-made religions, because there are too many flaws in the way they explain the world. If you trace religions back through time, you see that they evolve from one into the other. Christianity, for one example that I know well enough to comment on, takes most of it's festivals and celebrations from earlier religions. It contradicts itself within even it's own doctrines. But the idea of the forces of nature - the very natural and comprehensible forces which shape the cosmos, which we know to exist and influence everything from the quantum to the vast, seem like the perfect synonym, and apt for a feeble human intelligence to grasp, such is my own. God or no, you should not view these things with a closed mind.
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| Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 08:18 am Hold on...typing response to Zeta...
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| Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 09:29 am *Sigh* [quote]"Far from it, actually. Add in Occam's Razor, and you will find that there is no way that this argument can fit for God. The simple truth is that using a God as an answer to any question raises far more questions than it answers, which makes any God inherently untenable as an answer to the grand question of "Why?""[/quote] This, in response to my argument for the use of the quote, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." If God really really is real, and all you scientist types who claim He is not because of the "lack of evidence," does not mean He is absent! So yes, this absolutely does qork with my argument! [quote]"You've made a couple of mistakes here. What evidence is there that all locations outside of our solar system are dead? Every star out there has a zone around it in which an earth-like planet could form and comfortably sustain life as we know it. Some have even been observed, and analysis shows great promise in their atmospheres for the potential of life. So it is hardly safe to argue that all but the Sol are dead." [/quote] [quote][b]"Out of a solar system that is, for the most part, dead, this is the only place to harbor such extreme amounts of life.[/b][/quote] As you can see, I was only talking about this one solar system in which we happen to reside in. I said nothing about other stars at all. We have yet to find ANY evidence ANYWHERE ELSE within Sol. Which is why I said "in a solar system which is, for the most part, dead." Dead, of course, meaning lack of any biological life. Talking about the POSSIBLITY of life in other systems is pretty much a worthless topic of discussion, since we are decades...perhaps CENTURIES away from even reaching the next closest star....Bettlegeuse (spelling?) I believe. The ONLY conclusion we can possibly come up with about the possible environs of life inhabiting other parts of space, is by looking at the ONLY PLACE THAT WE KNOW OF in which HARBORS life....EARTH. Science should NEVER assume anything...They can postulate theories, but can be dangerous to assume something that which we are decades and decades away from finding out the true answer, especially when it comes to this topic. Reason being: why would we want to funnel billions of dollars into funding a space exploration mission, in which we are trying to find the slightest little microbial thing that is barely hanging onto life, when that money could better be spent trying to fix problems in the here and now, right on our own little planet....Such as trying to research more efficient, and better, green energy sources. Or coming up with a cure for cancer (I think they finally did like last week btw! I saw a headline that says that scientists found a cure for cancer!!) but didn't have time to read it. I am, by no means, opposed to having space missions, if it is going to help increase our knowledge of better technologies. I could care less if there is/was some slimy little cell that is/was alive on Mars. It proves nothing, and doesn't change anything. Now, if they came up with a new, nifty little robot guy, with some incredible gagdets and wanted to test it in a harsher environment, such as Mars, in order to try to improve upon those techy areas, then I would support that. Quote: Without an asteroid belt, the inner, rocky planets would not have even formed to begin with [quote]This statement is false. You see, the evidence strongly indicates that all planest - rock and gas alike - form within what is essentially a system-wide asteroid field, colliding with eachother and forming progressively larger and larger bodies in space, which then attract even more of the rocky debris... Until we're left with the solar-system of today (which is still strewn with rocks and debris throughout). The asteroid belt is the result of a failed planet - indeed, Kepler's laws predict the existance of a planet where the asteroid belt is. But the tidal forces of the sun and Jupiter prevented it from forming.[/quote] First of all, how, exactly, is this statement false?? Without the asteroids, there WOULD be no rocky surface!!! And the fact that there is a gas giant...Jupiter....that kept the asteroids from forming into another rocky planet....Well, obviously, if not for Jupiter being there, WE, in most likelyhood, would not be here ourselves! I have no idea how it would have affected the formation of this solar system, and hence, the formation of earth and all it's life, but I DO know for a fact, without Jupiter, EVERYTHING would have been drastically different. But that's beside the point. I really do not want to get into that discussion. [quote]It is more likely that the water came from within, and was emitted into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions. Comets as we see them do not exist in any great number in the inner solarsytem. Indeed, they mostly exist in the Kuiper Belt, and are only occasionally knocked out of orbit by collission or a passing star. The comets which DO enter the inner solarsystem tend to be those