The bible's listed punishment for beating a pregnant woman into a miscarriage is a fine paid to the child's father and the listed punishment for killing the woman during the beating is death. It would seem that the one that destroys a fetus is considered an economic crime against the father, and the one that kills the woman a murder. If destroying the fetus were considered murder, you'd think the punishment would be death like for killing the woman. That seems to imply that abortion is a form of property destruction, which would imply that, if consensual, it wouldn't be a crime.
A fundamental principle for interpreting Scripture correctly is that the Bible can never say something it never said. When you begin talk of how the Bible seems to imply something, you start sounding less like someone who knows scripture, and more like someone who researches global warming.
Maybe the best advice I can give folk who want to quote scripture while not being a student of it is to stop. If I go pull a few quotes out of an automechanic guide, I don't understand automechanics. Just because I read a paragraph about changing my serpentine belt doesn't mean I understand the air compressor or power steering systems, but the belt impacts those systems i context. I know the definition of vacuum. I don't understand vacuum hoses. If anyone is the type to go pull a verse from one of those stupid skeptic bibles or whatever, just quit. It's not real research. It's a passage taken without any context, and the vast majority of the time, a few minutes of real research completely dispels the ridiculous positions that people take when trying to use the Bible against itself without actually bothering to study.
Let's take this case. The word used in Exodus to discuss the miscarriage is yatsah. It refers to a live birth, as also in the description of the early birth of Jacob. If any man's struggle forces an early birth out of the pregnant woman, he is fined. The reference to the product of the yatsah is yeled, or an early live birth, instead of a shakol.
Another ting folk ought to know before they accept the ill-intentioned conclusion that the fetus has no value to God. Infant mortality among a trnasient people is a problem. In a culture where a person's economic value is tied to their ability to perform in war or work the fields or in the temple, ancient cultures commonly referred to populations that didn't include infants, or only included grown men. Once again, ripping a verse out of its palce in scripture n order to make it say somethig it never said is poor research, ranging all the way up to simply cowardly. I don't ascribe that to anyone in specific, I am saying the best method for understanding the Bible, as with anything else, is to actually study it. Go looking for what it says, and not for what you need it to say to win a fight.
Then we have the passages where God commands his followers to kill pregnant women from other nations and rip out the fetuses.
The practice of carrying out a death entence is not the same as abortion. 99% of American abortions are decisions of convenience, not attempts to eradicate an evil people that will complicate the development of the gospel. Although Margaret Sanger might have believed as much.
Finally, we have the fact that the bible never calls abortion murder. Abortion was a known practice back then, so you'd think they'd say so if God really considered it murder and wanted it forbidden.
I note that there are not specific prohibitions against murdering people with rocks instead of spears, or murdering blondes instead of brunettes. Murder is specifically banned in the Bible, and so the murder f anyone is wrong. This is distinct from capital punishment, or razing a culture during war. The Bible also does not say that using heroin is a sin or that driving without insurance is sin. But the Bible communicates principle. Be fruitful and multiply. Deal with the consequences of your decisions. The Bible also communicates that life begins at conception. Job 31. Psalm 139. Jeremiah 1. Isaiah 49. Luke 1. Galations 1. Ephesians 1. Taking the Bible as a whole, it is very clear that God considers us alive and unique from before birth.
That's based on a story that isn't even part of Christian canon, the Book of Numbers.
Maybe I missed somethng that wasn't repeated in this full post. Every Bible I have has the book of numbers. Phinehas is right there in chapter 25 where he's always been. And since Bible vs abortion became a prominent part of the discussion, I note that Phinehas ended the influence of Baal worshippers, who murdered their infants with regularity as a means of controlling their economic troubles. So..ending the people who would have helped end the line of Israel, and who murdered their own children by burning them alive, has to be a part fo the context. God didn't want people of different skin colors to avoide marrying, he wanted impure lines of idol-worshippers to not taint his planning for saving the world.
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Maybe the best advice I can give folk who want to quote scripture while not being a student of it is to stop. If I go pull a few quotes out of an automechanic guide, I don't understand automechanics. Just because I read a paragraph about changing my serpentine belt doesn't mean I understand the air compressor or power steering systems, but the belt impacts those systems i context.
And yet you feel qualified to dismiss climate change without having taken the time to study it properly. You are aware how hypocritical that is, right?
Also, you said this earlier (bolded by me for emphasis):
Wow. Another salient point, illustrated through simple observation, and another demand for a citation for something people everywhere see. It's weird to see agnostic/atheist BNW having to produce evidence that people of faith misinterpret scripture to avoid having to change their beliefs. Not even the most fundamentalist apologist here (which might or might not be me) could possibly disagree. But, you better have a citation, or some of us might not be able to pick a fight.
So, why should we accept that your interpretation of Scripture as correct given you've admitted that you, and all other believers, interpret it to suit yourself? You oppose abortion, therefore you interpret Scripture in such a way that God agrees with you. Kelsey does not, and interprets it in such a a way as she is right. The only person who knows which of you is correct is God and he hasn't said anything lately and we've accepted that what he did say is open to inrterpretation, correct?
