Intro to Christianity for Teens

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
141

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:
I believe scientists might take some issue [/quote]

I believe so much of your world view is made up of conjecture and assumptions based on what other people had done or said, that what you claim to believe is a worthless measure, meaningless to any sort of relevant humanity.

Also, through my wife, I’m now related to an entire extended family that counts among them quite a few scientists. One of whom works for the government and is arguably one of the smartest people in the country if not the world. Each and every single one of these people are devout Christians to the point of where they didn’t (until kid six came along and the weight of more kids was heavier than sin) use birth control.

So what you believe others would take exception to means jack and shit. [/quote]

No scientist believes a man lived 600 years, that a woman was made from a rib. I also knoew very smart people who identify as christians but guess what, they don’t believe anything in their books, they are not christians, they merely hold up a cultural tradition.

Do you know who else identifies as christian? Richard Dawkins. I guess christianity is compatible with christendom after all :smiley: Next you will be saying Einstein was religious. 100% of all scientists who claim any sort of spirituality do it under his contextual lens, some form of intelligence intelligence, a universal intelligence etc.

Also name the guy or it is suspect to say the least. Funny how this anecdote just appeared when you were arguing with an atheist and claim to know some super well known scientist who is pretty much the only christian scientist who actually believes in anything in the bible.
[/quote]

First off, I would take Beans at his word if I were you.

He has absolutely no reason to fabricate anything to score points on the Internet against a 22-year-old atheist.

Second, please cite the source in which Richard Dawkins identifies himself as Christian. This I gotta see.[/quote]

I know you are friends with some of these guys but lets be real here, no scientist believes anyone ever lived to be 600 years old. Maybe he identifies as christian but pretending there are prominent scientists who believe in a literal interpretation of the bible is quite questionable.

Richard Dawkins: 'I am a secular Christian'

He has quite a few videos where he identifies himself as christian.[/quote]

As Pat said earlier, not all Christians take everything in the Hebrew Bible as absolute literal history. Some do. My good friend Pushharder is one of them. But Pat doesn’t, and the Pope doesn’t, and Father Coyne, who used to be the head astronomer for the Vatican certainly doesn’t. You don’t have to be an atheist to be a scientist, just like you don’t have to be a Christian to be a credulous, superstitious nob end.

Dawkins called himself a “cultural Christan”. The equivalent would be Einstein, who was a “cultural Jew”. I am guessing Einstein did not personally believe that Methuselah lived nearly a thousand years, or that Noah literally gathered up a breeding pair of every land animal on the planet, nor even that God ever spoke to Moses or Abraham or Noah or anybody at all…but he was raised as a Jew, and would have been treated as one had he stayed in Germany.

You seem like a decent guy, Yamato, but you need to learn to choose your battles. This is not one of the battles I would have chosen, were I you. Now is the time to apologise graciously, and bow out.

142

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

Yes and that isn’t evolutionary adaption it is societal phenomena. [/quote]

Have you ever stopped to consider the reason why it is a constant “societal phenomenon?” Almost universally so? Perhaps an underlying inherent reason?

I realize you want to find our angels in our genes, and our demons in society, but maybe your demons exist because of our genes. And our genes were never the angels you had hoped they were.

Have you ever stopped to wonder at why religious faith is one of the most widespread shared experiences of the human condition? Far more shared than being a “homosexual,” or the need to have your male genitals scientifically mutilated before throwing on a dress and pumping oneself full of scientific opposite sex hormones. But obviously it’s the latter predispositions which must be inherent (and therefore off limits, or “bigotry!”), but not the universal (relatively speaking) experience of religious faiths, beliefs, and practices.

Fella, you don’t even believe in the moral high ground (since you invented it, a fairly tale) you’re trying to cast stones from.

[/quote]

You just said nothing with a whole bunch of letters strung together. Also it is ironic you are against genital mutilation. Circumcision on non-consenting babies seems much more fucked up than a grown adult choosing what to do with their body.

Also just because you won’t acknowledge the reality of morality and how it emerged you does not mean you can just pretend another divine morality exists and me not accepting it means I therefore have no moral compass.
This is like a southpark sketch with evangelists in it.

143

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

I would teach my son that we are part of the animal kingdom and we have evolved to such heights we were able to use an invented moral code…[/quote]

So you’ll tell your son he would be comitting an evil, then telling telling him nah, just kidding, the evil of the act doesn’t actually exist. “I was just bsing.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Really, pa?”

“Nah, boy. I’m just joshing with ya.”

And you’re worried about what Christians teach their kids?!