on large, stable orbits around the sun. It also leaves the question of why the other planets weren't simmilarly bombarded with ice and water. Indeed, chemical composition provides a far greater insight into the formation of the early planets. [/quote Um, in the early history of this solar system, there were likely MILLIONS of comets with water ice on them. We do not know for sure whether our water came from those, or from volcanic activity, or anything other than those two. As for the other planets not being bombarded: I never said they were not! One only has to look at the moon! Venus may have just as much water (in the form of water vapor, of course) as earth does. There may have been an ocean on Mars, that, for whatever reason, disappeared. It DOES have a polar ice cap, and I beleive that NASA just recently confirmed that it is, indeed, water. The problem with other planets, is the fact that when water turns to vapor, some planet may not have a thick enough atmosphere (Mars) and so that vapor could escape the planet. And in other planet, the atmosphere is so thick, and so hot (Venus), that any water is ONLY in the form of vapor. And for OTHER bodies, they are so small (the Moon) that when an asteroid, or comet strikes the surface, most of the materials are re-expelled back into space, due to the very low escape-velocities required to get off the surface of that body. [quote]It only seems purposefully done because you're turning the system on it's head. Your reasoning is that the ends influenced the cause. That the earth and it's environs formed the way they did to suit life. But every observation we make tells us the exact oposite. That life has changed itself to perfectly fit this planet on which it formed. That does not make the earth perfect for life, but life - through it's own development - perfect for this earth. It's called the survival of the most fit.[/quote I'll give you the point here. Still, it is very hard for me to imagine life forming where there is such a weak atmosphere, that is just gets BOMBARDED by the suns radiation fduring the day, and freezes over during the night. Or a body in which it is CONSTANTLY changing the rotation of its axis. Or such a hot and thick atmosphere which can melt lead (with no surface water in which to protect it). I mean, come on, let's be real here. Most bodies are no where near stable enough for life to even begin. I don't care how resilient life is, it cannot possibly adapt quick enough under those kinds of conditions. Even extremophiles need an incredibly stable system in order to startup. A system that will remain stable for centuries, possibly even millenia or more. NO single peice of life would be possible if not for the extreme stability of every single aspect of this planet. Even the extreme stability of the moon, and tidal forces associated with it. That was the whole point I am trying to drive home. The amount of stability in EVERY SINGLE ASPECT, from the chemical composition on the earths waters, to the atmoshere, and everything else, the stability of the ozone layer (we are killing right now though), the stability of the earth on its rotational axis, the stability of tidal forces, the stability of the volcanic vents in the deep oceans, the stability of the magnetoshere, the stability Jupiter provides ot the inner planets....I'm telling you, the conditions are WAY TOO PERFECT, AND PURPOSELY DONE for all of this to "just happen" even WITH quadrillions of chances over billions of yeas! (Remember, I am talking about ABUNDANT life here...ABUNDANT - Earth-like life, in which is just THRIVES! Not some stupid little cyano-bacteria crap either) [quote]But you miss the point. Even the rare possibility of life becomes a near certainty because of these very vast numbers which you claim we cannot comprehend. Incorporate into the idea that it only has to occur the once in the entire ancient history of the universe, and then that's it. Life has formed. It doesn't have to happen again for it to be true, although it is likely to occur again and again and again. Anyway, the point is simple, regardless of the huge numbers involved. Eventually, the probability of life forming somewhere in the universe becomes a near-certainty. The only reason people have trouble with this idea is because they are looking at it from the one place we know this to be true. And - unfortunately - that hinders their capability to look at this with an objective mind.[/quote] So tell me, where do you think, or any scientist think, that life CAME from to begin with? HOW can it form without a supernatural being, such as a god? Ok, so I can accept the fact that stars, and planets, and so forth can...maybe...form without God (I actually don't really, just trying to humor you here.) So let's say it is true there is no god, and everything "just happened." First off, where did matter come from if it is neither created, nor destroyed? One would have to assume, in this case, matter is eternal. Perhaps this is where you got the idea that God is the cosmos? Second off, there is no explanation...in fact, there isn't even a decent hypothesis, much less a theory, much less any kind of evidence whatsoever, to come up with the "spark of life" that happened. Where is the link between amino acids, proteins, RNA and everything else, to form a bunch of...dead....materials into a living thing? Where is the line between life, and non-life? You would then have to assume there IS no line between non-life and life, and therefore, you would have to accept the fact that EVERYTHING is alive....kind of a Gaiea-like theory (spelling?) [quote]it is the collective forces which form the cosmos. I simply don't subscribe to human-made religions, because there are too many flaws in the way they explain the world. If you trace religions back through time, you see that they evolve from one into the other. Christianity, for one example that I know well enough to comment on, takes most of it's festivals and celebrations from earlier religions. It contradicts itself within even it's own doctrines.