So, do you have a problem with belief in the supernatural? If so, how do you define "supernatural"? Does your definition of supernatural include love?Fair enough. Inasmuch as religion includes a multitude of cultural paradigms, many of which are demonstrably not detrimental or neutral to the well-being of society, I shall constrain my criticisms of religion to those whose doctrine, practices, or both is predicated on the existence of the supernatural. There are exceptions (although I still contend that many Buddhists and Taoists do allow belief in the supernatural to inform their religious and cultural identity) but you have made me see the flaw in my arguments.
I never claimed that Buddhism is any less harmful than other religions. I brought up Buddhism, not to talk about harm, but to see if you could give me a definition of religion which would extend to religions like Buddhism.
No more than my definition of supernatural includes cake. I'd have to ask you to define love in order to comment on this. Love means a zillion different things, none of which I would think of as supernatural.
Ghosts, goblins, unicorns, pixies, spirits, gods, devils, "the force". Those are supernatural forces. Beliefs that are external to what is understood as natural. And, carrying again over from previous discussions, I mean strong faith beliefs.
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Wow. Another salient point, illustrated through simple observation, and another demand for a citation for something people everywhere see. It's weird to see agnostic/atheist BNW having to produce evidence that people of faith misinterpret scripture to avoid having to change their beliefs. Not even the most fundamentalist apologist here (which might or might not be me) could possibly disagree. But, you better have a citation, or some of us might not be able to pick a fight.
The Old Testament ban on intermarriage was not about racial lines. It was about dissolving the culture God was attempting to develop from an imperfect people, so that he could, in fact, save the whole world. Note that all of Scripture is a telling of the redemptive process. We learn God's sovereignty, God's character, God's love, and God's plan to reconcile us to himself. So, when God says in 1000 bc that Israel is not to intermarry, it's to keep the Jews from abandoning their special purpose as God's chosen people. There are numerous examples in the Bible where God shows favor and forgiveness to someone outside the Jewish line. It isn't that God doesn't love and redeem everyone. It's that God doesn't want a nation of child-eaters to marry into his plan and dilute his message. So he forces them all to be wiped out, or he doesn't allow intermarriage for generations.
In no way should those rules be interpreted as a lack of love for other races, or a prohibition that Christian whites should not date or marry someone from another race. Since the first Christians were not white, this would be stupid.
When your supreme being is advocating segregation whatever the reason, people are going to attempt to follow suit along whatever lines they can come up with, and race is one of them. Also, God punishes pretty heavily too for going against the intermarriage/mingling thing as well(Pillar of salt, some interpretations of Samson/Delilah). It's pretty erratic.
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So, "supernatural" is, you believe, external to "what is considered physical". (whatever that means). Is economic demand physical? Is free will?
You haven't defined "supernatural" yet, you've just defined it in terms of other ambiguous words.
I never said "what is considered physical" so don't put words in my mouth.
I did define it, however. So I'll reiterate with the basic definition "Attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature". Natural, not physical. The idea of economic demand is an abstraction of a complex subset of principles defining human interaction with one another and our corporeal desires. Which are understood naturally and empirically and don't require a supernatural intervention to exist or be understood.I would add that in a religious context just the belief in the supernatural isn't necessarily what bothers me (although it does irk me) it's the ascribing of sentient and human qualities, the anthropomorphization, of supernatural forces, that I find troublesome. Weak faith belief in the big bang and/or quantum mechanics doesn't a religion make (in this context) because it doesn't ascribe to the big bang or quantum mechanics, or string theory, a sentience driving it.
How do you feel about the Gaia hypothesis?
It's interesting. I don't refute the evidence as to the entire biosphere being a self-regulating ecosystem, but I think including the lithosphere into the equation is ludicrous, as is the religious aspect of anthropomorphizing the earth. Part of it may be prejudice on my part as I've heard people use Gaia principle to justify belief that crude oil is a self-renewing resource and thus there is no onus on humanity to reduce fossil fuel use and carbon emissions.
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As with physics, there are widely agreed upon ideas (F=ma, structural-functionalism). That's what I've been posting in these threads - the widely agreed upon parts of religious studies.
There's three problems with this.
1) What you say is widely agreed on and what isn't widely agreed on. There is a lot of disagreement over whether or not the net effect of religion has been helpful or harmful. Nailing down the exact definition of a religion isn't as clear cut and done as you've made it.
2) There's no reason you can't argue with an expert. Even if you can't win you might learn something, much like playing chess with a grand master.
2a) This is especially true in something as subjective as sociology.
3) You're asserting your expertise to quote the opinion of the experts and you do so with little if any evidence that even this is the case. Its a conversation killer when your only contribution effectively boils down to "I know what I'm talking about and you don't". I know what I'm talking about and you don't is present to some degree in nearly every conversation but its really the ONLY argument you're presenting. That isn't a conversation. When you call someone's ideas fruitier than Toucan Sam's breakfast you're supposed to explain why
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Maybe the best advice I can give folk who want to quote scripture while not being a student of it is to stop.
