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Continuing our discussion
I think history should be taken holistically, even in antiquity or America there were not many places that were isolated from one another. While an individual may not have had a good idea of what the rest of the world was like, and while it may've been filled with "smelly barbarians" and what-not the ancients at least tried to know what was beyond that hill, in that valley, or across that river.
Sometimes the age of enlightenment is a major disappointment. Drawing straight lines through mountain ranges, rivers, and major barriers as borders makes little sense. Its little wonder there is so much bloodshed with borders that make no sense what-so-ever. Those borders cross religious/ethnic/national identity/linguistic/migratory routes/etc... without regard to how the natives had already ordered themselves.
Continuing our discussionI think history should be taken holistically, even in antiquity or America there were not many places that were isolated from one another. While an individual may not have had a good idea of what the rest of the world was like, and while it may've been filled with "smelly barbarians" and what-not the ancients at least tried to know what was beyond that hill, in that valley, or across that river.
Sometimes the age of enlightenment is a major disappointment. Drawing straight lines through mountain ranges, rivers, and major barriers as borders makes little sense. Its little wonder there is so much bloodshed with borders that make no sense what-so-ever. Those borders cross religious/ethnic/national identity/linguistic/migratory routes/etc... without regard to how the natives had already ordered themselves.
That was the idea. If the natives are busy trying to kill each other, they'll have less time to try and kill us as we loot their country, sorry, I mean, civilise them.
Also, the borderes were usually drawn by clerks a long way from the land itself who had no clue about what the difference was.
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I think that we have become so indoctrinated with Holy Writ as compiled during the Council of Nicaea, that we have taken it out of context and used it to oppress people rather than help people. The Roman churches and the Protestant churches seemed to have codified Scripture to the degree that they truly believe they know the mind of God. Yet how could any of us know the mind of God. He says "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways"In the end though we could have not had Christianity spread and become the power it became until some group took it upon themselves to decide, once and for all, what Gods beliefs and values actually are.
I mean by the early 300's there must be two dozen significant Christian sects running around (and hundreds of tiny ones) and while they share many gospels there are a ton of gospels used in some sects that are not in use by other sects.
For an example of this (and one everyone is familiar with) is the Gospel of John. Many, maybe most, of the more Orthodox churches did not consider John Cannon but he's the best writer of the lot by a fair margin so he eventually makes the cut - but you read him last for a reason. Your supposed to get the 'true' story from the other three and then mine John for quotes.
Ultimately for Christianity to continue in a form useful to the state you need a cohesive version of Christianity, and one that helps to maintain the social order. Many of the Christian sects just did not do that or they had alternate ideas that where not wanted at the time. For example you'll sometimes hear woman using the claim that early Christians had women priestesses or women would participate in the service in some manner - true - but not any sect that became incorporated into the Orthodox Church. Many variants of what we now call Gnostic Christian sects did have women (though by no means where all of them inclusive of women). However now we are talking about elements of Christianity that were...
First thank you for correcting my spelling of Nicea. Yes I am aware of the struggles of the early church against possible and outright heresies that were popular in Roman and post Roman times. There are certain heresies that were indeed pernicious, the most important being the Arian heresy. Where trinitarian belief in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not being distinct and yet indivisible persons of the Godhead, but instead individual incarnations, where Jesus was a "super angel" and the Holy Spirit was simply God's energy rather than a person.
So codification of the tenets of the Godhead were important considerations. Then there was the later schism between the Roman and Greek churches over the procession of the Holy Spirit, where the RC believed as do I (though I am not Roman Catholic) that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, whereas the Greek Orthodox believes the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only. Personally that schism was caused by less pernicious heresy because neither churches believed that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were not aspects of the One living God.
We must also factor into our equations that in the time of the early church a distinction was being made between the Pagan beliefs and the Christian beliefs. The much maligned (especially by today's mores) St Paul by the contents of his letters to the early Greek and Roman Churches have been the cause of Paul being labeled anti-gay, anti-women and pro-slavery.
But we must take into account the context of his time instead of applying those things to now. First Paul said women should not speak in church and cover their heads. Two points can be made. Greek society was extremely patriarchal at that time, and women often priestesses in the pagan temples and shaved their heads. The Greek Christians wanted to distinguish the early church by disallowing priestesses, not because there was anything ungodly about women speaking in church but because it caused crises of faith amongst the early Christian congregations and anything that hindered the church's growth at that time was to be discouraged. Women were expected to grow out their hair(not shave their heads), for the same reasons. It did not mean women must cover their heads with head scarves or hats.
Second when Paul was talking about *homosexuality* as we read it in the New Testament Greek it was translated as attacking the common practice of pederasty - an activity where an older man took a young boy under his wing as a teacher. Here the young boy was expected to sleep with his master. This was akin to pedophilia we know today. He also knocked the activity of men dressing as women (his point about men being "effeminate") which was expected by some Pagan cults during that time also.
Finally when Paul was taking to Philemon about slavery and Christianity he was not promoting slavery but telling people that they should obey their masters as they must obey God. In those days very few slaves were worked to death. Slaves cost money, and skilled slaves were very important to slaveowners. Many slaves actually were treated as part of the family. Now I do not advocate today that slavery is by any means acceptable, it isn't and over the years we have abolished it for the most part. In Paul's time, however, it was considered normal and so it did not cause undue problems to Christians, many of whom had household slaves. They were however exhorted to treat their slaves with respect, saying that in God all men(and women) are equal.
Furthermore, at lot of correspondents with Paul were women and he talked to them with the same respect as men. Paul was also a man and not Christ, and suffered from a "Thorn in his side". We never found out what this was, and obviously it caused Paul a lot of grief. But God would not remove it from him saying simply (My Grace is sufficient for thee). Some people think Paul was gay, others that he had a painful illness, but whatever it was it kept a brilliant-minded and rather arrogant man humble, which was probably why God allowed him to endure it.
