How Much Do You Know About Christianity?

[quote]pushharder wrote:
You evolutionists are going to have to try a different tack or come up with some new ideas or idea warriors. You’ve been sending out your B team and I am getting bored.

So far we have:

  1. Repeated claims that speciation and microevolution have just got to somehow produce macroevolution.

  2. The bible (yes, the bible with a small ‘b’) is full of errors which nobody can seem to locate.

  3. God, if He is around somewhere, may have been able to speak the universe into existence but He was totally lost when it came to creating the universe with an appearance of age, like He did with Adam and Eve.

  4. “The fossil record, man, the fossil record!” When in fact the fossil record is one of if not the greatest chunks of evidence for the creation model.

  5. DNA. This one really makes me scratch my head. DNA screams for a designer/creator.

[/quote]

  1. 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

Macro evolution is on pretty firm footing. Please learn to use google.

  1. Numerous errors have been pointed out on this very board. On page one for instance, Malachi 3:6 was mention. Among the questions posed by the ‘atheist crowd’ is why if god never changes, does he have to have so many different covenants with so many different people. I mean, the whole Jesus thing seems more like an admission that He made a mistake, than something an unchanging god would ever do.

  2. The reason we bring this up is because is seems ridiculous. First you posit an all powerful, all knowing being with no evidence. Then you insist that he, for no reason at all, made the universe appear much older than 6000. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This always reminds me of the tower of babel. God knocks down a tower b/c people are getting close to heaven and then scrambles their languages, but then allows America to actually orbit the earth and fly to the moon? See number 2. These standards are hardly consistent.

  3. Really? Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You’ll notice that I try to address your objections with links to reliable websites. I would appreciate the same courtesy from you.

I don’t see how 99% of all the species that ever existed being extinct bodes well for a creator. If there is one, looks like he isn’t good at his job.

  1. DNA doesn’t scream out for a creator. It’s full of junk like inactive genes, many of which are hold overs from our previous evolutionary forms. Again, if this is the work of a designer, he’s not very good.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/another_junk_dna_denialist_on.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/06/its_junk_get_over_it.php

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Jeffe wrote:
An unhealthy degree of skepticism is the kind of skepticism that keeps maniacs from finally admitting that the church is in fact wrong, and the world is billions of years old.

Edit: As I was clicking “post” I caught a glimpse of the above post asking for someone to point out a single error in church doctrine. I think I just did that.

Tsk, tsk. Another inattentive reader or one with poor reading skills. Go see if you can find a quote about no errors in church doctrine. It’s not there, buddy.

I did make a statement about no errors in the Bible, at least any that amount to doctrinal inconsistencies. You think you know of some? Go git 'em and bring 'em here.

The fact is that the concept of the bible

…and again another capitalization rebel. LOL You guys are so cotton-pickin’ contumacious.

…being “the word of God” is illogical right on the face of it. Even if the entire book, EVERYTHING in it in fact happened…it’s still nothing more than a history lesson. It was written by humans, and almost all of it is simply a story being told. Fact of fiction is irrelevant in this particular case. The “word of God” is not what some people decided to jot down thousands of years ago. That’s the word of those people, and more importantly, the word of the people who translated the book through the centuries. Unless there’s a “God’s Publishing House” somewhere pumping out translated versions with absolutely 0% variation in syntax and meaning.

Highly subjective but you are entitled to your opinion.

On top of that, the Genesis story claims that the whole Universe is a few thousand years old. A story written something like 5,000 years ago. Today we have accurate measurements of distance through our Galaxy using known constants (the speed of light) and some other factors that I am simply not familiar with.
These calculations let us look up into the sky and say, “Yup, that star is 20 million light years away.” Knowing that the calculations and distances are accurate (this has been experimented and confirmed to the point of scientific fact) Then one must admit that the star has been emitting visible light for 20 million years.

If one has to admit that something existed in our Universe 20 million years ago then they must admit that the Genesis story did not happen in the time-frame it claimed.

You have some things to learn about light (energy) such as different theories and ideas about whether it’s speed is constant or variable, whether it has ALWAYS traveled at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum, whether or not God could have created the universe with the beams of energy already in place or not, etc.

When you come into these discussions without some rudimentary knowledge about the above then you enter ill-prepared and easily parried.