I think you're denigrating a lot of the studying people here HAVE done on the subject. We may not be talking professional mechanics, but there's a huge degree of knowledge between reading a chapter and building an engine or two from the ground up.
I know the definition of vacuum. I don't understand vacuum hoses. If anyone is the type to go pull a verse from one of those stupid skeptic bibles or whatever, just quit. It's not real research. It's a passage taken without any context, and the vast majority of the time, a few minutes of real research completely dispels the ridiculous positions that people take when trying to use the Bible against itself without actually bothering to study.
It's rarely that easy. Usually someone says context, you look at the verses around the quote... it still says what it says. "Context" then becomes bouncing disparate bible verses off each other in order to align whats clearly happening in the passage with what the reader wants it to say... the very phenomenon I'm pointing out.
Translation issues just add to that and allow another mechanism for elasticity for eisegesis.
Let's take this case. The word used in Exodus to discuss the miscarriage is yatsah. It refers to a live birth, as also in the description of the early birth of Jacob. If any man's struggle forces an early birth out of the pregnant woman, he is fined. The reference to the product of the yatsah is yeled, or an early live birth, instead of a shakol.
Let me start by saying that I'm an atheist (a hard atheist, a positive atheist Ie, i say there is no god.) I am male, too ugly to ever get anyone pregnant, and not a fetus. The abortion issue doesn't affect me one way or the other. What the bible says on it doesn't affect me one way or the other.
I don't find either argument that convincing. (could that be my neutrality getting in the way of my reading? How does a man go neutral kip... are you just born with a heart full of neutrality?)
On the pro abortion side, the problem is that the strike is an accident, not a deliberate. The woman isn't even the intended target, she's just in the way. Accidents are not treated as harshly as deliberate acts of malfeasance.
Against the anti abortion side, the problem is that the commandment is no murder, not no killing. Abortion, or even infanticide, being murder would be a bit of a circular argument.
I think even a native speaker from the time would have to do a little interpretation with the way the sentence was written, just as we all argue over the exact meanings of the pathfinder rules in english
Taking the Bible as a whole, it is very clear that God considers us alive and unique from before birth.
Before birth somewhat. At conception thats is bit of a stretch.
Job 31, Psalm 139,
Just says people were made in the womb, which isn't much of a surprise.
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
We are talking about a being that can see/direct the future here.
Also note that both this and the luke reference are talking about very specific, Important people.
But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace
Just seems like another call for destiny
In love 5 he[b] predestined us for adoption to sonship[c] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
To me, this looks like more calls to destiny/predestination, especially considering the time gap between the two verses.
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West Virginia has some serious identity issues as it is.That's true, but that doesn't mean Kentucky hasn't bought into the southern mythology.
I laugh every time I'm in West Virginia and see people with Confederate Flags, but I don't do it openly. Don't they know the reason there is a West Virginia is because it split from Virginia to stay with the Union?
Like not realizing the word "wife" and "sister" aren't synonyms?
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After reading an in-depth article on the incident, there are a few things to consider.
First, the congregation held a vote on this new rule. It passed 9-6. So in actuality, only 9 people said mixed race couples were unwelcome in the congregation.
What is disturbing, however, is that there were 45 to 50 people present and only 15 of them voted. So in this instance, it's not the racism that's at fault, but the apathy of the rest of the congregation that could have easily voted this nonsense down if they'd bothered to do so.
The national association to which the church belongs doesn't back the action, and the pastor has called for a vote to repeal the decision. That it managed to get this far in the first place and garnered national attention before it was attended to is shameful.
You forgot the part where quite a few of the congregation walked out in disgust over the vote even being called, the minister that called for the vote resigning, and a few other things that make this whole issue way more complicated than as it was presented.
And yet you feel qualified to dismiss climate change without having taken the time to study it properly. You are aware how hypocritical that is, right?
Have you and I ever discussed climate change? Are you just making the assumption that I dismiss the idea of climate change without a cogent argument or a significant amount of reading on the subject? Can you, in your next post, describe my exact feelings on climate change, how much cause there might be for concern, or whether it's mostly a hoax? Are you calling me a hypocrit for not having a full understanding of something, while not having a full understanding of my position on the whole thing? I hope not, cause it'd be embarrassing for you to have to admit you don't know exactly what I think about climate change or how much I'd studied it. You didn't really make that comment after I posted that one joke, right?
So, why should we accept that your interpretation of Scripture as correct given you've admitted that you, and all other believers, interpret it to suit yourself? You oppose abortion, therefore you interpret Scripture in such a way that God agrees with you. Kelsey does not, and interprets it in such a a way as she is right. The only person who knows which of you is correct is God and he hasn't said anything lately and we've accepted that what he did say is open to inrterpretation, correct?
My friend, I'd think if you were paying attention, you'd know my answer already. I have never asked anyone to just accept what I believe about the Bible and move on. I invite people to actually study, and to not just read a few comments and form an opinion. And to be willing to admit they're wrong. SO by no means should you accept whatever Steve says about the Bible as gospel truth. Read and study it for yourself, with an open mind and a willingness to learn instead of having a chip on your shoulder like so many do.