[/quote]

Just because i understand where morals came from does not mean I don’t support them. I don’t want my mum to get raped, criminalising rape which happens almost universally amongst the species massively decreases her chances of being raped. See how evolutionary morality works? I don’t want to be killed or have my loved ones killed, criminalising murder which all animals do massively reduces my chances of being killed and my families.

[/quote]

All animals criminalize murder? What?
[/quote]

All animals kill one another and force sex upon one another.

146

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

Yes and that isn’t evolutionary adaption it is societal phenomena. [/quote]

Have you ever stopped to consider the reason why it is a constant “societal phenomenon?” Almost universally so? Perhaps an underlying inherent reason?

I realize you want to find our angels in our genes, and our demons in society, but maybe your demons exist because of our genes. And our genes were never the angels you had hoped they were.

Have you ever stopped to wonder at why religious faith is one of the most widespread shared experiences of the human condition? Far more shared than being a “homosexual,” or the need to have your male genitals scientifically mutilated before throwing on a dress and pumping oneself full of scientific opposite sex hormones. But obviously it’s the latter predispositions which must be inherent (and therefore off limits, or “bigotry!”), but not the universal (relatively speaking) experience of religious faiths, beliefs, and practices.

Fella, you don’t even believe in the moral high ground (since you invented it, a fairly tale) you’re trying to cast stones from.

[/quote]

You just said nothing with a whole bunch of letters strung together. Also it is ironic you are against genital mutilation. Circumcision on non-consenting babies seems much more fucked up than a grown adult choosing what to do with their body.

Also just because you won’t acknowledge the reality of morality and how it emerged you does not mean you can just pretend another divine morality exists and me not accepting it means I therefore have no moral compass.
This is like a southpark sketch with evangelists in it.[/quote]

I’ll make this easy on you. Perhaps the reason why so much of humanity has a tenancy for religious belief (a startling unique feature of humanity) is because of an inherent predisposition. In short, and ironically, because of Evolution. And, so, you’re stuck in the ridiculous position (considering your almost religious-like reverence towards it) railing against our evolutionary adaption.

Great, you have a moral compass. You say yours is made up. You say mine is made up. My favorite color is red. Yours is blue. So how can you judge my adherence to religious beliefs and morality? Knowing that you’ve invented (it’s phony, knowingly) the morality from which to judge it by? Like judging my favorite color is the wrong favorite color.

148

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:
I believe scientists might take some issue [/quote]

I believe so much of your world view is made up of conjecture and assumptions based on what other people had done or said, that what you claim to believe is a worthless measure, meaningless to any sort of relevant humanity.

Also, through my wife, I’m now related to an entire extended family that counts among them quite a few scientists. One of whom works for the government and is arguably one of the smartest people in the country if not the world. Each and every single one of these people are devout Christians to the point of where they didn’t (until kid six came along and the weight of more kids was heavier than sin) use birth control.

So what you believe others would take exception to means jack and shit. [/quote]

No scientist believes a man lived 600 years, that a woman was made from a rib. I also knoew very smart people who identify as christians but guess what, they don’t believe anything in their books, they are not christians, they merely hold up a cultural tradition.

Do you know who else identifies as christian? Richard Dawkins. I guess christianity is compatible with christendom after all :smiley: Next you will be saying Einstein was religious. 100% of all scientists who claim any sort of spirituality do it under his contextual lens, some form of intelligence intelligence, a universal intelligence etc.

Also name the guy or it is suspect to say the least. Funny how this anecdote just appeared when you were arguing with an atheist and claim to know some super well known scientist who is pretty much the only christian scientist who actually believes in anything in the bible.
[/quote]

First off, I would take Beans at his word if I were you.

He has absolutely no reason to fabricate anything to score points on the Internet against a 22-year-old atheist.

Second, please cite the source in which Richard Dawkins identifies himself as Christian. This I gotta see.[/quote]

I know you are friends with some of these guys but lets be real here, no scientist believes anyone ever lived to be 600 years old. Maybe he identifies as christian but pretending there are prominent scientists who believe in a literal interpretation of the bible is quite questionable.

Richard Dawkins: 'I am a secular Christian'

He has quite a few videos where he identifies himself as christian.[/quote]

As Pat said earlier, not all Christians take everything in the Hebrew Bible as absolute literal history. Some do. My good friend Pushharder is one of them. But Pat doesn’t, and the Pope doesn’t, and Father Coyne, who used to be the head astronomer for the Vatican certainly doesn’t. You don’t have to be an atheist to be a scientist, just like you don’t have to be a Christian to be a credulous, superstitious nob end.

