[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
Stoic and Epicurean schools of philosophy pretty much killed it off.
Through logic alone?[/quote]
That and conquests…The Romans adopted every religion from every place that conquered…They they took the “just in case” approach. Just in case one of those religions were right, they did not want feel of the wrath of their god.
It died slowly though, their was nothing fast about it.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Science can not explain how life began.
Actually, it probably can. Give it time.
We’ve only just begun to understand that time isn’t a force that acts in a straight line like we’ve assumed so far. We’re starting to delve into realms of science that deal with dimensions beyond our perception, so I predict major breakthroughs on that front will be few and far between from now on.[/quote]
Time isn’t a force. It’s a measure.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Professor X wrote:
forlife wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Science can not explain how life began. It has no clue at all. It creates theories of how but not one person on this planet, no matter how many lightening strikes they survive, has ever been able to make life where there was none previously. Therefore, one could even safely say we have no clue where LIFE itself came from if looked at scientifically.
I agree that certain questions are unanswerable, at least with current technology. You can create theories and test predictions based on those theories, but final proof is ephemeral.
The most honest answer in these cases is simply, “We don’t know.” Unfortunately, faith fails on that point, since you are choosing to believe in something for which there isn’t sufficient proof.
The entire game of life is about CHOICE. You have made the choice to believe that all religious beliefs are false.
Pulling ancient belief systems and acting like because ancient people believed non-scientific ideas that we now view as factually false, that this means all religious ideas are false makes ZERO logical sense
Please point to where I said current religious ideas are false because ancient religious ideas are false. What I said was that belief systems are subject to scientific scrutiny, while value systems are not.
Religious beliefs about the nature of the universe, like the ancient idea of Apollo’s chariot, or like the contemporary idea of faith healing, can be scientifically studied to determine whether or not those beliefs are based on facts.
However, you can’t put right and wrong in a lab. The determination of morality is ultimately subjective, and outside the realm of science.
So again, how has science disproven current belief systems, not belief systems from ancient people who thought evil spirits caused heart burn?
Here’s a more current example:
The study by itself doesn’t unilaterally disprove the power of prayer, but it offers one piece of objective evidence toward testing the prayer hypothesis.
It doesn’t prove or disprove anything. You can basically toss that in a heap with the other studies done that did show some effect…like those pointed out here; Harris Prayer Study
However, at the heart of all of these is the effect of positive thinking and hope, which anyone with any amount of exposure to a medical/clinical environment would have to claim with absolute certainty DO have some positive effect.
While you are focusing on religion (as if proving this wrong will somehow help your cause), the bigger issue is that we have not tapped into or even barely understood the power of the human mind. With some scientists claiming we only use about 10% of our mind when conscious, anyone who denies the possibility that there is unknown ability/power within the understanding of what we are not in control of isn’t just viewing possibilities through a shallow lens, they are about as UNscientific as one could possibly be.
Religion relates these happenings directly to prayer and divinity. It does not erase that at the heart of it is positive thinking and hope…along with praying in a group which may be the equivalent of increasing mind over matter simply because of group focus on one circumstance.
In short, things like this are why I believe people who laugh at these concepts miss the point entirely and may not be as “logical and reasonable” as they think they are…let alone intellectual.
Prof, firstly when you say that we have no clue about abiogenesis this is simply not true. We have lots of clues. Hence the fact that there is a science called abiogenesis with people carrying out active research and recieving grants from funding bodies. There are a number of current theories on this which are being researched. You are right that we have not managed to replicate the process under lab conditions however that is very different from saying we haven’t a clue.
Secondly to state that scientists believe that we only use 10% of our brains is misrepresentation of the highest order. Which Scientists, in which fields of study? I am a scientist and I could say it however my BSc in Chemistry wouldn’t really make my viewpoint any more relevant than a local Tarrot Card readers. I very much doubt you will find anyone related to the study of the brain who will say it.
You make a good point about the power of positive thought, however this is a scientific phenomenon which is actually well studied. There is no need to relate it to a supreme being.
In general terms you are correct that you cannot disprove a God because it is always possible that an all powerful God is deliberately giving the impression of their not being a God by creating a system that has no need of a God for explanation however this kind of Meta-God-Universe functions just as well without the God so I choose to go with the potential illusion and assume that there is no God until I see proof to the contrary. I like to think of it as a kind of reverse Pascal’s wager.