Now, if you want to measure credibility on the Bible, you could consider the content of my posts, including the word studies and the knowledge that my position is simply to not insert belief into the text, but extract principle from the text. You could go on the body of conversation, which I would hope would cause you to conclude I am a student of scripture, and an honest one at that.
Finally, I'd challenge the idea that God hasn't commented on His meaning of scripture. I just listed half a dozen passages that describe the Biblical idea of the value of life at conception. I just dispelled a myth derived from eisogetic need to have the Bible say something it never said. And I just pointed out that looking at the Bible as a whole, God very clearly loves children, values the individual frmo before birth, hates murder, and demands that we live by our decisions and grow in godly character. I wouldn't think all of this plenty of reason to take my 'interpretation' seriously.
And as for why you ought to believe what I say about the Bible instead of anyone else, I re-iterate you should not. It isn't my Bible. Whatever feelings you have that Christians arrogantly want to tell other people they have a monopoly on truth, recognize that we claim the truth, without laying claim to it. I'm not a Christian because I discovered the whole truth and by golly people ought to do what I say cause I figured it all out. I am a Christian because God made the truth as available to me as he did to others and because I saw my need for salvation and determined to stop pretending I did have those answers. There are only welcomes, and no 'I told you so's on this side of the aisle.
When your supreme being is advocating segregation whatever the reason, people are going to attempt to follow suit along whatever lines they can come up with, and race is one of them. Also, God punishes pretty heavily too for going against the intermarriage/mingling thing as well(Pillar of salt, some interpretations of Samson/Delilah). It's pretty erratic.
With respect, FHD, it isn't erratic. It's intentional and consistent. Lot's wife wasn't turned to a pillar of salt because she married in or had relations outside of Lot's family. She turned into a pillar of salt because she disobeyed the command of God to run and not look back. She was judged for being willfully disobedient, and for considering what she was leaving behind.
Delilah encouraged Samson to reject god and embrace a life of compromise and idolatry. Her influence would be exactly the reason not to allow the Jews to marry into other religions and cultures. Supposing the followers of Baal married into the tribe of Judah and started burning babies to death. The rest of Israel doesn't put up with it, but the compromise is that Judah's line is polluted and everyone else worships as they see fit? Not good for the rest of us, eh?
Freehold, I don't think anyone can really say that misguided believers will not screw up God's exact idea and turn it into something less just or less righteous. I'd say it's clear that imperfect people interpret a perfect word imperfectly. So, sure, when God demands no intermarriage among nonJewish cultures, some turn it into racism. God never told the Jews they were better than others. He routinely said "I am the God of your forefathers (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc)". He kept promises he made with those people, he called the His own people, etc. In this dynamic, the Jews are definitely special, but they are by no means ever told they are better. They are special because God chose them and because their forbears honored Him. He didn't say "Don't marry the chaldeans, they suck and you are better." He said "I am doing something special through you, keep my commandments and remain pure."
Have you and I ever discussed climate change? Are you just making the assumption that I dismiss the idea of climate change without a cogent argument or a significant amount of reading on the subject? Can you, in your next post, describe my exact feelings on climate change, how much cause there might be for concern, or whether it's mostly a hoax? Are you calling me a hypocrit for not having a full understanding of something, while not having a full understanding of my position on the whole thing? I hope not, cause it'd be embarrassing for you to have to admit you don't know exactly what I think about climate change or how much I'd studied it. You didn't really make that comment after I posted that one joke, right?
Then please elucidate. Cite sources. I'm very curious.
Nobody's saying that people don't do that; it's an unfortunate fact of life. BNW is saying that the people in the OP are doing that (in the fact of evidence to the contrary!) or that many present-day Christians do that to justify racism (without any evidence). You can't blithely move from the very general to the very specific.
It's very simple. The original issue is people using faith to say there shouldn't be interracial marriages, despite the fact that God never cared about interracial marriages, but intercultural and interreligious marriages. BNW, nor anyone else, doesn't need to cite a source to prove that people commit eisogesis - it's right there as the scentral issue of the OP. No one in the conversation believes that people commit this error in forming their beliefs, we all, Christian and nonChristian, know they do. So no one need provide some kind of hackeyed quotation from an 'expert' to jsutify their remarks. The need to have people source things is an opportunity for you to make a remark. You can pick a fight, indict a source or otherwise respond in whatever way makes you feel smart. Meanwhile, people are having a casual conversation where they don't have any obligation to cite sources for claims that every largely believes already.
Moreover, I remind you that a consistent demand for citations indicates a lack of desire to analyze information based on its own merit. Sometimes pooping on someone's argument or comment because of some classcal 'flaw' in that arguemtn is in itself a fallicy of reasoning. Calling out a special plea when the case really is exceptional is failing to address the arguemnt for example, which might be accurate despite its description as a plea. A slippery slope might be a legitimate fear. A statement might be legitimate regardless of whether a source is cited, or regardless of whether you or I agree with it.