Dawkins called himself a “cultural Christan”. The equivalent would be Einstein, who was a “cultural Jew”. I am guessing Einstein did not personally believe that Methuselah lived nearly a thousand years, or that Noah literally gathered up a breeding pair of every land animal on the planet, nor even that God ever spoke to Moses or Abraham or Noah or anybody at all…but he was raised as a Jew, and would have been treated as one had he stayed in Germany.

You seem like a decent guy, Yamato, but you need to learn to choose your battles. This is not one of the battles I would have chosen, were I you. Now is the time to apologise graciously, and bow out.
[/quote]

If someone does not believe in a literalist interpretation of the bible they are cherry picking and are not true believers. And yes I understand the Dawkins and Einstein distinction I made them a few pages ago to illustrate my point. Most self proclaimed Christian scientists are not believers, they don’t follow the biblical age of the earth (How Old Is the Earth? | Answers in Genesis ) they don’t believe the earth was created in days ( they turn a day into a godly euphemism for billions of years etc ), they find ways to skirt the beliefs until they end up with “faith” as consistent as the church of England’s.

Most Christians have such a detached faith that had they been born 200 years ago they would be seen as heretics.

I will apologise when someone quotes a sentence where I insulted the OP. I don’t feel I did, I feel like a bunch of religious people hijacked the thread based off one post where I advocated getting him science books to go along with his religious studies.

If anyone is seriously upset from the posts I made in this thread I apologise for that, but every poster in PWI makes harsher ones about politics, race, other religions so it seems a bit like false outrage.

149

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

I would teach my son that we are part of the animal kingdom and we have evolved to such heights we were able to use an invented moral code…[/quote]

So you’ll tell your son he would be comitting an evil, then telling telling him nah, just kidding, the evil of the act doesn’t actually exist. “I was just bsing.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Really, pa?”

“Nah, boy. I’m just joshing with ya.”

And you’re worried about what Christians teach their kids?!

[/quote]

Just because i understand where morals came from does not mean I don’t support them. I don’t want my mum to get raped, criminalising rape which happens almost universally amongst the species massively decreases her chances of being raped. See how evolutionary morality works? I don’t want to be killed or have my loved ones killed, criminalising murder which all animals do massively reduces my chances of being killed and my families.

[/quote]

All animals criminalize murder? What?
[/quote]

All animals kill one another and force sex upon one another. [/quote]

That’s great, but it isn’t morality. It’s self interest. And it doesn’t mean someone is morally wrong if they’re willing to rape and kill, while not wishing to be raped or killed.

150

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:
I believe scientists might take some issue [/quote]

I believe so much of your world view is made up of conjecture and assumptions based on what other people had done or said, that what you claim to believe is a worthless measure, meaningless to any sort of relevant humanity.

Also, through my wife, I’m now related to an entire extended family that counts among them quite a few scientists. One of whom works for the government and is arguably one of the smartest people in the country if not the world. Each and every single one of these people are devout Christians to the point of where they didn’t (until kid six came along and the weight of more kids was heavier than sin) use birth control.

So what you believe others would take exception to means jack and shit. [/quote]

No scientist believes a man lived 600 years, that a woman was made from a rib. I also knoew very smart people who identify as christians but guess what, they don’t believe anything in their books, they are not christians, they merely hold up a cultural tradition.

Do you know who else identifies as christian? Richard Dawkins. I guess christianity is compatible with christendom after all :smiley: Next you will be saying Einstein was religious. 100% of all scientists who claim any sort of spirituality do it under his contextual lens, some form of intelligence intelligence, a universal intelligence etc.

Also name the guy or it is suspect to say the least. Funny how this anecdote just appeared when you were arguing with an atheist and claim to know some super well known scientist who is pretty much the only christian scientist who actually believes in anything in the bible.
[/quote]

First off, I would take Beans at his word if I were you.

He has absolutely no reason to fabricate anything to score points on the Internet against a 22-year-old atheist.

Second, please cite the source in which Richard Dawkins identifies himself as Christian. This I gotta see.[/quote]

I know you are friends with some of these guys but lets be real here, no scientist believes anyone ever lived to be 600 years old. Maybe he identifies as christian but pretending there are prominent scientists who believe in a literal interpretation of the bible is quite questionable.