If one admits that there is an error in Genesis, then they must admit there is an error in the Bible, in the church doctrine. And if one must admit that there is an error in one story in the Bible, then they MUST admit that the stories and therefore storytellers of the bible are not infallible, and the chances of more errors, perhaps far more meaningful than a matter of time frame, is rather high.

Like I said, you go find them and bring 'em back here. Fetch, Spot, fetch.
[/quote]

I don’t know what capitalization has to do with anything. It might have simply been a typo.

As far as coming to an argument with only “rudimentary knowledge” I think it’s fair to say that anyway who hasn’t studied physics in some formal way would only carry a rudimentary knowledge. However, it can be said, even with a most basic knowledge of the subject, that the variation in the speed of light to account for a difference of 19,999,000 years of travel time (assuming the 20 million light year example) is far too great, and at the same time far too small to be considered a realistic possibility.

It’s essentially saying that for no particular reason, light energy decided to travel orders of magnitude faster, only to slow down, again, for no particular reason. Making the claim that God decided to put the beams of light in place already is one of the most absurd claims I’ve come across. To what end? So we can look up at all the shiny things God made?
More importantly, every accepted theory of light uses a lightspeed of 186,000miles/second through a vacuum, and it only gets slower from that point.

To back up this claim a bit further, the only thing that does not have a “speed limit” so to speak, is space itself…allowing for the extremely rapid expansion during the first few seconds of the Big Bang. However, light, is still limited to 186,000miles/second during that rapid expansion, because space itself is moving relative to matter, not the other way around (this idea is the concept behind a “warp drive”).
The light does not catch up until the expansion is long since completed, giving us the estimated age of the Universe at roughly 14 billion years old (the oldest light and radiation we’ve recorded)

The point is, the speed of light is a reasonably constant and measurable distance. IN fact, the meter is now a tiny measurement of the distance light travels in a certain interval of time through a specific medium. The reason? Because it’s always the same.

As far as my arguments being “easily parried” I must note that you parried nothing. You use a pompous and arrogant tone to appear “above the argument” and allow you to assume a winning posture, yet you provide no argument at all.

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
mbm693 wrote:

So… not even going to attempt to address my arguments? You’re sad.

Still, I’m going to give another shot.

  1. What are the spiritual properties of alcohol that allow it to interfere with the souls control of the brain?

  2. Who is running the show when I’m drunk. If my soul isn’t in control of my body anymore, then who is responsible for what it does? God does demand accountability right?

Look, I won’t even make you admit that I’m right. You’re ego is far too large for that. Just admit that you don’t have any idea how to answer my questions and I’ll count that as good enough.

PS. I’m not sure why you think you’re insulting me, or demeaning my arguments, by saying things like ‘You are not a thinking individual with a self-identity, you are merely a random set of parts acting in a pre-determined way.’ That is actually what I think, and it’s what the evidence supports. I’m so proud that you’re able to charterize it somewhat accurately. But, what part telling me what I think with a sarcastic tone supports your position? All you’re actually doing is repeating me… is this some misguided bid to make people think you have half a brain?

No - that’s not what you “think” - you’ve just admitted that you don’t actually have the ability to think - Thinking, believing, choosing are all just an illusion for you because you’re just chemical/electrical processes . . .

and your argument is only a straw-man since it is based on something I did not state.

  1. You’ve completely mis-characterized my point - my point was that free will allows you to choice to drink alcohol, alcohol then interferes with your brain (the switchboard) functions. Three parts, three roles, three separate functions - spiritual, mental, physical - was that simple enough for you? I can’t answer your question, because it wasn’t something that I stated . . . what I stated was choice leads to actions leads to consequences . . .

  2. You are still running your body when your are drunk, just not as well as before you impaired your functionality . . . again, you’re stating things I did not state . .

I have plenty of answers for you, but waiting for some real questions based on what I actually say, rather than all of this nonsense and reinterpretation you keep using.

Now, I hope that was enough to put your straw man argument to bed now . . .

Any chance you could ingest something to improve your chemical process and come up with something substantive to discuss or must we run in these silly childish circles?[/quote]

Let me get this straight… I have total free will, even after I’m drunk? Except that my soul will be all like “get up and walk out of the bar” and then I’ll walk into the bathroom and fuck some girl that I’m not married to. If that’s true, seems like the only thing my soul did wrong was have that first beer, or glass of wine if Jesus was bartending. After that one, my soul probably wanted me to quit, and my body just wouldn’t listen… it appears to have made its own decisions, independent of the soul. Is this why you think most people make it to heaven? They just aren’t responsible for a lot of what they do?