Now to the crunch. The bible is not a perfect work. It may be the best book about God we have but it was written down by men, so when we read it we need to remember the context of the times these men were living in and perhaps their own prejudices, or lack of understanding. There are some passages that are evidently of God, and others where it had been diluted by interpretation. It is good as it stands as a Christian text, but without the Holy Spirit's guidance its words are meaningless. This is why I said that Holy Writ has wrongfully been codified by Christians because man finds it easy to follow a rulebook of do's and don't's but at the same time he cannot deal with grey areas where there are doubts about meaning. Now when Christ said he came to fulfill the Law it meant simply that He now embodies the Law, his sacrifice mitigates us from the Law(to which none of us can keep) and hands to us something completely free. A pardon. But then men cannot understand this because they do not believe you can get something for nothing. But it is literally and unequivocally that. We can't earn it, we can't sell it and we can't give it away. For even if we become faithless Christ remains faithful because He will not deny himself.
So if our activities cause others to stumble then we should refrain from it only because our weaker brethren are beloved too. The bible is our text about God and his dealings with man, but our Guide is Christ made manifest in the Person of the Holy Spirit. So we should persevere in what is good and right, so that by our compassion others may be comforted and maybe know and practice that compassion too. But if we do things that please God we should not think well of ourselves, but only that we are doing what we should be doing. We can't be more saved than another person. We can only be saved. By following in the path of Christ to the best of our strength, asking guidance by prayer and praising God in our hearts, brings us strength from the Father in Heaven. He does not need us. God is perfectly at peace already. But He loves simply because it gives joy, and he created our world because he wanted to share his joy. That is the nature of God as he has revealed himself to me in my life. Yet I know only what he has shown me is the tip of an infinite iceberg. So to codify him and make the bible a formula for salvation is selfish vanity and small-minded stupidity. Let's not dare to judge anyone else, because we do not know how God sees them. We can judge evil actions certainly, and many break temporal Laws. Temporal Laws deal with those actions on Earth and their consequences, and are there to protect society. However let us not dare judge even the vilest sinners (in our opinions). Leave that to God alone.
I have finally seen the light! Jesus spoke to me in a dream last night. I am born again! He told me the end was near and that I had to gather his people. To prove it, through me, Jesus raised half a dozen people from the dead today. You will not hear about it on the news because they are a bunch of non-believing heathens. You will just have to take my word for it. You are a person of faith, right?
Anyway. Jesus said you all have to join the poodle club. Not really my idea, but who am I to argue with JC?
Continuing our discussionI think history should be taken holistically, even in antiquity or America there were not many places that were isolated from one another. While an individual may not have had a good idea of what the rest of the world was like, and while it may've been filled with "smelly barbarians" and what-not the ancients at least tried to know what was beyond that hill, in that valley, or across that river.
For certain values of holistic, I'll agree. It's not like the Egyptians had nothing to do with the Levantine coast, or the Roman borders were magical death fields that killed anyone crossing. Political boundaries were (and are to the convenience of Mr. bin Laden) porous and don't necessarily map to demographic or cultural realities. It's presentism on our part to pretend they did.
Of course one admits this and then hyper-diffusionist cranks come around saying it's agreement with them that anywhere with monumental stonework must have been some kind of ancient Egyptian dominion, and anyway the Egyptians probably got the idea from aliens. Or from whoever the ethnic chauvinist cranks who come instead claim descent.
Sometimes the age of enlightenment is a major disappointment. Drawing straight lines through mountain ranges, rivers, and major barriers as borders makes little sense. Its little wonder there is so much bloodshed with borders that make no sense what-so-ever. Those borders cross religious/ethnic/national identity/linguistic/migratory routes/etc... without regard to how the natives had already ordered themselves.
Did you mean the age of imperialism here? I mostly associate what you're describing with the Scramble for Africa and the like, though of course marking boundaries with landforms and doing so for political convenience is older than that.
I have finally seen the light! Jesus spoke to me in a dream last night. I am born again! He told me the end was near and that I had to gather his people. To prove it, through me, Jesus raised half a dozen people from the dead today. You will not hear about it on the news because they are a bunch of non-believing heathens. You will just have to take my word for it. You are a person of faith, right?
Anyway. Jesus said you all have to join the poodle club. Not really my idea, but who am I to argue with JC?
Is that you, St. Augustine? :)
Sorry, little in joke for myself. Augustine started out his life widely skeptical of miracles. Then he decided that they had occurred in the past, but that age was over and we should not expect more because God wasn't running a carnival show for us. (Which is a position still held by many Christians today.) By the end of his life he was proclaiming that many people had been resurrected in his own city.
I find the guy intensely hard to like, so I'm inclined to think he realized what filled the coffers best. But he could have just flipped his lid.
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Its an Enlightenment idea that you can draw strait lines producing borders that human beings will "naturally" conform too. I don't think they saw the irony. It saw its greatest utilization during the age of imperialism in Africa, China, and after the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire.
This is where we see a major shift from authority being derived from nations (the identity of the people) to that of states (the territorial claim). Natural borders tended to be barriers for nations, while you could claim just about any territory.
As for those who say Aliens gave technology and such to the Egyptians or the Mayans or Atlantis... Just because *you* cannot think of how to do it doesn't mean they (the ancients) cannot. Besides, I thought the burden of proof was upon the person making the assertion. Why does anyone have to prove to you that Egyptians could've done it themselves?
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Is that you, St. Augustine? :)Sorry, little in joke for myself. Augustine started out his life widely skeptical of miracles. Then he decided that they had occurred in the past, but that age was over and we should not expect more because God wasn't running a carnival show for us. (Which is a position still held by many Christians today.) By the end of his life he was proclaiming that many people had been resurrected in his own city.
I find the guy intensely hard to like, so I'm inclined to think he realized what filled the coffers best. But he could have just flipped his lid.
He seemed like a reformed smoker in many ways.
I find the guy intensely hard to like, so I'm inclined to think he realized what filled the coffers best. But he could have just flipped his lid.
No coffer filling here. The church of poodle does not ask for money.