Richard Dawkins: 'I am a secular Christian'

He has quite a few videos where he identifies himself as christian.[/quote]

As Pat said earlier, not all Christians take everything in the Hebrew Bible as absolute literal history. Some do. My good friend Pushharder is one of them. But Pat doesn’t, and the Pope doesn’t, and Father Coyne, who used to be the head astronomer for the Vatican certainly doesn’t. You don’t have to be an atheist to be a scientist, just like you don’t have to be a Christian to be a credulous, superstitious nob end.

Dawkins called himself a “cultural Christan”. The equivalent would be Einstein, who was a “cultural Jew”. I am guessing Einstein did not personally believe that Methuselah lived nearly a thousand years, or that Noah literally gathered up a breeding pair of every land animal on the planet, nor even that God ever spoke to Moses or Abraham or Noah or anybody at all…but he was raised as a Jew, and would have been treated as one had he stayed in Germany.

You seem like a decent guy, Yamato, but you need to learn to choose your battles. This is not one of the battles I would have chosen, were I you. Now is the time to apologise graciously, and bow out.
[/quote]

If someone does not believe in a literalist interpretation of the bible they are cherry picking and are not true believers. And yes I understand the Dawkins and Einstein distinction I made them a few pages ago to illustrate my point. Most self proclaimed Christian scientists are not believers, they don’t follow the biblical age of the earth (How Old Is the Earth? | Answers in Genesis ) they don’t believe the earth was created in days ( they turn a day into a godly euphemism for billions of years etc ), they find ways to skirt the beliefs until they end up with “faith” as consistent as the church of England’s.

Most Christians have such a detached faith that had they been born 200 years ago they would be seen as heretics.

I will apologise when someone quotes a sentence where I insulted the OP. I don’t feel I did, I feel like a bunch of religious people hijacked the thread based off one post where I advocated getting him science books to go along with his religious studies.

If anyone is seriously upset from the posts I made in this thread I apologise for that, but every poster in PWI makes harsher ones about politics, race, other religions so it seems a bit like false outrage.[/quote]

Sorry pal, you don’t get to me be fundamentalist-evangelical and an atheist.

151

[quote]Sloth wrote:
You keep saying evolution. Evolution is the biggest murderer of them all, so to speak. It’s an editing system, wiping out the weak and ill-suited. [/quote]

Well, natural selection doesn’t murder the weak or ill-suited so much as it ensures that they won’t get dates.

154

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
You keep saying evolution. Evolution is the biggest murderer of them all, so to speak. It’s an editing system, wiping out the weak and ill-suited. [/quote]

Well, natural selection doesn’t murder the weak or ill-suited so much as it ensures that they won’t get dates.

[/quote]

“So to speak.” Yet, the environment often does “murder” the weak and ill-suited. The white moth on black sooty trees preyed upon by the bird. At least more often than the better adapted (the darker moth).

155

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

I would teach my son that we are part of the animal kingdom and we have evolved to such heights we were able to use an invented moral code…[/quote]

So you’ll tell your son he would be comitting an evil, then telling telling him nah, just kidding, the evil of the act doesn’t actually exist. “I was just bsing.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Really, pa?”

“Nah, boy. I’m just joshing with ya.”

And you’re worried about what Christians teach their kids?!

[/quote]

Just because i understand where morals came from does not mean I don’t support them. I don’t want my mum to get raped, criminalising rape which happens almost universally amongst the species massively decreases her chances of being raped. See how evolutionary morality works? I don’t want to be killed or have my loved ones killed, criminalising murder which all animals do massively reduces my chances of being killed and my families.

[/quote]

All animals criminalize murder? What?
[/quote]

All animals kill one another and force sex upon one another. [/quote]

That’s great, but it isn’t morality. It’s self interest. And it doesn’t mean someone is morally wrong if they’re willing to rape and kill, while not wishing to be raped or killed.
[/quote]

self interest is the root of morality, the scientific term is reciprocal altruism. Fucking google it instead of wasting everyones time with this nonsense.

156

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

I would teach my son that we are part of the animal kingdom and we have evolved to such heights we were able to use an invented moral code…[/quote]

So you’ll tell your son he would be comitting an evil, then telling telling him nah, just kidding, the evil of the act doesn’t actually exist. “I was just bsing.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Really, pa?”

“Nah, boy. I’m just joshing with ya.”

And you’re worried about what Christians teach their kids?!

[/quote]

Just because i understand where morals came from does not mean I don’t support them. I don’t want my mum to get raped, criminalising rape which happens almost universally amongst the species massively decreases her chances of being raped. See how evolutionary morality works? I don’t want to be killed or have my loved ones killed, criminalising murder which all animals do massively reduces my chances of being killed and my families.