AS, how is it that you have exactly the right advice about how religious study should work—to wit, careful study to derive the context and intent—and then say nonsense like this?
I didn't ask for a citation for comments that can be evaluated, in their context, in a conversation involving multiple people. The advice I give on studying scripture is consistent, and I didn't abandon context or author's intent in making any criticism of your remarks. In fact, I think you're basically creating a nonissue here so you can accuse me of nonsense and maintain personal criticism. If we grant that you seem a reasonably smart guy, will you be satisfied so you can have productive, nonsnarky conversation without barking arguments at nice, normal folk you don't know?
RE: Although Margaret Sanger might have believed as much.
I'm gonna beg forgiveness here. Sanger was indeed a reprehensible, bigoted human being, and so she received snark here because abortion on demand is her legacy. I acknowledge that her actual fight was population control through contraception and that she resented the prominence abortion gained before she died.
On the citation thing again, in a conversation I decided to abandon, in part based on your devotion to personal attack and belittling, you begged for citations when you couldn't think of anything else smart to say. And when I gave you a efw, you picked one and ignored the rest. You then accused me of quoting word for word from Ann Coulter's book Godless.
This is weak. You know I intend not to come back to what amount sto a personal fight you picked with me, so you make this lame indictment of the argument. Either I'm sucked back in because of the poor reasoning or I stay away and you get the last, albeit inaccurate and unsporting, word.
I have not quoted Godless word for word. Most people know what I think about Coulter: a little over the top, but a good researcher and frequently funny. It bugs me not a little to point out that I do sometimes use the word 'caterwaling' because I think it's appropot and because she uses it frequently. I think it's funny, and an apt description when it's applied.
But, as I predicted more than once, you abandon actually thinking about the argument for yourself, and throw a fit about Coulter. So I am left wondering why anyone would bother giving you the citations you demand.
Look, taking apart a poor source of information is perfectly legit when you actually attack the argument. People just yesterday showed my a lower unemployment rate and told my my economic beliefs were clearly wrong based on that data. So, using unemployment numbers, including the U6, the history of revision of unemployment numbers by this administration, and the estimation of the number of workers who fell off UE rolls and are still unemployed (about 315k), I told them the economy was still in the crapper and that truth doesn't depend on convenient single indicators.
When you get a citation, by all means loko at what it says and doesn't say and go get 'em. When you get a citation that's someone you don't like, you still have to actually evaluate the information. I note that I didn't cite, Coulter by the way. I used the word 'caterwaling' in an argument. You actually ignored the real references and moved on as if nothing had been provided. I'd like it if you either changed your approach to dialogue on message boards, or at least bothered to review data offered you after you make the demand for it an intrinsic part of your personal attack on someone.
We all want everyone to know we're smart. We all want everyone to know how right we are. None of us is different in that regard. In the end, no one cares what we think we know, they care about our character and they respect our knowledge when they see it as a resource and not a bludgeon.
Then please elucidate. Cite sources. I'm very curious.
Come on. What is it with you guys? Say this first: I didn't know what you thought about global warming. I said something to pick a fight and didn't really stop to think I didn't know you or what you know at all.
This is like AMiB. He said last conversation that he made an assumption, got steaming mad and then had to realize he had read something into my comments rather than reading them for their actual content.
He then pointed out it was just something that can happen on the internet. Not his fault or a bad habit or anything. No actual credit for having NOT said what got him POd. Just a brief 'my bad' and then move on to....exactly the same behavior.
Admit you were reading to justify a response instead of making a just response to something you read, and I'll give you my brief thing on GW. Not that anyone here wants to get too far into that on this thread. But at least I'll have given you what you asked for.
I am calling out broad, sweeping, bigoted generalizations like "there's a lot of christians couching their racism in terms of the bible" because they are unacceptable in casual conversation. Yes, people read their biases into scripture all the time, but, again, the problem is that he is casually referring to contemporary people regularly reading a particular bias into scripture: the difference between general and specific. I am demanding that they be backed up in something other than "every[one] largely believes [it] anyway", not because I want to feel smart, but because I want BigNorseWolf to stop. He does it all the time, and it's about time someone called him on it.
I'd like anyone viewing this thread who DOES NOT believe that religious folk screw up their faith by adding their own opinion to it, inserting their beliefs into scripture in order to jsutify things that may not be there, to chime in and raise their hand.
No one, including you, believes that there aren't people doing that this very minute. It isn't bigoted to mention that people do it. I know people personally who do it. BNW probably feels I do it (although I welcome debate on any such issue so I can set him straight. : b). It's bigoted and unreasonable to assume that all muslims do it or all Chrisitans do it. To say lots of people out there are doing it is to observe folk, like the original church in the original post, among others, commiting eisogetic erros when using scripture to defend extra-biblical beliefs.
The whole conversation about the Bible being pro-abortion is the exact saem thing, and people have done that in this very discussion. There was someone a few threads ago saying scripture clearly pointed out Paul thought people were born straight or gay and that God hated it when they switched form one to the other. That's placing a belief into scripture and hammering at it until it fits. And an ugly job at that (this is not an invitation to discuss any specific issues.)