I mean no offence in what I am typing and hope that none is taken. If you choose to believe in a God then that is your perogative however I should not be expected to adapt my life to fit in with the requirements of other people’s belief systems. I feel that there should be 100% separation of Church and state.[/quote]
You first have to define what “life” actually is to know when you have found out how it comes into being, do you not? Otherwise, what is the criteria for knowing when something is actually alive?
What proof do you require to believe in God? Just curious as to what you would require.
As a theist, I too believe in 100% separation of church and state.
Thank GOD I’m not the only one who understands the many problems with science, the problem of induction and affirming the consequent.
Heck, even the non-theistic scientists like Popper and Russell affirmed that science cannot EVER give absolutes, and that it’s flawed from the beginning. I think those who never actually think deeply on these things have just swallowed hook-line-and-sinker that science gives absolute truth.
Science is great for making better toasters, refrigerators and making people bigger 
It cannot tell anyone what LIFE is, what “right and wrong” is, how life began, etc, etc. It is fatally flawed, and those who are intellectually honest will admit this.
Quote from Bertrand Russell:
“All inductive arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to the following form: ?If this is true, that is true: now that is true, therefore this is true.? This argument is, of course, formally fallacious. [It is the fallacy of asserting the consequent.] Suppose I were to say: ?If bread is a stone and stones are nourishing, then this bread will nourish me; now this bread does nourish me; therefore it is a stone and stones are nourishing.? If I were to advance such an argument, I should certainly be thought foolish, yet it would not be fundamentally different from the argument upon which all scientific laws are based”
[quote]pat wrote:
forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
You cannot apply empiricism to something that is purely metaphysical as “power of prayer”. The very concept is flawed because it is not subjective to anything. There is no way to measure it.
If a person makes a claim that prayer leads to a greater rate of healing, then that claim is subject to scientific scrutiny.
And if something is not subject to scientific scrutiny, it is impossible to prove or disprove, so why in the world would you choose to believe in it, as opposed to the thousands of other beliefs that are similarly not subject to scrutiny?
Science ain’t my religion, bud. It’s way to weak and hopelessly flawed.
You cannot measure the unmeasurable. You cannot apply empiricism to pure metaphysics. It’s stupid to even try. The whole “study” is invalid from concept.[/quote]
‘Science is the effort to discover and increase human understanding of how reality works.’
…what’s so hard to understand about this quote? How it [reality] works says nothing about it’s origins, nor does it try to explain how it all came about. Ultimately, science may uncover the truth of our origins, but for the time being science tries to explain how reality works, not how it came into existence…
[quote]ephrem wrote:
‘Science is the effort to discover and increase human understanding of how reality works.’
…what’s so hard to understand about this quote? How it [reality] works says nothing about it’s origins, nor does it try to explain how it all came about. Ultimately, science may uncover the truth of our origins, but for the time being science tries to explain how reality works, not how it came into existence…
[/quote]
I love science. I think it’s fantastic…It’s just not he end all, be all for all understanding. There are to many things beyond it’s scope.
[quote]pat wrote:
I love science. I think it’s fantastic…It’s just not he end all, be all for all understanding. There are to many things beyond it’s scope.[/quote]
My sentiments precisely concerning religion.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
pat wrote:
I love science. I think it’s fantastic…It’s just not he end all, be all for all understanding. There are to many things beyond it’s scope.
My sentiments precisely concerning religion.[/quote]
Sure their are points at which science and religion comingle, but there are realms in both that are not pertinent to one another as well. I think people often try to shove square pegs in to round holes, one size fits all and it’s just not true.
[quote]Thank GOD I’m not the only one who understands the many problems with science, the problem of induction and affirming the consequent.
Heck, even the non-theistic scientists like Popper and Russell affirmed that science cannot EVER give absolutes, and that it’s flawed from the beginning. I think those who never actually think deeply on these things have just swallowed hook-line-and-sinker that science gives absolute truth.
Science is great for making better toasters, refrigerators and making people bigger It cannot tell anyone what LIFE is, what “right and wrong” is, how life began, etc, etc. It is fatally flawed, and those who are intellectually honest will admit this.[/quote]
This is partially true. Science is at best an approximation of reality, not a replication. Absolute proof does not exist outside of deductive logic, and even there it is shaky given our discoveries surrounding the behavior of matter at the very base level. However, while observation will never yield an absolute truth, where our observational capacities end also ends our ability to model reality. Observation is, by very definition, our only connection to reality. A statement of fact utterly void of basis on observation is at best an utterly meaningless guess and at worst not even truly a statement.