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I have finally seen the light! Jesus spoke to me in a dream last night. I am born again! He told me the end was near and that I had to gather his people. To prove it, through me, Jesus raised half a dozen people from the dead today. You will not hear about it on the news because they are a bunch of non-believing heathens. You will just have to take my word for it. You are a person of faith, right?
Anyway. Jesus said you all have to join the poodle club. Not really my idea, but who am I to argue with JC?
Is that you, St. Augustine? :)
Sorry, little in joke for myself. Augustine started out his life widely skeptical of miracles. Then he decided that they had occurred in the past, but that age was over and we should not expect more because God wasn't running a carnival show for us. (Which is a position still held by many Christians today.) By the end of his life he was proclaiming that many people had been resurrected in his own city.
I find the guy intensely hard to like, so I'm inclined to think he realized what filled the coffers best. But he could have just flipped his lid.
Why the ad hominem attack on (I am presuming St Augustine of Hippo here) St. Augustine, ex-Manichean. Resurrection is not unheard of even today, but lack of faith in the West is often why we don't see it every day. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Besides even when it does, someone will explain it away. For those whose eyes are closed to possibilities beyond the mundane, there are no people so blind.
Note: I am a scientist, a believer in evolution, and I do not maintain the world is flat, but through faith I have seen many things that I would not share here. For there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
Its an Enlightenment idea that you can draw strait lines producing borders that human beings will "naturally" conform too. I don't think they saw the irony. It saw its greatest utilization during the age of imperialism in Africa, China, and after the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire.
Ok. I see where you're coming from.
Why the ad hominem attack on (I am presuming St Augustine of Hippo here) St. Augustine, ex-Manichean.
I classed it as a basic insult, not a formal ad hominem. But I'm ok with my posts exceeding my design intent. :)
Resurrection is not unheard of even today, but lack of faith in the West is often why we don't see it every day. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Besides even when it does, someone will explain it away. For those whose eyes are closed to possibilities beyond the mundane, there are no people so blind.
For those who swallow every possibility beyond the mundane, there are no eyes with which to see anything. Want us to believe resurrections occur? Give us some names of the resurrected so we can investigate their cases. Declaring that X happens and that we're just too blind to see it isn't an argument. It's just a backhanded insult.
Note: I am a scientist, a believer in evolution, and I do not maintain the world is flat, but through faith I have seen many things that I would not share here. For there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
I have often read that a lack of hallucinogens would impair one's ability to see things that aren't there. Certainly through them we can see many things. Are you hallucinating, or am I blind? It turns out we have a set of tools we can use to settle that question. Why don't we be responsible intellectuals and deploy them?
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I have often read that a lack of hallucinogens would impair one's ability to see things that aren't there. Certainly through them we can see many things. Are you hallucinating, or am I blind? It turns out we have a set of tools we can use to settle that question. Why don't we be responsible intellectuals and deploy them?
Seriously dude I wasn't attacking you. I was just using Scriptural paraphrasing to illustrate that a man could see someone raised from the dead (and I mean really dead, beginning to stink and rot), and non-believers would still not believe, and try to attach some ridiculous explanation to it as to why it was not a divine miracle.
I'm seriously thankful for my scientific education. Being a Master of Science in Geochemistry, I have come to realize that science cannot explain the Whys? of things, even if we can prove the Hows. But we are still only scratching the tip of the iceberg.
As for the hallucinating/blind question I'll say this. There is a Law of Thermodynamics, the 2nd one to be precise. It simply states that all things tend toward an equlibrium state known as entropy. By this we mean that every non living thing in the qniverse is in perfect equilibrium with its position on an energy diagram.
Yet life as we know it isn't. The whole concept of life and its formation are completely out of equilibrium with the natural order of thermodynamics, yet life exists be we experience it and know it does.
How did life start (the primordial soup)? Where did the necessary building blocks come from? They came from outer space in things we call carbonaceous chondrites which contained amino acids and a few sugar compounds. Even they easily break down under normal conditions. They are simply unstable.
So they hit the earth some get into some primitive sludge and over aeons the first primitive sell appears. A thing, though primitive from a biological perspective and yet highly complex from that of an equilibrium and thermodynamic context. These amazing compounds should by rights have broken down or fallen into equilibrium with the sludge they landed in, yet they didn't, they got more complex until they gained the ability to replicate themselves. This is staggering! Scientists have run experiment after experiment trying to create more complex compounds from the basic compounds and have done nothing more than create a few polymers that appear and are immediately broken again.
Scientists do not know how life came to be.
Then we have the Anthropic principle. This means that for the universe to produce even one planet capable of sustaining carbon based life is so minute as to be impossible.
So the answers we get from avowed atheist scientists are thus; there are an infinite number of universes and we got lucky to end up in the one that supported life. OK.
Another is that we were seeded by a vastly advanced race of aliens who buggered off after wards to leave us.
Now obviously these very atheists are happy to give us far fetched reasons and with no shred of truth beyond conjecture, and yet are quite willing to disbelieve in the existence of a god that actually cares about us, which is no more far fetched.
Now were God not to have done the things in my life that He did I might be inclined to be agnostic. But I prayed and He acted. There are many things that have happened to me through prayer and faith that simply not believing in him would be disingenuous of me as a scientist. But if you don't make the jump of faith you don't find out anyway. God will not be proved, because He has nothing to prove and if His proof could be handed to someone using formal predicate logic I'm sure no-one would understand it. This is why it has to be faith. If we were expected to believe only when God was proved then no-one would believe for the reasons above.
I find the vast majority of atheists stem from the liberal arts people because they haven't the scientific background to realize that we scientists hardly know anything at all about our world's processes, and much less those of our universe. Don't make the mistake that science has the answers and that it means God is dead. We don't and God is very much alive. Oh and I don't hallucinate, acid I have never touched. ;l
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Resurrection is not unheard of even today, but lack of faith in the West is often why we don't see it every day. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Besides even when it does, someone will explain it away. For those whose eyes are closed to possibilities beyond the mundane, there are no people so blind.