Jehovah's witnesses deny the deity of Christ by saying that Jeuss himself said "No one has seen God at any time." Their leadership has a belief, and they command their followers to let them interpret scripture for them. They are ignoring hundred of prophecies, the confession of Peter (which Jesus himself confirms), and Jesus' statement that "I and the Father are one". You could go even deeper into scripture, say when Jesus is described as 'passing by' the disciples during a storm, before He invited Peter to walk on the water. Scripture clearly characterizes that incident as common with God, who passes by so we can see a glimpse of glory. They deny a very clear Trinitarian doctrine by abusing scripture, all to place their beliefs into the Bible as evidence of the belifs they placed there.
So, tell me what you think I'm missing. No one needs to source you on the assertion that people commit eisogesis and build their beliefs around it.
(here ya go, MR:) Global warming is the same way: a theory was developed decades ago. It made predictions. Those predictions were the most laughably, embarrassingly wrong thing in the history of science. The theory stayed largely the same after the predictions failed. Then we learned brand new ways to take temperatures and realized we were only taking temperatures at the same sprawling urban areas over time, so naturally they'd be warmer. Then we learned more about cyclical cosmic energy, carbon regeneration in the atmosphere, and more. Authors researched books to assail those who stalled progress on solving the problem, only to find out the problem is being sold to us more by marketing than actual research. Theory stayed largely the same, because the belief interprets the data. Decades after a host of failed articles and predictions about temperatures and sea level increases, the movement got a new champion with a movie. Turns out said champ is making money selling the concept, will make money from carbon credits and green ars, doesn't engage in debate against challengers, and his movie made more predictions that never came true.
And where is OWS on the global warming thing, anyway? Isn't green energy the HEIGHT of government doling out favors to corporations? Never mind....not germane. Sorry.
Belief first, then facts. Discard the facts that don't fit as nonrepresentative, or from a source we don't like. It's all around us. No one who observes that oughtto have to cite it in a friendly conversation. And if he did, you'd reject the citation so you could keep the argument going.
EDIT - What I said about the other thread's discussion is appropriate to this one. Your approach is to pick a fight. Your demand for a citation ended in you ignoring the citation and attacking what you assumed was a source. You dind't even address the ACTUAL study mentioned. You approach is personally, intentionally insulting, and I am not sure why you think I'd bother to get trapped in that conversation again. If you wont' evaluate the information provided based on its merits, and you won't concede that msot folk here could fnd a citation that says anything they want to say (again, bringing it back to this specific discussion about eisogesis), and you won't actually comment on someone's evidence, but instead amke up a new souerce for them so you can attack that source instead of the actual analysis provided, why would anyone bother returning to another frustreating and non-edifying fight with you? Even now, I am much more interested in getting you to see how others view your approach than actually discussing any actual issues.
And now I'm tired of this conversation, too. It strikes me as a great tactic to simply wear well-meaning people out until your perspective is the only one left for others to see. May we all check ourselves to make sure that's not who we really are.
Then please elucidate. Cite sources. I'm very curious.Come on. What is it with you guys? Say this first: I didn't know what you thought about global warming.
I don't know what you think about global warming specifically. You have used it repeatedly as an example of something that is commonly believed but that is a hoax, so I can make a strong inference as to your beliefs. All I'm asking you to do is explain your opinion, I didn't attack it, so don't attack me. I've never heard an argument against climate change that couldn't be debunked in about 10 minutes, though I'm anxious to hear yours.
I know you hate having to show any work, but I'd really like you to cite credible sources that fit your narrative. That's one I'd genuinely not heard before.
Also, if you were referring to the Solyndra thing, no it's not nearly the same thing. Government has a valid role to play as a patron of emerging technology, especially when the established infrastructure is reticent to change. The amount the US government gave to businesses developing sustainable energy? Less than 1% of the amount it gave away to the banks and auto industry. So, the height? Hardly.
really?
You specifically called me a hypocrit for dismissing it without having taken any time to study the subject properly. You made a personal remark, based on an assumption. Then you challenged me, whom you called a hypocrit with no prior knowledge of me, not to attack you. See how this looks on the other side of the screen?
And this is not an opportunity to open up new discussion on climate change. That's all over the place. If I thought I wanted to engage on that issue again, with someone I thought wasn't going to basically insult me and make asusmptions based on what they believe to be true rather than any observable evidence about me, I'd offer to ahve teh conversation on FB.
Although I probably ought to use that time working on Superstar material. I'm not the world's best time manager.
Nobody in the original post was using scripture to defend anything. Where were they using scripture to defend anything?
Again, if BNW can't offer one example of the racism he's on about, he needs to stop talking about it.
The original issue is people of faith barring mixed race couples. The conversation naturally develops towhy do some churches or other people do that, and the explanation offered is observable and real. Your tactic is to demand a source in order to deligitimize something without discussing the argument, to misplace and attack sourcing when you get it, or to dismiss arguments you don't respond to as unworthy. It's my last comment on the issue, you clearly do not care how other people view your approach, nor can you be bothered to see that other people see you that way even if you don't. I simply remind you that if you can't spot the sucker at the poker table.....