Your second argument is based upon two logical fallacies - the first one being false equivocation. Science knows exactly what life is. What I believe you mean is what consciousness is. Firstly, there is no reason to believe that anything real is ever beyond the reach of science. Anything that can observe or experience is, ipso facto, within the realm of science. Secondly, even if we are never able to explain consciousness, it would never be logically valid to infer anything about its nature without evidence. It would remain a hole in our knowledge, and anything we choose to fill that hole up would be nothing more than a baseless guess. The same goes for how life began.
The second problem is that you beg the question by stating that science cannot explain “right and wrong”. We cannot, in the pure sense of the word, sense or observe right and wrong. We can feel emotions associated with pride and shame, we can feel guilty and we can feel obligated to help. But we cannot actually sense a right and wrong that exists outside of our minds. Science cannot explain right and wrong because any evidence of it exists only as a mental model. You attempt to place limits on observation’s ability to increase our knowledge by assuming the very thing you are trying to prove - its limits. I maintain that that which does not exist within the realm of observation is outside the realm of human knowledge. You respond by saying “what about right and wrong? There’s no evidence for or surrounding morality outside of our minds”.
You have not refuted the argument, merely assumed its falseness. I do not dispute that there is no evidence for the existence of morality outside the human mind. But I think that it is clear what the logical conclusion to that is unless you can advance some other method for gaining knowledge.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
The problem is that this is also not true. We use all of our brains and our brains are fully mapped and pretty well understood. Yes there is lots more to learn but to say that we ‘literally’ only understand about 10% of how the brain works is not true.
That was taken from this quote, “Ultimately, it’s not that we use 10 percent of our brains, merely that we only understand about 10 percent of how it functions.” from Do People Only Use 10 Percent of Their Brains? | Scientific American
I am sure science will be happy to know that we nearly understand how the brain works in its entirety. When do you plan on breaking the news?
I wrote that from that quote because I was sure someone like you would challenge it.
[/quote]
I would contend that you wrote that in order to try to hang on to the perception that you were correct when it had been pointed out that you were merely perpetuating an incorrect myth though of course that would be merely speculation on my part.
There is a vast difference between my correcting the fallacy that we only understand 10% of brain function and your interpretation that I am stating that we almost understand the brain in its entirety. You are putting words in my mouth there.
Quoting the closing line from a pop science piece doesn’t help your case here. That was clearly journalistic license sewing up the story, not science.
No, I am not saying that they think and act the same. Again, you are putting words in my mouth.
I am saying that in most modern developed countries people are expected to make concesions to the religious beliefs of others. I do not think this is correct. People should fit their religion to the needs of the masses, not the other way round.
Not sure what you are getting at here. You had spouted off some commonly repeated, incorrect statements. I corrected them.
[quote]pat wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Professor X wrote:
forlife wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Science can not explain how life began. It has no clue at all. It creates theories of how but not one person on this planet, no matter how many lightening strikes they survive, has ever been able to make life where there was none previously. Therefore, one could even safely say we have no clue where LIFE itself came from if looked at scientifically.
I agree that certain questions are unanswerable, at least with current technology. You can create theories and test predictions based on those theories, but final proof is ephemeral.
The most honest answer in these cases is simply, “We don’t know.” Unfortunately, faith fails on that point, since you are choosing to believe in something for which there isn’t sufficient proof.
The entire game of life is about CHOICE. You have made the choice to believe that all religious beliefs are false.
Pulling ancient belief systems and acting like because ancient people believed non-scientific ideas that we now view as factually false, that this means all religious ideas are false makes ZERO logical sense
Please point to where I said current religious ideas are false because ancient religious ideas are false. What I said was that belief systems are subject to scientific scrutiny, while value systems are not.
Religious beliefs about the nature of the universe, like the ancient idea of Apollo’s chariot, or like the contemporary idea of faith healing, can be scientifically studied to determine whether or not those beliefs are based on facts.
However, you can’t put right and wrong in a lab. The determination of morality is ultimately subjective, and outside the realm of science.
So again, how has science disproven current belief systems, not belief systems from ancient people who thought evil spirits caused heart burn?
Here’s a more current example:
The study by itself doesn’t unilaterally disprove the power of prayer, but it offers one piece of objective evidence toward testing the prayer hypothesis.