[/quote] Once again, someone who does not know what Christianity truly is....*Another Sigh!* Christianity TRULY does not have any "institutions" whatsoever. If your thinking of the Catholic Church, then your all wrong. The Catholic Church, for the most part, is WRONG. They have it ALL wrong. Festivals and things are all right, to have a little wine, and to celebrate life in general. But all the ceremonies, and holidays and such is not Christian. To break down Christianity to what it actually is: Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was born for the sole purpose of dieing on the Cross to save us all from sin (not just original sin, that's the Catholics talking there), but form sin in general. Throughout Jesus' life and teachings, ALL of his parables had one thing in common: ALL of mankind are ALL humans, and so, ALL are children of God...Gentiles, Jews, Samaritans, to name the famous "races" in the Bible. In all of his teachings, we are to forgive one another, love and respect one another, take care of eachother, particularly the sick and the elderly. The third part of Christianity, is to confess your sins to the Son, and he'll intercede on your behalf to the Father. Jesus Christ is to be your Lord and Saviour. ALL other crap other than those three simple things (not so simple in reality), is just that: CRAP...C R A P! CRAP! Seems hardly anyone who are not non-denominational Christians do not know WHAT Christianity IS..... I hardly believe I view anything with a closed mind. I am not a hard-core Old Testament believer. Some things I believe to be true, and some things are open for interpretation.
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| Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 09:38 am Sorry about some of the spelling errors and such. I am dislexic. Like I said, you are not going to get me to budge from my position. So you arguing with me is kind of pointless. I already understand, or know, every single one of your arguments so far. As for me, I am merely trying to state my own position, because I do not believe that you understand Christianity at all. Most Chrstians are not at all opposed to science. The Catholic School that I was institutionalized in even had Earth Science in 9th grade. A nun taught that class, and she taught about the Big Bang, evolution, and plate tectonics. She never once mentioned God in her classes either, except when she would pray before she began her lessons. This was approved curricula from the Catholic Church...Not even Catholics are opposed to science....
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| Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 09:52 am @Michael: Quote: Reason being: why would we want to funnel billions of dollars into funding a space exploration mission, in which we are trying to find the slightest little microbial thing that is barely hanging onto life, when that money could better be spent trying to fix problems in the here and now, right on our own little planet....Such as trying to research more efficient, and better, green energy sources. Or coming up with a cure for cancer (I think they finally did like last week btw! I saw a headline that says that scientists found a cure for cancer!!) but didn't have time to read it. The long term hope of humanity is off of this one planet.
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| Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 09:57 am @Michael: Quote: I hardly believe I view anything with a closed mind. I am not a hard-core Old Testament believer. Some things I believe to be true, and some things are open for interpretation. No picky-choosy. Take it all or reject it all.That is the essence of Faith. Know the difference between righteousness and goodness and you will know all the monotheistic religions.
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| Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 10:01 am At both of you metaphysicists: Science is not a "thing" in which to believe or disbelieve. It is a process of rationally organizing one's observations objectively.
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| Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 05:46 pm @Bob: With the Bible, you have to understand, the Christian religion...all of the denominations...are based off the New Testament. Judaism is based off the Old. Do I believe in the Bible: Sure. Do I believe God created the Earth in seven literal days: Absolutely not! Besides, some of the language can be a bit ambiguous, which leaves it open for interpretation. I am speaking of the Old Testament here. Revelation is one of the most ambiguous books in the entire Bible, and is the only book in the New Testament in which I can't really have a ton of faith in. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the books most associated with Christianity. Those are the books that are the most important. It is the life and teachings of Jesus Christ....The word Christian, COMES from the word Christ....obviously...Like I've said, everything else is all just hogwash. Also, exploring Mars for the tiniest bit of life IS kind of a waste of time and presious resources. Until the day comes in which we can build a hyperdrive into our space ships, space should mostly be used for some research on the stations orbiting the earth, and for the launching of satelites. Also, if they were to create a more modern/better Hubble Telescope, I would say go for it! But you have to admit, we have severe problems here on this planet. Not to mention the fact that this is THE most viable planet in which for us to live and thrive on than anywhere else within our grasp. Talk about terraforming Mars...well, Mars does not have nearly the resources Earth does, and so any colonization efforts would show a minimum return. True, while science is not a thing in which to "believe" the debate between science and religion still goes on nonetheless.