Also, and this is a question I asked you a few pages back that you’ve been all to happy to forget about, given the degree to which brain chemistry disrupts the soul’s ability to control the body, how can you reliably say the soul is ever in control? I mean, nobody’s brain chemistry is alike, and single person’s brain chemistry is the same from moment to moment. If alcohol can have that profound of effect, then surely testosterone creates short circuits too.

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
PS. I’m not sure why you think you’re insulting me, or demeaning my arguments, by saying things like ‘You are not a thinking individual with a self-identity, you are merely a random set of parts acting in a pre-determined way.’ That is actually what I think,

Sorry to barge in like this, but who is it then who’s doing the thinking?
[/quote]

This is a pretty ignorant question, but I’ll answer it anyway. I am a collection of chemical processes. Thinking is a chemical process. Therefore, I (the flimsy chemical consciousness between my ears) am still doing the thinking.

You are excused for barging in.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
…That is actually what I think, and it’s what the evidence supports…

Does it now? Bring the “evidence” to Papa.

[/quote]

Human behavior can be drastically, predictably altered by physical things like prozac, alcohol, weed, brain damage, hormones, ect. This strongly suggests that the brain, and all it’s functions are inside the causal chain and subject the same physical laws as the rest of the universe. Where is your evidence that it isn’t?

Please keep in mind, that the fact that we don’t know EVERYTHING about the brain is not evidence that it is not a purely physical entity, it is just evidence that we don’t know something.

[quote]Jeffe wrote:

As far as my arguments being “easily parried” I must note that you parried nothing. You use a pompous and arrogant tone to appear “above the argument” and allow you to assume a winning posture, yet you provide no argument at all.
[/quote]

Very well said.

I love this thread… everyone is right and wrong. IrishSteel… enjoy your day with self-pleasure! Nothing in these forums is serious anyways… sincere maybe. I hope your wife gets better dude. :wink:

I wonder how long this thread is going to last? Eternity maybe. LOL

Stay lifting strong!

Laterz

[quote]pushharder wrote:
mbm693 wrote:

You link talkorigins and I’ll link “Darwin’s Black Box.” Impasse be we at.

[/quote]
Link away. You’d have to find some pretty fantastic lying to explain away the actual examples of macro evolution at talkorigins. Please realize, just linking to something that says "macro evolution has never been found’ is not in any way refuting the actual examples I linked to.

You keep saying its a misunderstanding, but you never address how it is a misunderstanding. You just declare victory and then say something sarcastic. It’s kind of sad.

I left my comment in here so everyone can see how your response doesn’t have ANYTHING TO DO with my comment. Please work on your reading comprehension and logic skills before posting in a public place. You’ve made us all dumber on more than a few occasions.

Really? What did I get wrong? See, I’d already know, but you just assumed you had the high ground and quit arguing. This is really sad.

I read the other pages before I weighed in. You might have linked ONE time, but mostly, you just make statements with nothing to back them up.

Like what? Do you have any counter example or reasoning, or are you just typing b/c you like to hear the keys click?

Really, so TWO little old people can totally derail god’s awesome creation? Seems like he should have built something a little more stable to me. Again, if there is a designer at work here, he sucks.

[quote]mbm693 wrote:

Let me get this straight… I have total free will, even after I’m drunk? Except that my soul will be all like “get up and walk out of the bar” and then I’ll walk into the bathroom and fuck some girl that I’m not married to. If that’s true, seems like the only thing my soul did wrong was have that first beer, or glass of wine if Jesus was bartending. After that one, my soul probably wanted me to quit, and my body just wouldn’t listen… it appears to have made its own decisions, independent of the soul. Is this why you think most people make it to heaven? They just aren’t responsible for a lot of what they do?

Also, and this is a question I asked you a few pages back that you’ve been all to happy to forget about, given the degree to which brain chemistry disrupts the soul’s ability to control the body, how can you reliably say the soul is ever in control? I mean, nobody’s brain chemistry is alike, and single person’s brain chemistry is the same from moment to moment. If alcohol can have that profound of effect, then surely testosterone creates short circuits too.
[/quote]

How can I dumb this down for you? . . . I guess it is time to break it down as simple as possible for your willing ignorance.