As a scientist, you must know that you cannot simply state things as truth without providing empirical evidence supporting those statements. As Samnell said, provide some proof that these supposed resurrections happened or they didn't. We have explored every portion of the human body to be explored. If there was a way to bring somebody back from the dead (there is actually a scientist who is working on a method to accomplish this by using a sulfur based gas IIRC. His work is based on the fact that the damaging effects of death occur due to the oxygen in the blood causing cellular destruction. By gassing critters to death with this stuff, he was able to kill them and bring back later...does that make him the second coming?), it would have been found...hell, the soul would have been found, but no dice there so far either.
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Tearful pope says church will better protect young
My b#%@@#!& detector is going off on this one, especially this part:
"The emotional moment carried no new admissions from the Vatican, which has strongly rejected accusations that efforts to cover up for abusive priests were directed by the church hierarchy for decades. But the pontiff told the men that the church would "implement effective measures" to protect children, the Vatican said, without offering details."
How can you be remorseful if you never admit guilt. Hell, IIRC, a priest cannot offer a person absolution during confession unless they admit they're guilty and take responsibility for whatever crime they've done. TBH, I don't even know why I'm surprised...I think the chances of ever getting any type of admission out of these slimy bastards are slim and none.
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Resurrection is not unheard of even today, but lack of faith in the West is often why we don't see it every day. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Besides even when it does, someone will explain it away. For those whose eyes are closed to possibilities beyond the mundane, there are no people so blind.As a scientist, you must know that you cannot simply state things as truth without providing empirical evidence supporting those statements. As Samnell said, provide some proof that these supposed resurrections happened or they didn't. We have explored every portion of the human body to be explored. If there was a way to bring somebody back from the dead (there is actually a scientist who is working on a method to accomplish this by using a sulfur based gas IIRC. His work is based on the fact that the damaging effects of death occur due to the oxygen in the blood causing cellular destruction. By gassing critters to death with this stuff, he was able to kill them and bring back later...does that make him the second coming?), it would have been found...hell, the soul would have been found, but no dice there so far either.
Man you sound like Herbert West: Reanimator!! There are african Christians who have been known to resurrect the dead through faith alone. Western doctors could not explain these things, having first seen the bodies and then seeing that apart from prayer and laying on of hands, nothing else was done. But you won't believe it so why should I bother trying to rationalize it. I have seen and believe that miracles can occur and I am as skeptical as the next person about fakes and hoaxes. But when you have removed all the variables and rationalizations you have to take it on face value that a miracle has occurred. Or not if you wish to be intellectually dishonest.
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Tearful pope says church will better protect young
My b!*@*&!! detector is going off on this one, especially this part:"The emotional moment carried no new admissions from the Vatican, which has strongly rejected accusations that efforts to cover up for abusive priests were directed by the church hierarchy for decades. But the pontiff told the men that the church would "implement effective measures" to protect children, the Vatican said, without offering details."
How can you be remorseful if you never admit guilt. Hell, IIRC, a priest cannot offer a person absolution during confession unless they admit they're guilty and take responsibility for whatever crime they've done. TBH, I don't even know why I'm surprised...I think the chances of ever getting any type of admission out of these slimy bastards are slim and none.
You and I are in agreement on this one.
Seriously dude I wasn't attacking you. I was just using Scriptural paraphrasing to illustrate that a man could see someone raised from the dead (and I mean really dead, beginning to stink and rot), and non-believers would still not believe, and try to attach some ridiculous explanation to it as to why it was not a divine miracle.
I read the rest of the post, but I'm going to focus on the issue of the resurrections.
Two things:
1) Using Biblical phrasing doesn't make the line any less an insult.
2) You are simply assuming that the miracle happened and declaring anybody who disagrees defective and operating in bad faith. This is a rather poor argument. If I told you the moon was made out of green cheese and you just couldn't see it because you were stupid, would you be convinced? Would anybody?
As I said, we have a set of tools we use to develop an increasingly accurate understanding of reality. In fact, that set of tools even corrects for its own mistakes and incorporates new data, revising as needed. Why don't we stop insulting each other and use it? Got data? If you propose to resurrect a person before our very eyes, I already have the sketch of a protocol in mind.
I am not in the slightest bit close-minded about this. I will go where the data leads. If I'm wrong, however unfortunate that may be for my ego, I shall admit it. (Of course that would only the first step. Convincing me a resurrection happened isn't going to convince me that a deity did it. That's a separate matter entirely.) If you have the data, what do you have to fear? You could even get a good start on saving a soul. If I had one, anyway.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Tearful pope says church will better protect young
My b*&**&** detector is going off on this one, . . .[/snip] slim and none.
Yeah, the doctrine of papal infallibility does kind of set them up for failure. So says this Protestant, who argues that nobody is infallible. I hope that he will take the strongest possible measures against those bishops involved in the cover-ups, but I highly doubt the pope himself would ever allow his office to be tainted by a public admission of his own culpability.
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Seriously dude I wasn't attacking you. I was just using Scriptural paraphrasing to illustrate that a man could see someone raised from the dead (and I mean really dead, beginning to stink and rot), and non-believers would still not believe, and try to attach some ridiculous explanation to it as to why it was not a divine miracle.I read the rest of the post, but I'm going to focus on the issue of the resurrections.
Two things:
1) Using Biblical phrasing doesn't make the line any less an insult.
Being intellectually dishonest about something is deliberately blinding yourself to positive occurrences that you cannot explain. Take it however you like, my words stand truthfully on this and are not meant to be insulting.
2) You are simply assuming that the miracle happened and declaring anybody who disagrees defective and operating in bad faith. This is a rather poor argument. If I told you the moon was made out of green cheese and you just couldn't see it because you were stupid, would you be convinced? Would anybody?
No, I never said that. There are plenty of false believers claiming miracles and plenty of ignorant people claiming miracles where there are none. Superstition is not faith. The point I made was simply that even if I provided you(you generally, not personally) proof that God raised someone from the dead, you would not entertain the proof. First you would make up every excuse however ridiculous to not believe it, because if you were, then you would also have to admit there is a God and you do not wish to do that. As a scientist I base belief works within scientific rationality, and I would require a lot of proofs that the whole resurrection was not simply a hoax.