It is a free country, and BNW can say whatever he likes in any conversation he likes. You are not the arbiter of what is reasonable or worthwhile expression. You'll note that BNW and I agree on very little, but I am always interested in the substance of the statements he makes, and not in whether he properly sourced something I disagree with.
Nope! Argue there or not at all. Don't be that guy who flounces, but brings up his grudge in every thread foreverafter.
I guess my response is, have conversation with people so everyone is edified, don't go looking to prove you're smarter than them. And when you demand sources, don't pollute the value of the conversation by ignoring the ones you're offered. Don't be that guy that raises an arguemtn and ignores responses to it. I'm not going back to a thread where the conversation is adversarial, and the f-word is used to illustrate that folk who disagree with you are barely worth your time.
I'm here for friends and conversation. Not to lock myself in an echo chamber, and not to belittle people who see things differently. If I want a mere argument, I'll go to my kids.
Um, are you thinking of Paul Watson? Way to freak out at the wrong person, douche.Wow. Douche. I specifically responded to Paul Watson, I even quoted him,
No, you didn't. You quoted ME. WE'VE been having a back and forth about climate change, not PW, who hasn't commented in this thread in like a day. I didn't call you a hypocrite. Though I did call you a douche, a title you're earning again and again.
quibbling with ASIssues of intimate salinity aside, I'm still curious how you felt about this argument, MR.
The entirety of scientific understanding is attributed to forces beyond scientific understanding by definition. The entire scientific method is meaningless unless we accept empiricism and causality as received truths. You can't prove empiricism and causality with science because that would be circular. Without those, observation is meaningless and thus there is no scientific method.
I think that way lies madness.
Pretty soon we're all stoners sitting around saying "yeah but how do you KNOW you're really here, man?" It's also kind of a red herring since religions and religious people accept empiricism as intuitively obvious, they just ALSO accept revelation. The problem lies in allowing revelation of one person to trump observation by everyone else. Revelation is a necessarily weaker form of knowledge than empiricism. Furthermore, in the field of science, the attempt is to withhold strong faith belief even in things that are observed repeatedly.I accept when I get up in the morning that we may all be in The Matrix, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm observing a system. If the behavior of the system is erratic it either requires more observation or is evidence of supernatural. The more we observe, the more the possibility for the latter diminishes. At least thus far. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
In this regard I don't understand what you mean about empiricism AS revealed truth. Surely the two are incompatible.
My point is that you're perfectly okay with accepting two separate concepts that you definitionally cannot scientifically prove. I assume you consider yourself a rational adult. Do you understand, now, how a rational adult can accept a concept that he cannot scientifically prove?
Yes, and I didn't doubt that really, but there is a difference between acceptance and belief. As a rational person I accept that there may be things, as in physical phenomena, that cannot be explained through empirical means. But having not seen or experienced them I can't claim to understand them. Having a strong faith belief in something that I can't explain is foreign to my brain. When faced with evidence to the contrary of what I "know" I will of course resist, but I have a strong drive of intellectual curiosity and will at least want to examine the evidence.
A religion that not only accepts the possibility of supernatural phenomena, i.e. things that are in essence immune to empirical understanding, but has a strong faith belief in them and ascribes to them sentience, is antithetical and inimical to intellectual growth. When the religion FURTHER ascribes to that phenomena, which remember is immune to being observed, anthropomorphic traits akin to its particular culture or location of origin, it's questionably universal, barring RADICAL recontextualization. When it is FURTHER bent to the belief that anyone not from the culture of origin is less than human, it is dangerous and needs to be deleted.
So, as a rational atheist, I can accept there may be a god (however astronomically unlikely). It rubs me the wrong way that theists don't reciprocate in this.
I know I'm all over the place in this post, but it's 3AM and I really should be working on a paper.
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Ancient Sensai,
I only have two aliases on the board: Captain Britannica, a joke post over the top Englishamn, and my PFS cahracter who I don't use much here. meatrace, to both of our etneral happiness, I'm sure, is not me. It wouldn't be hard to find that out either. Didn't you do your research properly? ;-)
And yes, I was spoiling for a fight because your tone with Kelsey pissed me off and I was too jet-lagged to control myself. So, I'll stop derailing this conversation any further.
I can see where BNW is coming from. I heard variations on this when I was living in PA and white parents were getting nervous that I was around puberty and going to defile their daughters. Some did their best to say they had no problem with me dating, I just couldn't date THEIR kid.Well, to be fair, some parents feel that way about their kids towards ALL teenage boys. Its sheer coincidence that I just happen to be sharpening a claymore every time one stops in for a bit to see my niece, really...
Its not that i feel that the biblical argument is particularly GOOD in this case. It seems clear to me that the prohibitions on inter-tribal marriage in exodus were only supposed to apply to the Jews. Its just that its incredibly convenient for a racist to read it that way, so they do. That sort of reading into the text is VERY common because biblical interpretation is so subjective.