There are three components of the individual - A physical component (the Body), and mental component (the Mind),and a spiritual component (the Soul). You have correctly identified the physical and mental components and freely admit that science has proven them to exist. What you have no concept of, whether by choice or ignorance, is the Soul. Your soul is you, that state of self-awareness, it is that part that makes the morally culpable decisions. The concept of Free Will is the ability of the soul to make Morally Culpable decision free of cause/influence. It is an attribute of the soul, not a mechanism of the brain.

When God created man, he created a body and mind and breathes into each person the Breath of Life - the Soul. It is the soul that animates the body and creates what we see as personality and humanity. When it says that we are created in His image, we have been given attributes that reflect his attributes - the soul can create, the soul can love, the soul can choose, etc.

Your soul does not act in opposition to your brain (which is the part you’ve been trying to force all along) The soul is what animates the brain and thus the body.

I never said ingesting the alcohol was wrong - I only said that you had exercised free will by choosing to ingest the alcohol - if you then choose to commit a moral wrong under the mental impairment of the alcohol, from a spiritual perspective you are still morally guilty of the wrong that you commit. Since you chose to impair your mental faculties, you cannot blame that impairment (slow reaction time, etc) for the actions that follow because you made the first choice and then you still make another free moral decision to commit the wrong . . . the linear progression of those events is not divisible.

Again, the impairment of your mental faculties does not remove moral culpability from the moral choices you make while under the influence of that alcohol.

I never said that the soul was not in control of the mind or body, but only that the soul could choose to ingest substances that impair the functioning of the mind and body.

All of your arguments have consisted of adding words to mine or wrongly restating what I actually said.

As for your illustration at the beginning - no, your soul (you) chose to drink, and then to walk into the bathroom and fuck some girl you are not married to and then chose to try to blame it on the alcohol . . .

Go ahead and keep trying to avoid yourself . . .

[quote]pushharder wrote:

This strongly suggests that the brain, and all it’s functions are inside the causal chain and subject the same physical laws as the rest of the universe. Where is your evidence that it isn’t?

Please keep in mind, that the fact that we don’t know EVERYTHING about the brain is not evidence that it is not a purely physical entity, it is just evidence that we don’t know something.

A lot of the back-and-forth on this has been covered above. I’m not going to refresh it.[/quote]

You wouldn’t, that would involve actually making a post with substance instead of just unsubstantiated statements.

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
mbm693 wrote:

Let me get this straight… I have total free will, even after I’m drunk? Except that my soul will be all like “get up and walk out of the bar” and then I’ll walk into the bathroom and fuck some girl that I’m not married to. If that’s true, seems like the only thing my soul did wrong was have that first beer, or glass of wine if Jesus was bartending. After that one, my soul probably wanted me to quit, and my body just wouldn’t listen… it appears to have made its own decisions, independent of the soul. Is this why you think most people make it to heaven? They just aren’t responsible for a lot of what they do?

Also, and this is a question I asked you a few pages back that you’ve been all to happy to forget about, given the degree to which brain chemistry disrupts the soul’s ability to control the body, how can you reliably say the soul is ever in control? I mean, nobody’s brain chemistry is alike, and single person’s brain chemistry is the same from moment to moment. If alcohol can have that profound of effect, then surely testosterone creates short circuits too.

How can I dumb this down for you? . . . I guess it is time to break it down as simple as possible for your willing ignorance.

There are three components of the individual - A physical component (the Body), and mental component (the Mind),and a spiritual component (the Soul). You have correctly identified the physical and mental components and freely admit that science has proven them to exist. What you have no concept of, whether by choice or ignorance, is the Soul. Your soul is you, that state of self-awareness, it is that part that makes the morally culpable decisions. The concept of Free Will is the ability of the soul to make Morally Culpable decision free of cause/influence. It is an attribute of the soul, not a mechanism of the brain.

When God created man, he created a body and mind and breathes into each person the Breath of Life - the Soul. It is the soul that animates the body and creates what we see as personality and humanity. When it says that we are created in His image, we have been given attributes that reflect his attributes - the soul can create, the soul can love, the soul can choose, etc.

Your soul does not act in opposition to your brain (which is the part you’ve been trying to force all along) The soul is what animates the brain and thus the body.