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| Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 11:32 pm Science should be the advancement of knowledge. Religion should be the advancement of faith. All in all, argument occurs because one side does not fully understand the point of view of the other.
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Sunday, September 7, 2008 - 05:06 pm
No. No. No. You have not read the Bible or you would realize the flawed logic in that statement. "Christianity" is a religion created ABOUT Jesus Christ. Not the message he himself preached. And no its not love. Try again.
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| Sunday, September 7, 2008 - 05:48 pm True, Christianity (the fusion of the old and new testaments) as taught is actually Saul's work (St.Paul) "distilled" through the ages. The best description of science i've ever come across is: "The ability, backed by fact, to shove your views down someone else's throat." A little much, but the main idea is there. Where faith is based on belief, science (should) be based on knowledge. Colonization of Mars: Personally, I think it's (at the same time) the dumbest and greatest thought of our civilization. Why? Simple: What's the use of MAD if total annihilation is off the table? If an off-world colony is ever created, and becomes viable, what is to prevent idiots (pardon me, politicians) from going full nuclear? They will survive, it's the rest of humanity that wont. As for the greatest, simple again: we need learn nothing new; do to Mars, what we're doing to the Earth, and Mars will BECOME Earth. Unfortunately, vice versa applies as well. On the other hand, splitting humanity to two worlds, gets rid of the biggest problem plaging the Earth-based organism: Massive Extinction Event. MM: unfortunately, my sentiment lies very similar to Farmer Bob's, but in a different vein: it's either ALL literal, or ALL metaphorical. Can't have both.
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| Sunday, September 7, 2008 - 07:24 pm uumm, Sam Houston....UUMMM....Christianity...NONDENOMINATIONAL Christianity is not so much a religion, as it is just following God's instructions via Jesus Christ. Once again, your thinking in terms of the Catholic Church. Christianity, as such, is NOT an institution. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - The Gospel - is the what is THE MOST important 30 years in the entire history of man-kind. I will say this again...Everything Else is mostly B.S. And yes, I HAVE read the Bible. I have read 4 or 5 different versions of the Bible. The KJV, and NIV I have read a good 4 or 5 times each. Now, here is proof, directly from the Bible itself, that 7 days are NOT literal seven days. In 2 Peter 3: 8-9, it says thus: "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentence." Sorry, I just recently moved like 5 hours away from my hometown, and left my KJV, and 2 other versions of the Bible at my home, so I only have the NIV as a reference. Now...A DAY IS LIKE A THOUSAND YEARS, AND A THOUSAND YEARS LIKE A DAY! hhmmm...sounds like an interpretation to me. Also, it is stated twice in a row, but flip-flopped. I cannot remember what significance that poses, but I do remember sometime in the past, someone saying to keep an eye open for passages that repeat themselves like in this fashion! Those are passages which carry a LOT of weight. This is something you are supposed to know and understand! The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. - Well, we mere mortals thinks of even a decade to be quite slow...Not to God. Billions of years would ONLY BE like to 7 days. In the case of using the "thousand years" is meant to mean it took a loooong time in Earth years. Doesn't mean that God created everything in 7 thousand years rather than 7 days. It could very easily mean 2.34 billions years instead. Now, take a look at Revelation: This is an ENTIRE BOOK, that is NOT, by ANY means to be taken literally! The anti-Christ, for example, does not literally have 10 horns. OH! I just now thought of something while writing that last piece of thought! In 1 Peter, the passage where it says, "and remember, brothers, a thousand years is a day, and a day a thousand years." This, in a book that is jsut before Rev. In Revelations, it talks about an angel coming and locking Satan away for 1,000 years so he cannot decieve the nations anymore, and when the thousand years are over, he will be