I suppose that's fair. I know at least two people who didn't want their daughters dating *anyone*, and we are talking about JHS here, which is a rough time for everyone involved. Still, I can't shake the feeling that the remainder didn't want their kid dating outside of their race.
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BNW probably feels I do it (although I welcome debate on any such issue so I can set him straight. : b). It's bigoted and unreasonable to assume that all muslims do it or all Chrisitans do it.
Its not bigoted, it just stems from a fundamental difference of opinion between us on what the Bible or Qur’an is.
To believers of their respective texts the Bible/Qur’an is the word of god or the authors/selectors/recievers of the texts were inspired to get the rights ones in order to tell people the essential nature of god and his desire for humanity. A true, coherent meaning is not only possible, but a necessity.
To me, the bible is a large collection of different books by different authors writing in completely different genres with completely different points. One true coherent meaning is as impossible as if someone was mixing Issac Assimov’s foundation series,Marvel Comics, Dc Comics, the Wheel of Time, a cook book, Tales of Reynard the fox, encyclopedia Britannica, Atlas Shrugged and an inconvenient truth. Under this framework, if someone sees one coherent message then it HAS to be one that the reader made up, because it wasn’t intended by the authors.
You'll note that BNW and I agree on very little, but I am always interested in the substance of the statements he makes, and not in whether he properly sourced something I disagree with.
Awwwww… I didn’;t think you were paying attention. :k
These can't both be true.
Exactly why not?
There's a difference between saying "we all probably exist, so until something changes our mind let's go on with that assumption" and "we all MUST exist and nothing can change my mind". They are not contradictory.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
But there is definitionally no such thing as evidence for empiricism or causality, no explanation that can prove that they exist.
You just said you weren't going to go down that road, then you do.
As for the rest of the post you're trying to erect a false equivalence between empirical knowledge and revealed knowledge. Empirical knowledge is stronger evidence IF ONLY because it is testable and multiple individuals can observe it. Only one person was there when Moses talked to a burning bush (allegedly) but there are BILLIONS who take that as an irrefutable truth.
As for religion requiring assumption of the supernatural, I didn't say it did. In fact I admitted upthread that there are ones that don't. My ramble specifically called out ones who do. Yes, other factors can lead to violence and bigotry and bad things, what's the difference? Well when someone's reasoning is faulty in those other avenues we can PROVE it to him. You can't disprove a revealed truth. And when someone is proven wrong (let's say using genetics to prove that black people are inferior, which is of course hogwash) that person is utterly destroyed in the public forum and ridiculed. Religion is a special case. We're told we HAVE to respect religion even if we dislike the outcome of religious thought. We don't dare say something like the Bible is filled with hateful, violent imagery, because you'll get lynched.
Whether the Buddha meant his teaching as parable there were for centuries and continue to be Buddhists that believe in it literally.
Not just meant it, but affirmed it when he taught the non-existence of the self, and of the "soul." A literal belief in reincarnation is antithetical to the entire central premise of the Buddha's message against clutching to one's ego. The way I see it, a lot of Hindus get confused because they think they're supposed to be Buddhists and incorrectly self-identify. But I wouldn't define a "Buddhist" as "anyone who self-identifies as such," but rather as "one who follows the teachings of the Buddha."
Or, if you prefer, "Whether Christ really claimed to be just a normal guy and in no way related to God or salvation, there were for centuries and continue to be Christians who believe that literally." I don't consider a lot of self-identified Christians as "Christians," because a lot of them don't follow the teachings of Christ.
I'm staying out of the rest of this, but just thought I'd interject this here.
Whether the Buddha meant his teaching as parable there were for centuries and continue to be Buddhists that believe in it literally.Not just meant it, but affirmed it when he taught the non-existence of the self, and of the "soul." A literal belief in reincarnation is antithetical to the entire central premise of the Buddha's message against clutching to one's ego.
Or, if you prefer, "Whether Christ really claimed to be just a normal guy and in no way related to God or salvation, there were for centuries and continue to be Christians who believe that literally."
Yeah pretty much. The point is that there are different ways to understand the texts. There are millions of people who believe the Buddha was divine, an avatar of Vishnu.
There are millions of people who believe the Buddha was divine, an avatar of Vishnu.
See edit above. Those people would be Hindus, not Buddhists. If you're a person who follows the Old Testament and who believes that Christ was just another Jew, then you're not a "Christian" even if you self-identify as one.
There are millions of people who believe the Buddha was divine, an avatar of Vishnu.See edit above. Those people would be Hindus, not Buddhists. If you're a person who follows the Old Testament and who believes that Christ was just another Jew, then you're not a "Christian" even if you self-identify as one.
Well now we're into telling people what religion they are instead of people telling us, which is a dangerous place.
Of course there are categories we can put religion INTO, but the people who practice those religions tend to reject such categorization because to them the religion is personal.
So, and I know you want to stay out so I'll pose it as an open question: would you feel comfortable telling a Jehovah's Witness that they aren't really Christians because they reject the divinity of Christ? Or, branching out more, non-Trinitarians that they aren't Christians, i.e. gnostic Christians, or Copts, or Kakure Kirishitans?