I never said ingesting the alcohol was wrong - I only said that you had exercised free will by choosing to ingest the alcohol - if you then choose to commit a moral wrong under the mental impairment of the alcohol, from a spiritual perspective you are still morally guilty of the wrong that you commit. Since you chose to impair your mental faculties, you cannot blame that impairment (slow reaction time, etc) for the actions that follow because you made the first choice and then you still make another free moral decision to commit the wrong . . . the linear progression of those events is not divisible.

Again, the impairment of your mental faculties does not remove moral culpability from the moral choices you make while under the influence of that alcohol.

I never said that the soul was not in control of the mind or body, but only that the soul could choose to ingest substances that impair the functioning of the mind and body.

All of your arguments have consisted of adding words to mine or wrongly restating what I actually said.

As for your illustration at the beginning - no, your soul (you) chose to drink, and then to walk into the bathroom and fuck some girl you are not married to and then chose to try to blame it on the alcohol . . .

Go ahead and keep trying to avoid yourself . . .[/quote]

I don’t need you to tell me what you believe AGAIN. I would like you address issue I raised. In the scenario I described, a person would only be guilty of drinking the first beer (nothing wrong with that). After that I’m mentally impaired, which means either my soul maintained it’s fully faculties and is in disagreement with the body. OR it means that my soul got dumb too. If the former, everything after that first beer is beyond the control of their soul, so it can’t be held responsible. If the latter, then your soul seems to be effected quite easily by the physical realm, and if that’s that case, why would you assume it isn’t IN the physical realm?

Secondly, you’ve failed to address what I see as the most important part of the argument. If CHEMCIALS in the brain can effect the degree of control the soul has over the brain (or mind, however the fuck you want to phrase it), then how can you be sure the soul ever has any control, given the constant flux of chemicals in the brain? After all, Testosterone has a far more profound impact on a man’s life/mind/brain function/behavior than alcohol does. Pursuant to the paragraph above, does a man’s soul get horny when he hits puberty, or is it just his mind and body acting contrary to what the soul wants?

Please dust off your spectacle and actually try to read what I have just written. I did not just add words to what you’ve said, or misinterpret what you’ve written. I’m asking a question that you seem to love to ignore. Answer it or go away and retool your philosophy so that you can hang with the big boys.

[quote]mbm693 wrote:

I don’t need you to tell me what you believe AGAIN. I would like you address issue I raised. In the scenario I described, a person would only be guilty of drinking the first beer (nothing wrong with that). After that I’m mentally impaired, which means either my soul maintained it’s fully faculties and is in disagreement with the body. OR it means that my soul got dumb too. If the former, everything after that first beer is beyond the control of their soul, so it can’t be held responsible. If the latter, then your soul seems to be effected quite easily by the physical realm, and if that’s that case, why would you assume it isn’t IN the physical realm?

Secondly, you’ve failed to address what I see as the most important part of the argument. If CHEMCIALS in the brain can effect the degree of control the soul has over the brain (or mind, however the fuck you want to phrase it), then how can you be sure the soul ever has any control, given the constant flux of chemicals in the brain? After all, Testosterone has a far more profound impact on a man’s life/mind/brain function/behavior than alcohol does. Pursuant to the paragraph above, does a man’s soul get horny when he hits puberty, or is it just his mind and body acting contrary to what the soul wants?

Please dust off your spectacle and actually try to read what I have just written. I did not just add words to what you’ve said, or misinterpret what you’ve written. I’m asking a question that you seem to love to ignore. Answer it or go away and retool your philosophy so that you can hang with the big boys. [/quote]

You are a moron - you say you don’t want to know what I believe, and then ask me a bunch of questions about what I believe . . . pointless . . .

I want know the parts I’ve asked you about, not the parts you’ve already written over and over again. Sorry that’s too complicated a distinction for you. Now answer my questions.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Jeffey has a cheerleader!

Here’s the deal, boyz. You wanna waltz into the saloon where I have been minding my business playing poker with whoever wants in. But you bust in twirling your pearl-handled six shooters and shouting and demanding the bartender serve you first, etc. I’m sitting over against the wall and you’re disturbing my game, see. So if you smart off to me I might pull the twin triggers on my double barrel that’s resting on my knee under the table.