released, and will gather an army from the 4 corners. Couple of things here: When Satan is locked away "for a thousand years, and will deceive the nations no more," one would have to assume there would be no wars between countries for a very long time. In fact, noone should be sinning durng this time period. Well, this has yet to coe to pass, which would mean that we won;t even see Armageddon in our life-time. Actually, our children's children won;t see Armageddon within THEIR life-time. Because when that "thousand years" are over, that is when Armageddon will occur. What is the point of all of this you may ask? The point is that, certainly the Bible HAS to be interpreted, or else will make no sense at all. I mean, all the answers are there, they just need to be pieced together in this fashion. A lot of things in the Bible are chronologically out of order. Genesis was written the way it was, because people who were alive around the time it was written could not possibly think of the earth in terms of an ancient body floating around in space. So the Bible had to be written in a way to simplify the idea of the order in which the earth was created, and to get the people to understand the reason why the earth was created in that particular order. Modern humans...us...KNOW this to be true about the earth floating in space around the sun for billions of years. But if you were to read the opening passages, it kind of leaps out at you the order of when things were written, which is the order in which things actually, scientifically, happened! Also, ANOTHER argument of why the Bible can be both literal AND metaphorical: First off, there are more people in the world who believe that Jesus actually existed than don't. There are even less people who believe Jesus to be the Son of God. Now that it is generally accepted that Jesus actually DID exist, you can take that to be quite literal. JESUS DID LITERALLY EXIST! Now that Jesus DID, LITERALLY teach/preach about himself being the Son of God, EVEN IF HE NEVER ACTUALLY CAME OUT AND SAID THOSE WORDS! Jesus WANTED us to understand He is the Messiah, but NEVER came out and said that as such. The Jews KNEW what he meant, what he was talking about in all of his teachings! Mostly through his parables and such. - This is one of the more extreme examples of the metaphorical parts of the Bible...even in the Gospels! So no! it is NOT all literal, or all metaphorical! I gave you two examples of why that is, within 7 different books directly from the Bible itself which I have referenced. I used 2 Peter, Revelations, Genesis, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If you were to read any parts of the Bible at all, those are the seven books to read, PARTICULARLY the Gospels! You will see, throughout the Gospels, Jesus CONSTANTLY speaking in metaphorical terms. The reason he does, is to make people THINK. The only way to get unbelievers to actually believe, is first to get them to think. He is trying to TEACH the people. Aesop was a philosopher who ALSO used stories in order to teach. The only way to actually teach someone, and get them to learn, is first, to get them to think for themselves, then they will be able to learn easier! That is the very very first tactic Satan used on Eve, and was very successful. God/Jesus is trying to use the same tactics AGAINST sin, for once man fell, that is the only thing which will satisfy him in spiritual matters.
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| Sunday, September 7, 2008 - 07:50 pm As for Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 look up the thread. You will find a post explaining the poor translation of the original Hebrew text into the King James version. And the common misconceptions it has caused. As for the New Testament.... All "Christianity" is ABOUT Jesus. Not what he taught his disciples to preach. Not what they themselves proclaimed as his teachings. What was Christs message? You can find it easily... Its the second most common phrase in the Bible after Lord. Listed 127 times. Go. Read. Open your mind. Its good for you.
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| Sunday, September 7, 2008 - 07:56 pm ZOMGWTFBBQ!!?!? HOLY CRAP! This almost does not warrant an argument....Sorry, next!
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| Monday, September 8, 2008 - 07:00 am Accept the advice of the Dalai Lama. The worlds' religions need to embrace their similarities, not differences. Smart guy.