It doesn’t prove or disprove anything. You can basically toss that in a heap with the other studies done that did show some effect…like those pointed out here; Harris Prayer Study
However, at the heart of all of these is the effect of positive thinking and hope, which anyone with any amount of exposure to a medical/clinical environment would have to claim with absolute certainty DO have some positive effect.
While you are focusing on religion (as if proving this wrong will somehow help your cause), the bigger issue is that we have not tapped into or even barely understood the power of the human mind. With some scientists claiming we only use about 10% of our mind when conscious, anyone who denies the possibility that there is unknown ability/power within the understanding of what we are not in control of isn’t just viewing possibilities through a shallow lens, they are about as UNscientific as one could possibly be.
Religion relates these happenings directly to prayer and divinity. It does not erase that at the heart of it is positive thinking and hope…along with praying in a group which may be the equivalent of increasing mind over matter simply because of group focus on one circumstance.
In short, things like this are why I believe people who laugh at these concepts miss the point entirely and may not be as “logical and reasonable” as they think they are…let alone intellectual.
Prof, firstly when you say that we have no clue about abiogenesis this is simply not true. We have lots of clues. Hence the fact that there is a science called abiogenesis with people carrying out active research and recieving grants from funding bodies. There are a number of current theories on this which are being researched. You are right that we have not managed to replicate the process under lab conditions however that is very different from saying we haven’t a clue.
Secondly to state that scientists believe that we only use 10% of our brains is misrepresentation of the highest order. Which Scientists, in which fields of study? I am a scientist and I could say it however my BSc in Chemistry wouldn’t really make my viewpoint any more relevant than a local Tarrot Card readers. I very much doubt you will find anyone related to the study of the brain who will say it.
You make a good point about the power of positive thought, however this is a scientific phenomenon which is actually well studied. There is no need to relate it to a supreme being.
In general terms you are correct that you cannot disprove a God because it is always possible that an all powerful God is deliberately giving the impression of their not being a God by creating a system that has no need of a God for explanation however this kind of Meta-God-Universe functions just as well without the God so I choose to go with the potential illusion and assume that there is no God until I see proof to the contrary. I like to think of it as a kind of reverse Pascal’s wager.
I mean no offence in what I am typing and hope that none is taken. If you choose to believe in a God then that is your perogative however I should not be expected to adapt my life to fit in with the requirements of other people’s belief systems. I feel that there should be 100% separation of Church and state.
You first have to define what “life” actually is to know when you have found out how it comes into being, do you not? Otherwise, what is the criteria for knowing when something is actually alive?
What proof do you require to believe in God? Just curious as to what you would require.
As a theist, I too believe in 100% separation of church and state. [/quote]
There is a scientific definition of life that I was taught in Primary school. It is very simplistic and will start to cause some debates the more our developed our technology becomes however:
MRS GREN
Movement
Respiration
Sensitivity
Growth
Reproduction
Excretion
Nutrition
In terms of proof required, I would need a God to fully reveal themselves to me and show that they were able to create things from nothing. Even then I would remain sceptical that possibly I was dreaming it or being tricked in some way. Asking a lot I know 
[quote]thebigbus wrote:
Thank GOD I’m not the only one who understands the many problems with science, the problem of induction and affirming the consequent.
Heck, even the non-theistic scientists like Popper and Russell affirmed that science cannot EVER give absolutes, and that it’s flawed from the beginning. I think those who never actually think deeply on these things have just swallowed hook-line-and-sinker that science gives absolute truth.
Science is great for making better toasters, refrigerators and making people bigger It cannot tell anyone what LIFE is, what “right and wrong” is, how life began, etc, etc. It is fatally flawed, and those who are intellectually honest will admit this.
Quote from Bertrand Russell:
“All inductive arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to the following form: ?If this is true, that is true: now that is true, therefore this is true.? This argument is, of course, formally fallacious. [It is the fallacy of asserting the consequent.] Suppose I were to say: ?If bread is a stone and stones are nourishing, then this bread will nourish me; now this bread does nourish me; therefore it is a stone and stones are nourishing.? If I were to advance such an argument, I should certainly be thought foolish, yet it would not be fundamentally different from the argument upon which all scientific laws are based”
pat wrote:
forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
You cannot apply empiricism to something that is purely metaphysical as “power of prayer”. The very concept is flawed because it is not subjective to anything. There is no way to measure it.
If a person makes a claim that prayer leads to a greater rate of healing, then that claim is subject to scientific scrutiny.