[/quote]

All animals criminalize murder? What?
[/quote]

All animals kill one another and force sex upon one another. [/quote]

That’s great, but it isn’t morality. It’s self interest. And it doesn’t mean someone is morally wrong if they’re willing to rape and kill, while not wishing to be raped or killed.
[/quote]

self interest is the root of morality, the scientific term is reciprocal altruism. Fucking google it instead of wasting everyones time with this nonsense.[/quote]

Um, I know what it is. I’m the one the that called it “self-interest…”

It says nothing about morality. If I realize the deaf, cold, dumb universe won’t punish me with some kind of social contract based cosmic karma, and so I thieve, rape, and/or murder…So? If I decide I’m willing to take the risk of breaking into someone’s home…And? It doesn’t mean I’m morally wrong. It means I’m more of a risk taker than you. That’s it.

157

If my self-interest is actually fulfilled (the palaces, the cars, the jets, the women, etc.) by being a murderous despot, and? I’m not inherently wrong. You don’t believe in that.

158

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

I would teach my son that we are part of the animal kingdom and we have evolved to such heights we were able to use an invented moral code…[/quote]

So you’ll tell your son he would be comitting an evil, then telling telling him nah, just kidding, the evil of the act doesn’t actually exist. “I was just bsing.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Really, pa?”

“Nah, boy. I’m just joshing with ya.”

And you’re worried about what Christians teach their kids?!

[/quote]

Just because i understand where morals came from does not mean I don’t support them. I don’t want my mum to get raped, criminalising rape which happens almost universally amongst the species massively decreases her chances of being raped. See how evolutionary morality works? I don’t want to be killed or have my loved ones killed, criminalising murder which all animals do massively reduces my chances of being killed and my families.

[/quote]

All animals criminalize murder? What?
[/quote]

All animals kill one another and force sex upon one another. [/quote]

That’s great, but it isn’t morality. It’s self interest. And it doesn’t mean someone is morally wrong if they’re willing to rape and kill, while not wishing to be raped or killed.
[/quote]

self interest is the root of morality, the scientific term is reciprocal altruism. Fucking google it instead of wasting everyones time with this nonsense.[/quote]

Um, I know what it is. I’m the one the that called it “self-interest…”

It says nothing about morality. If I realize the deaf, cold, dumb universe won’t punish me with some kind of social contract based cosmic karma, and so I thieve, rape, and/or murder…So? If I decide I’m willing to take the risk of breaking into someone’s home…And? It doesn’t mean I’m morally wrong. It means I’m more a risk taker than you. That’s it.
[/quote]

yes

159

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

I would teach my son that we are part of the animal kingdom and we have evolved to such heights we were able to use an invented moral code…[/quote]

So you’ll tell your son he would be comitting an evil, then telling telling him nah, just kidding, the evil of the act doesn’t actually exist. “I was just bsing.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Really, pa?”

“Nah, boy. I’m just joshing with ya.”

And you’re worried about what Christians teach their kids?!

[/quote]

Just because i understand where morals came from does not mean I don’t support them. I don’t want my mum to get raped, criminalising rape which happens almost universally amongst the species massively decreases her chances of being raped. See how evolutionary morality works? I don’t want to be killed or have my loved ones killed, criminalising murder which all animals do massively reduces my chances of being killed and my families.

[/quote]

All animals criminalize murder? What?
[/quote]

All animals kill one another and force sex upon one another. [/quote]

That’s great, but it isn’t morality. It’s self interest. And it doesn’t mean someone is morally wrong if they’re willing to rape and kill, while not wishing to be raped or killed.
[/quote]

self interest is the root of morality, the scientific term is reciprocal altruism. Fucking google it instead of wasting everyones time with this nonsense.[/quote]

Um, I know what it is. I’m the one the that called it “self-interest…”

It says nothing about morality. If I realize the deaf, cold, dumb universe won’t punish me with some kind of social contract based cosmic karma, and so I thieve, rape, and/or murder…So? If I decide I’m willing to take the risk of breaking into someone’s home…And? It doesn’t mean I’m morally wrong. It means I’m more a risk taker than you. That’s it.
[/quote]

Just because the reality is there is no one who punishes us after we die for our crimes does not mean you should embrace a false belief there is a magic man who makes bad people pay in another life. You don’t believe based on what you want you believe based on evidence. Well you are supposed to.

Saying murderers don’t get punished in the afterlife if there is no afterlife so there has to be an afterlife is very telling. Believing because you don’t want to accept the cold hard reality to life is not a good reason.

160

The social contract is for the other poor sucker to follow. There is no inherent wrong in myself not following it.