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| Monday, September 8, 2008 - 08:50 pm That is not quite true Bob. I mean, that is a wise saying, but we shouldn't just embrace our similarities, but we should also celebrate our differences. I mean, I am an Italian-American from Williamsport PA, which makes me different from the rest of the world. I am proud of that difference. That's what makes us who we are. Now, with those differences, we have the right to different beliefs. My problem with this whole discussion is that every single time someone talks about "Christianity," they seem to be stereotyping all Christians into one large group that are all narrow-minded idiots, who are also all anti-science, going around telling everyone how they are going to hell if they do not reform. MY points of view on my "religion" are very very simple, and seems to be constantly getting ignored for some reason. I have said MANY MANY times, over and over what my beliefs are, and jsut get this crap: "As for Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 look up the thread. You will find a post explaining the poor translation of the original Hebrew text into the King James version. And the common misconceptions it has caused. As for the New Testament.... All "Christianity" is ABOUT Jesus. Not what he taught his disciples to preach. Not what they themselves proclaimed as his teachings. What was Christs message? You can find it easily... Its the second most common phrase in the Bible after Lord. Listed 127 times. Go. Read. Open your mind. Its good for you." Now, if I were actually RESPOND to this, my very very first question would be: Do you, yourself, understand Hebrew perfectly fluently....so fluently, in fact, that you know exactly every single meaning for every single word? In other words, in the English language, the word "high" alone has many different meanings. So, when someone, or many someones who are very very knowledgable scholars who are fluent in both English, and Hebrew, and they take many many years....decade...CENTURIES even, to interpret all these texts, I am sorry, but I will stick with the many different English versions of the Bible over what Sam is saying. "And when people are saying crap like this here: All "Christianity" is ABOUT Jesus. Go. Read. Open your mind. Its good for you." All I gotta say is: that could NOT be further from the truth! First of all, Catholicism is more of a pagan religion than a Christian religion. Dont believe me? Look it up! Christmas (which I celebrate myself still) is a pagan holiday, which is the Winter Solstice, celebrated 3 days after the actual solstice. December 22nd is THE shortest day of the year, and December 25th is the first day in which the days are beginning to actually lenghten. Easter: Catholics never even bothered to so much as change the name of Easter! Which in Anglo-saxon paganism, is a celebration of the goddes Eostre. The x-mas tree is also pagan....MAAAN IU GREW UP in the Catholic Church, I was indoctrinated by the Catholics for the first 15 years of my life, so I KNOW what I am talking about! And yes! I DO read, perhaps more than most ppl on this forum Another side note about the "English Bible:" The KJV is NOT the only English version of the Bible. I have read the KJV a good 5 times. Want me to list off all the English versions for ya? Ok, here goes! The English Revised Version (ERV), American Standard Version (ASV, New American Version (NAV), Young's Literal Translation (YLT), Webster did a revision of the KJV, The Basic English, Darbys' Challoner-Rheims, God's Word...uummm....Oh yeah! the New King James (NKJV)...The New International Version (NIV - My personal favorite...The Church, actually all the denominations of Christianity sent their top scholars to Rome to translate the Hewbrew text directly into Modern, Plain, English. This is, perhaps, THE most accurate translation in existance. They didn;t jsut translate word for word either, they also took note on HOW each word was used, and the context in which they were used. The CONTEXT is what matters, NOT the LITERAL translation). Anyway, this is why I did not want to bother responding to that post. I have more, I could easily go on for another 20 pages on why "ALL CHRISTIANITY is ABOUT Jesus" is completely false! I could talk about the Crusades....NO WHERE in the Bible does Jesus give us permission to go around slaughtering other people because they do not believe. In fact, that is SOOO COMPLETELY against his teachings, it isn;t even funny....Same with the Spanish Inquisition. The ONLY teachings Jesus Christ gave to us during his 30 years on this planet, is simply to love one another. Turn the other cheek. Make peace with your neighbors. And to believe that he is the Son of God, and by going to him, and confessing your sins to Him, you can get into heaven, and live in peace with the father for the rest of eternity. Like I have said...All the rest is just BS, except for perhaps Revelation. I am not, personally, big on the whole Revelation thing, but I DO know when shit starts hitting the fan, I will be saved from having to live through that anyway. So, again, Revelation would not apply to me. If, for some reason, I do not go up to heaven during the tribulation, I at least am smart enough not to have any kind of ID chip inserted into my arm. I would not use the number 666 for anything. In fact, I would be more than willing to suffer and die in the name of Jesus Christ when that time comes, and renounce Satan from my life. Anyway, got class in 15, I am done. TTYL!
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| Monday, September 8, 2008 - 09:14 pm I dont recall mentioning Catholics, Easter, Christmas or any of the other topics. I asked what his message was. Jesus taught us about the Kingdom of God. It is mentioned 127 times in the New Testament alone. The most wonderful message Humanity has ever recieved has been ignored. You should read up on it. It will blow your Non Denominational Christian mind.