As I said, we have a set of tools we use to develop an increasingly accurate understanding of reality. In fact, that set of tools even corrects for its own mistakes and incorporates new data, revising as needed. Why don't we stop insulting each other and use it? Got data? If you propose to resurrect a person before our very eyes, I already have the sketch of a protocol in mind.
The rules are fair, though I have a strange feeling that were you to carry out such resurrection you would still not believe it was God behind it even if someone had told that the person in question would be raised from the dead and the corpse/raised person passed the test.
I am not in the slightest bit close-minded about this. I will go where the data leads. If I'm wrong, however unfortunate that may be for my ego, I shall admit it. (Of course that would only the first step. Convincing me a resurrection happened isn't going to convince me that a deity did it. That's a separate matter entirely.) If you have the data, what do you have to fear? You could even get a good start on saving a soul. If I had one, anyway.
As I said, there you have it. I cannot prove God and He doesn't need to be proved. The way to God is through faith and believing before seeing. I am a scientist and I made the leap, why not you?
No, I never said that. There are plenty of false believers claiming miracles and plenty of ignorant people claiming miracles where there are none. Superstition is not faith.
Ok. How am I to know if you're a false believer claiming miracles, an ignorant person claiming miracles, or otherwise superstitious? It seems to me that we can resolve this matter, but you keep shying away from it. Where is your data?
The point I made was simply that even if I provided you(you generally, not personally) proof that God raised someone from the dead, you would not entertain the proof. First you would make up every excuse however ridiculous to not believe it, because if you were, then you would also have to admit there is a God and you do not wish to do that. As a scientist I base belief works within scientific rationality, and I would require a lot of proofs that the whole resurrection was not simply a hoax.
I'm a big believer in empiricism too. Why don't you show me your data and we can go over it? You imply that you're doing a lot more than just taking someone's word on it. Specifically about the resurrection here, not any other stuff you've alluded to that you said you wished to keep private. I of course can't be persuaded by some kind of secret evidence, but I'm not trying to drag you into some kind of traumatic set of memories or make you air a bunch of dirty laundry for the assembled audience. Just the simple case of a person coming back from the dead. Either that happened or it did not, and we have many tools we can use to resolve the issue.
The rules are fair, though I have a strange feeling that were you to carry out such resurrection you would still not believe it was God behind it even if someone had told that the person in question would be raised from the dead and the corpse/raised person passed the test.
Separate issues are separate issues. Nothing about a resurrection entails a deity behind it. Could have been a wizard with magic or an alien with amazing technology. Having established a resurrection happened, we would have to separately inquire as to how it came about.
I can't credit your prescience for much, though. I told you this stuff at the end of the post you're replying to. :)
Actually now that I'm thinking on it, I shall submit a minor addendum to the protocol: How about before we perform one where the head is severed from the rest of the corpse and let bleed out for a few hours? Maybe take out the lungs and heart too and store them separately? Just to be absolutely sure, you know. That would remove any of my doubts about whether or not the person was really dead before being raised. The person's already dead, so it's not like he or she would be complaining. (We could of course go further and dismember the whole body, run it through meat grinders, incinerate it, and so forth. But I don't want to be needlessly baroque. The decapitation would suffice.)
I don't know what I can say that would convince you I'm operating in good faith (ironic turn of phrase, that) here. I've given the issue serious thought and laid out an experiment that could be done. You said the protocol as originally supplied is fair. So by your own admission am I not being fair-minded here? Rustle up that Lazarus for me and we can talk about the other stuff. I would think your scientific training would incline you to appreciate how cautious I am with my hypotheses and with reading too much into scant data.
As I said, there you have it. I cannot prove God and He doesn't need to be proved. The way to God is through faith and believing before seeing. I am a scientist and I made the leap, why not you?
Doesn't need to be proved? Well in the crude sense, proof is for math. But formally speaking we can gather evidence and make inferences from that evidence, which can then be checked themselves against later evidence and against predictions made in the pursuance thereof. Why should God be immune to this standard?
But let's grant that, just for the sake of argument. Very well, I believe in Dionysus and Odin. The way to them is through faith and believing before seeing. Once I started believing in them, I saw them everywhere. I'm a guy just like you and I made that leap. Why not you?
Give us some evidence and we can decide which of us is wrong. Without it, God, Odin, Dionysus, and all the rest are equally so much empty verbiage. Asserted without evidence, they can be dismissed without argument.
**stuff**(A)Seriously dude I wasn't attacking you. I was just using Scriptural paraphrasing to illustrate that a man could see someone raised from the dead (and I mean really dead, beginning to stink and rot), and non-believers would still not believe, and try to attach some ridiculous explanation to it as to why it was not a divine miracle.
(B)I'm seriously thankful for my scientific education. Being a Master of Science in Geochemistry, I have come to realize that science cannot explain the Whys? of things, even if we can prove the Hows. But we are still only scratching the tip of the iceberg.
(C)As for the hallucinating/blind question I'll say this. There is a Law of Thermodynamics, the 2nd one to be precise. It simply states that all things tend toward an equilibrium state known as entropy. By this we mean that every non living thing in the universe is in perfect equilibrium with its position on an energy diagram.
(D)Yet life as we know it isn't. The whole concept of life and its formation are completely out of equilibrium with the natural order of thermodynamics, yet life exists be we experience it and know it does.
(E)How did life start (the primordial soup)? Where did the necessary building blocks come from? They came from outer space in things we call carbonaceous chondrites which contained amino acids and a few sugar compounds. Even they easily break down under normal conditions. They are simply unstable.
(F)So they hit the earth some get into some primitive sludge and over aeons the first primitive sell appears. A thing, though primitive from a biological perspective and yet highly complex from that of an equilibrium and thermodynamic context. These amazing compounds should by rights have broken down or fallen into equilibrium with the sludge they landed in, yet they didn't, they got more complex until they gained the ability to replicate themselves. This is staggering!
(G)Scientists have run experiment after experiment trying to create more complex compounds from the basic compounds and have done nothing more than create a few polymers that appear and are immediately broken again.