And if something is not subject to scientific scrutiny, it is impossible to prove or disprove, so why in the world would you choose to believe in it, as opposed to the thousands of other beliefs that are similarly not subject to scrutiny?
Science ain’t my religion, bud. It’s way to weak and hopelessly flawed.
You cannot measure the unmeasurable. You cannot apply empiricism to pure metaphysics. It’s stupid to even try. The whole “study” is invalid from concept.
[/quote]
The best explanation of why this is an issue is Godel’s Incompleteness Theorm:
Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
pat wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Professor X wrote:
forlife wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Science can not explain how life began. It has no clue at all. It creates theories of how but not one person on this planet, no matter how many lightening strikes they survive, has ever been able to make life where there was none previously. Therefore, one could even safely say we have no clue where LIFE itself came from if looked at scientifically.
I agree that certain questions are unanswerable, at least with current technology. You can create theories and test predictions based on those theories, but final proof is ephemeral.
The most honest answer in these cases is simply, “We don’t know.” Unfortunately, faith fails on that point, since you are choosing to believe in something for which there isn’t sufficient proof.
The entire game of life is about CHOICE. You have made the choice to believe that all religious beliefs are false.
Pulling ancient belief systems and acting like because ancient people believed non-scientific ideas that we now view as factually false, that this means all religious ideas are false makes ZERO logical sense
Please point to where I said current religious ideas are false because ancient religious ideas are false. What I said was that belief systems are subject to scientific scrutiny, while value systems are not.
Religious beliefs about the nature of the universe, like the ancient idea of Apollo’s chariot, or like the contemporary idea of faith healing, can be scientifically studied to determine whether or not those beliefs are based on facts.
However, you can’t put right and wrong in a lab. The determination of morality is ultimately subjective, and outside the realm of science.
So again, how has science disproven current belief systems, not belief systems from ancient people who thought evil spirits caused heart burn?
Here’s a more current example:
The study by itself doesn’t unilaterally disprove the power of prayer, but it offers one piece of objective evidence toward testing the prayer hypothesis.
It doesn’t prove or disprove anything. You can basically toss that in a heap with the other studies done that did show some effect…like those pointed out here; Harris Prayer Study
However, at the heart of all of these is the effect of positive thinking and hope, which anyone with any amount of exposure to a medical/clinical environment would have to claim with absolute certainty DO have some positive effect.
While you are focusing on religion (as if proving this wrong will somehow help your cause), the bigger issue is that we have not tapped into or even barely understood the power of the human mind. With some scientists claiming we only use about 10% of our mind when conscious, anyone who denies the possibility that there is unknown ability/power within the understanding of what we are not in control of isn’t just viewing possibilities through a shallow lens, they are about as UNscientific as one could possibly be.
Religion relates these happenings directly to prayer and divinity. It does not erase that at the heart of it is positive thinking and hope…along with praying in a group which may be the equivalent of increasing mind over matter simply because of group focus on one circumstance.
In short, things like this are why I believe people who laugh at these concepts miss the point entirely and may not be as “logical and reasonable” as they think they are…let alone intellectual.
Prof, firstly when you say that we have no clue about abiogenesis this is simply not true. We have lots of clues. Hence the fact that there is a science called abiogenesis with people carrying out active research and recieving grants from funding bodies. There are a number of current theories on this which are being researched. You are right that we have not managed to replicate the process under lab conditions however that is very different from saying we haven’t a clue.
Secondly to state that scientists believe that we only use 10% of our brains is misrepresentation of the highest order. Which Scientists, in which fields of study? I am a scientist and I could say it however my BSc in Chemistry wouldn’t really make my viewpoint any more relevant than a local Tarrot Card readers. I very much doubt you will find anyone related to the study of the brain who will say it.
You make a good point about the power of positive thought, however this is a scientific phenomenon which is actually well studied. There is no need to relate it to a supreme being.
In general terms you are correct that you cannot disprove a God because it is always possible that an all powerful God is deliberately giving the impression of their not being a God by creating a system that has no need of a God for explanation however this kind of Meta-God-Universe functions just as well without the God so I choose to go with the potential illusion and assume that there is no God until I see proof to the contrary. I like to think of it as a kind of reverse Pascal’s wager.
I mean no offence in what I am typing and hope that none is taken. If you choose to believe in a God then that is your perogative however I should not be expected to adapt my life to fit in with the requirements of other people’s belief systems. I feel that there should be 100% separation of Church and state.