Now maybe I haven’t been all smoochy-poochie civil and all that, at times, but this is Testosterone Nation. You should be able to handle it. If you can’t, Go Greyhound.

[/quote]

It’s not about you being an asshole. I’d be a little disappointing if you weren’t at least a little sarcastic. Please work on your reading comprehension a bit, and then read his quote again. After that, you might be able respond to his point like a big boy.

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
I want know the parts I’ve asked you about, not the parts you’ve already written over and over again. Sorry that’s too complicated a distinction for you. Now answer my questions.[/quote]

sorry that you can’t read or think . . . I already answered your control question.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Don’t have the time today to go through everything you wrote (plumbing in kitchen sink is backed up) but the swinging thing deserves discussion somewhere else. Read Philo Thelos’ “Divine Sex” if you want my take on that subject.

I commend you for reading Strobel. I have not read “The Case for Christ”. I have read “The Case for a Creator.”

You seem to be hung up alleged errors that “must” have occurred. The facts, however, under careful scrutiny, show that the NT and OT for that matter are very, very close to the early manuscripts. You need more study and less assumption in this area.
[/quote]

What “facts”. I’m not saying there aren’t any, just that I’ve never seen any presented.

Carbon dating.

The Bible (there, spelled it with a capital B) states that God created humankind on the sixth day of creation, yet we know for a fact that the earth is a shit load more than 5 days older than human beings by using carbon dating.

BTW, the bible also states that God created humankind on the sixth day, but “then” (after the seventh day when he rested) he creates man from the dust of the ground. How could God have created humankind on the sixth day, but “then” (the bible actually uses the word “then”) needed to do it again after he rested on the seventh day?

And where do you think we get these metaphors and figures of speech? They have origins you know and the origins of these metaphors lie in a flat earth conceptual model. If there was no such conceptual model, why then was Galileo persecuted for his suggestion that the earth was spherical?

It makes me someone who is not in denial of reality.

You tell me of one single human being (and you can’t use Jesus if you believe him to be the living God) who is incapable of error or not filtering their thoughts/inspirations through their cultural/socioeconomical and metaphysical conceptual models.

In other words, let’s say that God breathed inspiration to you on the actual nature of the physical universe (basically what physicists are trying to discover through experimentation with colliding matter/anti matter particles). And let’s say that you tried to convey this inspiration to others.

Are you saying that you would not have to do so using your current understanding of the universe as well as your current vocabulary to describe these thoughts? And are you suggesting that the person who you were conveying them to would perfectly understand what you were trying to get across to them, and that the person who they told about it would also perfectly understand, and the person who they told it to would perfectly understand, and so on and so on over 2,000+ years?

Yes it does. Once God inspired the first person to write down “his word” it was a matter of free will whether that person put any of their own agendas into the translation. And it was a matter of free will as to whether each and every person who copied or translated those words from there on out as to whether they did the same.

God does not pull people’s strings like puppets, but instead allows them to choose to be obedient of defiant, the act of writing down/passing on “his word” is not immune to this same phenomenon.

see above.

see above.

The only possible way to prove such a thing would be to invent a time machine and travel backwards in time to see for yourself. I’m not claiming it as fact that it happened, simply suggesting that there is a possibility, and thus that I reserve some degree of skepticism about the subject.

[quote]
My point is simply to take that into consideration and not get so hung up on the exact wording, or taking every single verse literally, or not realizing the cultural and/or metaphorical nature of many of the verses.

It does take study. Lots of study. Not lots of dismissal.

Thanks for your time here and forgive me for smacking you too hard here and there.

Oh no, not dismissal, but a healthy degree of skepticism and perspective can be useful while studying.

But an unhealthy degree of skepticism and perspective can cloud one’s mind, no? After all, saying a “healthy degree” is advantageous implies that an unhealthy degree exists. Where is the Mason Dixon line between the two and how do you know which side you’re on?[/quote]

An unhealthy degree would be cynicism, denial would be another word for this.

Skepticism doesn’t cloud your mind, it simply filters the information that it encounters to determine whether it’s valid or not. I’m sure that you use it constantly on a daily basis, either that or you have a house full of infomercial stuff. :wink:

As far as the “Mason Dixon line”, that’s why you have a conscience (the Holy Spirit if you like). But in reality even that has likely been colored by the people who raised you/ instilled your moral code in you.