(H)Scientists do not know how life came to be.
(I)Then we have the Anthropic principle. This means that for the universe to produce even one planet capable of sustaining carbon based life is so minute as to be impossible.
(J)So the answers we get from avowed atheist scientists are thus; there are an infinite number of universes and we got lucky to end up in the one that supported life. OK.
(K)Another is that we were seeded by a vastly advanced race of aliens who buggered off after wards to leave us.
(L)Now obviously these very atheists are happy to give us far fetched reasons and with no shred of truth beyond conjecture, and yet are quite willing to disbelieve in the existence of a god that actually cares about us, which is no more far fetched.
(M)Now were God not to have done the things in my life that He did I might be inclined to be agnostic. But I prayed and He acted. There are many things that have happened to me through prayer and faith that simply not believing in him would be disingenuous of me as a scientist. But if you don't make the jump of faith you don't find out anyway. God will not be proved, because He has nothing to prove and if His proof could be handed to someone using formal predicate logic I'm sure no-one would understand it. This is why it has to be faith. If we were expected to believe only when God was proved then no-one would believe for the reasons above.
(N)I find the vast majority of atheists stem from the liberal arts people because they haven't the scientific background to realize that we scientists hardly know anything at all about our world's processes, and much less those of our universe. Don't make the mistake that science has the answers and that it means God is dead. We don't and God is very much alive. Oh and I don't hallucinate, acid I have never touched. ;l...
First, as I've said before, my educational levels are far inferior to most of the other people who have posted so far. So I truly apologize for any of the low brow things that I may inadvertently put forward.
Now, from what little understanding I have of the place, I think here are some problems with a few of the things you've mentioned Marcus. I've put the letters in-front of the paragraphs, because I kind of find it easier to point to things within them separately.
(A)You mention a body in the state of decay being raised. Um, do you mean that the state of the body is reversed, all original fatal wounds/damage repaired/healed as well as the subsequent deterioration of said body being reversed/repaired? Just asking a question as I find the original statement slightly confusing, my apologies.
(B)Um, I do kind of think this is true. Though I also believe that most of the models that science uses/puts forward and the theories, hypotheses, questions, etc can include 'Whys' as well as 'Hows'. Of course, I dare say a lot of time the 'Whys' also lead to more 'Whys'. ;)
(C)Unfortunately, while I'm aware of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics,(I certainly can't quote it I'm ashamed to admit), but I think I have the gist of what it's about. Basically, everything falls apart. Hot things get colder. Excited things relax. Um, a descent enough summing up?
I also kind of understand that you have to look at systems as a 'whole' in regards to this Law.
Now I'm also not actually sure "That every non living thing in the universe is in perfect equilibrium with its position on an energy diagram." I kind of thought the stars were slowly going to cycle through all the Hydrogen there was. That the constant expansion of everything was going to limit things forming etc. Isn't this the 'Heat death of the Universe'? The ultimate win for Entropy? Everything grows cold,dark and dead? Again, lease point me to my errors and such. *bows*
(D) Um, life doesn't go against the 2nd law, especially when you consider the Earth as part of the actual Solar system.
I think you're confusing the 'complexity' of cells, plants, animals etc with the way the energy flows through the said systems of them all. With out the constant energy from the sun, everything on the planet dies. Simple as that. All this 'complex' life is really good at is sucking the energy out of the system (The sun) that's coming in. I haven't forgotten the creatures around the black smokers, either. Their heat comes from the tidal forces generated within the Earth. Again, take away the sun, you take away said tidal forces and hence their energy. ;)
{E) How did life begin? Ah, awesome question. Um, I do believe the term is 'Abiogenesis'? Currently I have no idea how many thoughts there are on this one, but your point that there is evidence that some or maybe all of the little bit of. um. RNA? DNA? The little bits of chemicals that make them up? They or, those bits, are found out in space I do remember reading about some where and that purely 'mechanical' and 'chemical' reactions form these things. And in what's possibly abundance as well, since we can detect them. Sure, they're unstable, but they're also constantly being made anew. Um, second law again? the system sucking energy out to 'make patterns' that then fall apart. Still seems all down hill to me.
(F)Um, see my ideas about the 'complex' chemical taking energy out of the system thing before. ;)
(G)Um, from the little I remember form my High School stuff, they lasted more than long enough to be measured, seen, tested, etc. But again, I'm rambling off into my imperfect memory. *^_^*
(H)Um again, true. But so far there are a lot of guesses and they're still asking the question and poking about seeing which one gives both the best answer and maybe even generates something like 'new' life'. :)
(I)Ah, I think here you're looking at the odds from the 'back' end with this one. I don't know what tomorrows lottery results are going to be, because he randomness is too big to really predict. But, I do know what yesterdays lottery results are/were because the random things have all fallen into place as it were. So, in a way I'm sort of saying (And paraphrasing some one far smarter than myself) that if you were to 'extinction event' the planet back to the alive Ooze, we probably wouldn't be recreated by the random chances that 'are' life as it continues to go forwards and suck the energy from the sun that falls upon the globe. ;)
(J)Um, scientists do say there are/is a multiverses?
(K)(.o) ?
(L) ? This paragraph is also, um, 'strange'. Atheists? Conjecture? AS for a deity that cares about us? Well, that's a different thing altogether from everything that you've been talking about before now. Plus, I for one am willing to think about a deity that might care about things. :)
(M) There's a line I've heard and like a lot. "Anecdotal evidence is not evidence." which this bit/paragraph kind of seems to be what you're talking about experiencing, personally. As for the whole "Deity will not be proved, because the deity has nothing to prove and if this proof could be handed to someone using formal predicate logic I'm sure no-one would understand it. This is why it has to be faith." reads also kind of weird to me. I mean, you've previously asked about a caring deity Surely the deity would want to show that it cared? I'm again lost I'm afraid.
(N) I'm afraid I truly fall into the category of some one who is sadly lacking in any form of tertiary education. I have had the pleasure of talking to people who do have much higher levels of education than myself, this forum being one such place :), and I always come away having learned just that little bit more.