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| Monday, September 8, 2008 - 11:28 pm Holy Crap! The most wonderful message Humanity has ever recieved has been ignored. You should read up on it. It will blow your Non Denominational Christian mind. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (wish I could use an 6523737634 point font to write this!@!@!!!!!) NON DENOMINATIONAL CHRISTIANITY IS THE ONLY CHRISTIANS TO ACTUALLY PAY ATTENTION TO JESUS TEACHINGS!!!!!!!! YOU ARE CONTRADICTING YOURSELF HERE!!!!! ""Christianity" is a religion created ABOUT Jesus Christ. Not the message he himself preached. And no its not love. Try again." AS QUOTED STRAIGHT FROM YOU, YOURSELF. THIS IS A COMPLETELY ABSOLUTELY FALSE STATEMENT!!!! THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING ABOUT NON-DENOMINATIONAL CHRISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO DENOMINATIONS. I ONLY USED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AS A REFFERENCE TO YOUR INCREDIBLY FALSE STATEMENTS YOU HAVE BEEN MAKING ALL ALONG!!! Now, enough with the caps. PAY ATTENTION!!!! The "Kingdom of God" is refferenced as a REWARD AT THE END OF YOUR LIFE! The journey is what matters most. If you have ever read Stephen King's Dark Tower series, you would understand this. The "journey," in this case, is living life here on Earth! If you lead your life the way Jesus TAUGHT you to lead your life, your reward is in the Kingdom of God - Heaven. The WAY to the Kingdom of God - Heaven, is through doing what Jesus tells us to do....loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek, and confessing to Jesus your sins, and asking him to save your soul. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS CURRENTLY!!! The CURRENT situation is that we are alive right here, right now, and what we are doing with the right here and right now. Right now, I am using my time horribly. But I have like 20 minutes to burn, so I figure why the hell not? Now, the future doesn't matter, the past does not matter, what matters is the PRESENT, and the PRESENT is so fleeting, that we are to CHERISH the present. (That is my OWN philosophy). Now, to THIS quote you made: "All "Christianity" is ABOUT Jesus. Not what he taught his disciples to preach. Not what they themselves proclaimed as his teachings. What was Christs message? You can find it easily... Its the second most common phrase in the Bible after Lord. Listed 127 times. Go. Read. Open your mind. Its good for you." Again, I used Catholicism, because, well, it is the ONE denomination that I know MOST about! And comparing what Catholicism is about, to my non-denominational beliefs, they actually CLASH quite a bit! But that is besides the point. Take THIS line for instance: "All "Christianity" is ABOUT Jesus." UUUMMM...by using the word "ALL," you are leaving me open to complete disrepute this entire quote. By coming up with even a SINGLE so-called "Chrsitian doctrine," that is not Christian at all, and is used BY the majority of Christians (Catholics, for instance), I win! Especially when you follow up the word "ALL" with the words "Christianity is ABOUT Jesus," then the above paragraph is completely true! And what blows my "Non-Denominational Christian mind," is your lack of the ability to actually READ, AND think about the meaning behind the words AT THE SAME TIME. I guarantee you that I have read the Bible many times more in my younger years then you ever will in your entire life. In fact, I have read more VERSIONS of the Bible than you will read the Bible PERIOD in your entire life....That is INCLUDING 2 different ITALIAN versions of the Bible! I have also read the DaVinci Code, To Reign in Hell (both of which are complete works of fiction.) Other books, such as the Case for Christ, COUNTLESS articles, periodical, and documentaries on the subject. I even subscribe to Nat Geo, Scientific American (which is a "modern technology publication,") and I used to subscribe to a VERY good one that was about ALL current events in the world. The mag also had various articles on ancient cultures, and past civilizations/religions. It was a veyr good one, cannot remember the name of it, for the life of me! But yeah...I am VERY well-read, thank you very much. I have also been to Italy, Germany, and Southern France....twice. Been to Cali, Tijuana, Niagra Falls, all up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and I am only 25, so I am also well-traveled. My next destination is going to be either Tokyo, or Sydney. So go away. This is my very last response to this thread, unless Bob has something to say. He's usually pretty constructive with his posts, and I have a lot of respect for the old man! ;P
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| Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 01:26 am /me shakes head.
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| Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 02:43 pm To return to the discussion about abiogenesis (the creation of self-replicating life from non-replicating matter), I have just come across a very interesting article on the influence of viruses on the origin of life. My biology is not really up to the level of fully digesting the article but it was certainly interesting. It's two years old, so there may be more recent data out there that I haven't yet come across. Also, when the article was written, it was when there were few scientific papers dealing with this aspect of abiogenesis. Bear this in mind when reading it as it means that the article is far from conclusive. It also deals with an aspect of the evolution of life that is thought to have occurred AFTER self-replicating organic molecules had developed. It deals with the step from there to self-contained cells which protected the self-replicating molecules within from external corruption. A viral influence on life's origins? from Ars Technica.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 10:19 pm X-mas was created to combat the only pagan festival that survived the coming of christ; namely saturnalia. MM: one does not have to be fluent in a language, as long as one gets information from respectable sources that ARE fluent in that language; and yes, while the "vulgate" was very badly translated, it has been noted that if God did want to write a religion, he should not have done it in Greek, or at least should have learned it better. But, this whole conversation reminds me of a the parable of the mad man in the market place... you know the one; he carried a lantern and kept crying out: "God is dead."