You first have to define what “life” actually is to know when you have found out how it comes into being, do you not? Otherwise, what is the criteria for knowing when something is actually alive?
What proof do you require to believe in God? Just curious as to what you would require.
As a theist, I too believe in 100% separation of church and state.
There is a scientific definition of life that I was taught in Primary school. It is very simplistic and will start to cause some debates the more our developed our technology becomes however:
MRS GREN
Movement
Respiration
Sensitivity
Growth
Reproduction
Excretion
Nutrition
In terms of proof required, I would need a God to fully reveal themselves to me and show that they were able to create things from nothing. Even then I would remain sceptical that possibly I was dreaming it or being tricked in some way. Asking a lot I know :-)[/quote]
Those are symptoms of life, not life itself…But I don’t feel like digging way deep into the definition, especially since I don’t know.
Yeah it’s a lot to ask, but you never know, you just may get your answers.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
I would contend that you wrote that in order to try to hang on to the perception that you were correct when it had been pointed out that you were merely perpetuating an incorrect myth though of course that would be merely speculation on my part.
There is a vast difference between my correcting the fallacy that we only understand 10% of brain function and your interpretation that I am stating that we almost understand the brain in its entirety. You are putting words in my mouth there.
Quoting the closing line from a pop science piece doesn’t help your case here. That was clearly journalistic license sewing up the story, not science.[/quote]
You are still arguing a percentage, some arbitrary number picked out to indicate that NO, against what you wrote earlier, we do NOT have the workings of human mind fully understood at this point in time.
Sorry if that information hurts.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
I would contend that you wrote that in order to try to hang on to the perception that you were correct when it had been pointed out that you were merely perpetuating an incorrect myth though of course that would be merely speculation on my part.
There is a vast difference between my correcting the fallacy that we only understand 10% of brain function and your interpretation that I am stating that we almost understand the brain in its entirety. You are putting words in my mouth there.
Quoting the closing line from a pop science piece doesn’t help your case here. That was clearly journalistic license sewing up the story, not science.
You are still arguing a percentage, some arbitrary number picked out to indicate that NO, against what you wrote earlier, we do NOT have the workings of human mind fully understood at this point in time.
Sorry if that information hurts.
[/quote]
I have never stated that we do have it all worked out. And I am sure that some of what we think we have worked out we have got totally arse about face. Not sure where you think I stated that we knew things for sure.
Reading back my post I can see that it might have come off as an attack straight at you given that I haven’t even addressed the point of the OP. Sorry if that is the case, this was not my intention.
To the original point, I think it is pointless to try and compare church going in the past with now and claim it says something about belief.
It is hard to measure how many people truly believe today. In the past it is impossible to know how many people went to church just to fit in. In the past forms on censuses didn’t have a space to state atheist. You would be grouped into a religion based on your family history, your name, or your ethnic background.
Maybe today more people believe more firmly however we are just better at measuring these facts. Who knows and frankly who cares.
At least (true) science tries to find a decent explanation, and doesn’t need to resort to variations of “magic did it”.
On a happier note…I was confirmed today and recieved my first communion (a number of us, actually), and had the pleasure of watching my brother get baptized (along with one other person). So there’s at least two new baptized Christians, and a couple new Papists in my neck of the woods. What a wonderful and moving mass. Have a great Easter!
[quote]jermag27 wrote:
Do you think less God in our country means we are abandoning the ideas of the founding fathers, or that the founding fathers were following the popular belief system of the day and were able to get away with integrating the word God into every document they wrote? [/quote]
Silly me, I always thought that our founding fathers started a country that separated Church and State.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
On a happier note…I was confirmed today and recieved my first communion (a number of us, actually), and had the pleasure of watching my brother get baptized (along with one other person). So there’s at least two new baptized Christians, and a couple new Papists in my neck of the woods. What a wonderful and moving mass. Have a great Easter! [/quote]
Woohoo! Congrats.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
On a happier note…I was confirmed today and recieved my first communion (a number of us, actually), and had the pleasure of watching my brother get baptized (along with one other person). So there’s at least two new baptized Christians, and a couple new Papists in my neck of the woods. What a wonderful and moving mass. Have a great Easter! [/quote]
Congratulations. Explain something to a Protestant (Anglican, but still…): do you have to be confirmed as a Catholic to receive communion? I thought it was just baptized. That’s how it works for us.