Again, I apologize for seeming to pick upon your post but I'm just trying to learn that little bit more and have the things I think I do know get banged into better shape. *bows*
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Man you sound like Herbert West: Reanimator!! There are african Christians who have been known to resurrect the dead through faith alone. Western doctors could not explain these things, having first seen the bodies and then seeing that apart from prayer and laying on of hands, nothing else was done. But you won't believe it so why should I bother trying to rationalize it. I have seen and believe that miracles can occur and I am as skeptical as the next person about fakes and hoaxes. But when you have removed all the variables and rationalizations you have to take it on face value that a miracle has occurred. Or not if you wish to be intellectually dishonest.
And once again you give out anecdotal "evidence" rather than some type of reporting on the subject, a study that was done regarding it, etc. Does this mean that, just because you "know" I won't believe it, you simply aren't going to expend the effor to bring in sources?
As to these "miracles", what I have seen are the general "recovery from incurable disease/cancer" miracles. You know where a person has X cancer or tumor that is inoperable and it magically disappears. Out of the handful of these stories I have seen, never once did I see an investigation into a possible false diagnoses opened; a misinterpretation of an X-ray, a shuffling of images into the wrong patient file, etc. Given the number of human (and computer) errors that occur on a daily basis compared to the number of miracles that are purported to occur...ever, which do you believe is more likely? My guess on scenarios like these is that the patient wanted to believe they were healed by god and the physician was more than happy to run with that explanation so their shoddy diagnostics wouldn't come out and get them sued.
1. There is a Law of Thermodynamics, the 2nd one to be precise. It simply states that all things tend toward an equlibrium state known as entropy.
2. Then we have the Anthropic principle. This means that for the universe to produce even one planet capable of sustaining carbon based life is so minute as to be impossible. So the answers we get from avowed atheist scientists are thus; there are an infinite number of universes and we got lucky to end up in the one that supported life. OK.
3. I find the vast majority of atheists stem from the liberal arts people because they haven't the scientific background to realize that we scientists hardly know anything at all about our world's processes, and much less those of our universe.
Just a few points from a practicing geologist:
1. You've described the 2nd law in metaphorical, rather than practical terms, and it seems to be coloring your thinking. For a geochemical example, look at a snowflake -- we can understand how it forms, and why, and for that particular example, we don't need to assign divine intervention and claim a violation of natural laws. Yet each one is beautiful, complex, and unique.
2. There's nothing empirical about the "Anthropic Principle" -- the odds have been stated to be anywhere from "nearly-impossible" to "almost certain" -- take your pick. Also, if we were silicon-based instead, or whatever, some of us would still be marvelling at how unlikely that was. Etc. In short, your assertion that atheist scientists are forced to resort to Star Trek plotline explanations isn't necessarily at all true.
3. Your experience runs counter to mine here. Scientists are missing a lot of answers, but most of them understand enough of how things work to know where religious explanations fail, or are simply hiding in ever-shrinking gaps.
Sorry to be quite so negative; your snidely superior (and, in my experience, incorrect) statement about scientists being pushed towards belief was erroneous enough that I felt the need to address some of your "evidence" in a harsher light.
As for the hallucinating/blind question I'll say this. There is a Law of Thermodynamics, the 2nd one to be precise. It simply states that all things tend toward an equlibrium state known as entropy. By this we mean that every non living thing in the qniverse is in perfect equilibrium with its position on an energy diagram.Yet life as we know it isn't. The whole concept of life and its formation are completely out of equilibrium with the natural order of thermodynamics, yet life exists be we experience it and know it does.
How did life start (the primordial soup)? Where did the necessary building blocks come from? They came from outer space in things we call carbonaceous chondrites which contained amino acids and a few sugar compounds. Even they easily break down under normal conditions. They are simply unstable.
So they hit the earth some get into some primitive sludge and over aeons the first primitive sell appears. A thing, though primitive from a biological perspective and yet highly complex from that of an equilibrium and thermodynamic context. These amazing compounds should by rights have broken down or fallen into equilibrium with the sludge they landed in, yet they didn't, they got more complex until they gained the ability to replicate themselves. This is staggering! Scientists have run experiment after experiment trying to create more complex compounds from the basic compounds and have done nothing more than create a few polymers that appear and are immediately broken again.
Scientists do not know how life came to be.
Marcus, I know you have made only a qualitative description of thermodynamics, and wasn't aiming for precision. However some of the conclusions you have reached based on this qualitative picture are false, and perhaps some misconceptions regarding thermodynamics and its role in respect to the existence of life should be discussed.
First, you are talking about equilibrium thermodynamics, a branch of thermodynamics which, rigorously, applies only to a subset of systems in the universe, life forms not being one of them for reasons you pointed out yourself. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics, on the other hand is formally the correct theory to apply to living systems and to understand them. It would be no surprise if equilibrium thermodynamics made wrong predicitions concerning living systems. Luckily, one can always assume that a life form is in a steady-state equilibrium and proceed with an approximate analysis.
Despite this "disclaimer", the existence of life forms does not contradict equilibrium thermodynamics at all. A more correct presentation of the second law of thermodynamics is that any transformation ocurring in a closed, isolated system either maintains entropy constant or increases it. The key here is, of course, the "closed and isolated" clause, which is not true when considering a living thing. When one considers a living entity along with its environment as a closed system, the second law is seen to be preserved. The fact is living creatures are "entropy" factories, mantaining complex organization by means of the decomposition of complex things into simpler ones (e.g. food). One could say that, in a way, thermodynamics favors the formation of such complex entities since their existence provides greater increasing of entropy than their inexistence.
Oh, and if you go back a lot of posts in this discussion you'll find us discussing some interesting findings regarding the building blocks and their existence in prebiotic conditions... :)
THIS STUFF is the kind of thing that happens when we're forced to accept all claims about science, and by extension the natural world, as "equal theories." Seismologists make no public claims about the messiah-hood of Mohammed... if only Iranian clerics would return the favor, vis-a-vis plate tectonics.