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 12:15 am You aren't referring to Christmas, but to its date. I consider it a pretty ingenious move... One of the best I've ever seen. Live and learn. For all I know, we should be celebrating Christmas somewhen around March and April.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 09:01 pm Yes, my bad. Should have phrased it better. Its date was chosen to coincide with the Saturnalia, and it took almost all of it's "rituals". Personally, I think Saturnalia was better: two weeks of gift giving, instead of one night. But, hey, that's progress. ;) And, I totally agree - and history judges with you - that the move was very effective.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 10:04 pm Most religions have a winter festival. And, like most religions, they're based on earlier pagan festivals celebrating the passing of mid-winter (longest night of the year) with a feast. You find simmilar festivals in the southern hemisphere during the mid-year months.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 10:38 pm Yes... But the Catholic Church purposely implemented Christmas on the 25th of December with the intention to assimilate and suppress other cults. If we really were to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, it should be, as I already said, around March or April. Other rituals simply slipped into Catholicism. Carnival, for instance, and... not sure about Halloween. I believe Halloween is on the 31st of October. We have a similar thing on the 2nd of November, spiritually speaking. There are other several more, but small, regional rituals that became 'catholic' as well, even though they changed nearly nothing. This practice to assimilate rituals from other religions isn't unique to the Catholicism, though. I believe all religions with a large number of practitioners have assimilated other rituals. I like using the term Catholicism referring to Christianity before the Great Schism.
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| Friday, September 12, 2008 - 05:47 am All Hallow's Eve, LG. That is the Halloween reference you were looking for there.
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| Friday, September 12, 2008 - 04:27 pm Oh, yeah, considering I just saw the quotes of Occam,and "absence of evidence", and world being made perfect for life; answer, by parable: You walk on a beach, and find a watch. Does that argue for the watch being created by someone? Yes. However, looking at the workmanship, you see faults, and imperfections. You cannot argue from an imperfect creation, to a perfect creator. And, the world is not OPTIMALLY designed for life; it could be better, hence it's not perfect, but imperfect.
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| Friday, September 12, 2008 - 05:54 pm The forces of man have made the world imperfect. For if nature took it's course, life would have plenty of time to adapt to the changing enviroment, creating a perfect condition for the sustainability of life. But as man's influence have accelerated the change in the enviroment to a speed that life is unable to adapt quick enough to, now we see faults and imperfection's. But in a day or so we might, due to man's thurst for God like perfect in knowledge, see the destruction of the earth. BANG
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| Friday, September 12, 2008 - 06:57 pm The world is not perfectly adapted for life. Life is perfectly adapted for the earth.
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| Friday, September 12, 2008 - 07:56 pm "The world is not perfectly adapted for life. Life is perfectly adapted for the earth. " My bad, I meant our world, is in a narrow band of worlds that are suitable for life; but those parameters could be adjusted, to make life on our world better. Hence, the world is not perfect, and you can't use it to argue for a perfect creator. "The forces of man have made the world imperfect. For if nature took it's course, life would have plenty of time to adapt to the changing enviroment, creating a perfect condition for the sustainability of life. But as man's influence have accelerated the change in the enviroment to a speed that life is unable to adapt quick enough to, now we see faults and imperfection's." Am I to get from that, that you're referring to natural selection? That's not exactly how it works. But, anyhow, adaption is key in natural selection. It is not survival of the fittest, but survival of the most adaptive. Hence, by increasing change, you're actually helping the process along. "But in a day or so we might, due to man's thurst for God like perfect in knowledge, see the destruction of the earth." ? The clause doesn't fit. Trust, instead of thrust? and it still doesn't. The main statement, excluding what's within the commas does hold true, but it held true during the cold war, and we're still here. Also, begs the point: if we do destroy the earth, we're not fit for the universe, and are therefor doing it a favor by vacating usable space.
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| Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 06:41 pm "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." Ambrose Bierce
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| Monday, October 13, 2008 - 12:33 am
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