At the risk of speaking boldly enough to offend some of our more gentle readers, exempting this sort of crackpot claim from criticism because it's a religious claim is nothing short of insane.
As a geologist, I make absolutely no claims regarding the existence or non-existence of a deity, or the validity of miracles -- but I don't hold back at all in attacking young earth creationism, which is equally as far out as the linked article, with regards to what the physical evidence says.
with additional coursework in nuclear chemistry at U.Va.
Does that mean you know how to hug with nuclear arms?
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1. There is a Law of Thermodynamics, the 2nd one to be precise. It simply states that all things tend toward an equlibrium state known as entropy.
2. Then we have the Anthropic principle. This means that for the universe to produce even one planet capable of sustaining carbon based life is so minute as to be impossible. So the answers we get from avowed atheist scientists are thus; there are an infinite number of universes and we got lucky to end up in the one that supported life. OK.
3. I find the vast majority of atheists stem from the liberal arts people because they haven't the scientific background to realize that we scientists hardly know anything at all about our world's processes, and much less those of our universe.
Just a few points from a practicing geologist:
1. You've described the 2nd law in metaphorical, rather than practical terms, and it seems to be coloring your thinking. For a geochemical example, look at a snowflake -- we can understand how it forms, and why, and for that particular example, we don't need to assign divine intervention and claim a violation of natural laws. Yet each one is beautiful, complex, and unique.
2. There's nothing empirical about the "Anthropic Principle" -- the odds have been stated to be anywhere from "nearly-impossible" to "almost certain" -- take your pick. Also, if we were silicon-based instead, or whatever, some of us would still be marvelling at how unlikely that was. Etc. In short, your assertion that atheist scientists are forced to resort to Star Trek plotline explanations isn't necessarily at all true.
3. Your experience runs counter to mine here. Scientists are missing a lot of answers, but most of them understand enough of how things work to know where religious explanations fail, or are simply hiding in ever-shrinking gaps.Sorry to be quite so negative; your snidely superior (and, in my experience, incorrect) statement about scientists being pushed towards belief was erroneous enough that I felt the...
Thank you and others for input. Unfortunately yesterday, I was in an accident and and I have a fractured vertebrae. The PCP has given me some drugs for the pain and thus my mind is loopy and as so, I cannot respond at the moment with any fair amount of rationality.
So if we can suspend this part of the discussion for a while, I will get back to all of your thoughtful and engaging replies to my musings. If anyone feels I have been "snidey" or condescending please forgive me. One of my problems is diplomacy, I don't have many ranks in it ;).
I do not wish to convert any of you to what I believe, everyone must find their own path to enlightenment. So in the spirit of the OP's
post asking for a civil religious discourse, I wish you well until I return to normalcy and stop being in inexcruciating pain ;) Many regards and thank you for you thoughts and opinions. Mark
I hope you get better soon Mark. Best wishes!
*nods* Indeed, sorry to hear of your woes. and wishing you the best in your recovery.
I wish you well until I return to normalcy and stop being in inexcruciating pain ;) Many regards and thank you for you thoughts and opinions.
Mark,
Very sorry to hear of your incident; here's wishing you a safe and speedy recovery. We look forward to your return.
Now were God not to have done the things in my life that He did I might be inclined to be agnostic. But I prayed and He acted.
Heh, I seem to have the inverse of your experience. I was a believer before, not very devout, but I went to church with friends from time to time, apologized to the great big invisible man in the sky when I said god before an obscenity, and said my prayers around twice a week. Well, something happened and I made a deal with god that if he could make it better, at least for a time, I would become the best Christian I knew how to be. Well, he didn’t answer my prayers, bad stuff happened and when I was done with my grieving I decided that the Christian god doesn’t exist. Moreover, I decided that should the Christian god exist he had his chance with me, f**k him.
And frankly, looking back at myself before I lost my faith I make myself a little sick. Even with all of the wars, and genocide, and discrimination, and natural disasters in this world I felt there was a just a loving god out there because life was going good for me. It also pisses me off that it took something bad happening to me to make me stop believing, all I should have had to do was read a newspaper, or a history book.
Edit: Get well soon.
Unfortunately yesterday, I was in an accident and and I have a fractured vertebrae. The PCP has given me some drugs for the pain and thus my mind is loopy and as so, I cannot respond at the moment with any fair amount of rationality.
That sucks. Get well, dude.
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Unfortunately yesterday, I was in an accident and and I have a fractured vertebrae. The PCP has given me some drugs for the pain and thus my mind is loopy and as so, I cannot respond at the moment with any fair amount of rationality.That sucks. Get well, dude.
Thanks to all for your kind wishes. Mark
A speedy recovery on you.
Hang in there on the mend.
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Episode of South Park offends Muslims
Well, what do you guys think about this?
What does not offend Muslims?? Or many "fundamentalists"?
What does not offend Muslims?? Or many "fundamentalists"?Episode of South Park offends Muslims
Well, what do you guys think about this?
Pie, everybody likes pie.
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Pie, everybody likes pie.What does not offend Muslims?? Or many "fundamentalists"?Episode of South Park offends Muslims
Well, what do you guys think about this?
3.14!
On preaching to the converted.Very sad way to view things.
Do you mean the video itself, or the perspective it criticized?
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Do you mean the video itself, or the perspective it criticized?On preaching to the converted.Very sad way to view things.
the perspective of the video itself.
This will likely have some appeal I can't quite fathom to the heterosexual men and lesbian woman in the thread, but there's a point to it too.
As some might recall from a post Kirth made a while back, an Iranian cleric sounded off on how immodest dress in women causes earthquakes. They're calling his bluff. Perhaps in the end he shall come on the TV and declare that he did not mean the kind of earthquakes that shake buildings and kill people, but rather the kind confined to his trousers.
the perspective of the video itself.Do you mean the video itself, or the perspective it criticized?On preaching to the converted.Very sad way to view things.
Ok. How is it sad? It seems rather optimistic to me, presuming that people might have their minds changed and those who disagree with us are not just close-minded dicks.
But I'm a known weirdo. :)