Who Believes?

For ‘history buffs’-

I respect people with a respect for the study of history. I think redmonk is an impressive one of this type. The problem I have with the learned self-proclaimed experts of history is their lack of real evidence, knowledge and facts. I think we are fortunate to have the knowledge of history that we do have, but tell me,

Can you tell me who your great- grandfather was and what a day in his life was like? If you can, good for you, but let’s take a look at HIS great-gramps. Who was he? What was his day like? In terms of history, it really wasn’t that long ago, but I challenge anyone here to provide thorough answers to these questions. I just don’t believe you can do it. It is amazing to me that experts in history assert so many things when so precious few of them can accomplish this relatively simple task. I want to know about your great grandfather’s great grandfather-- all about him-- his life, work. etc. I know there are people that do this sort of thing as a matter of course because of royalty, money, etc. but they are very few. It was not that long ago, but my great grandfather’s great grandfather is a complete mystery to me. I could find out who he was, maybe, but the point is that within a VERY short time in a historical sense my own direct ancestors completely disappear from history, and the experts want us to swallow so much stuff as fact from times that far exceed what I am talking about here. If I can’t even do this little task in the history of my own lineage, or, for real genealogists just double the time requirement, (it’s still a drop in the bucket for history) then how the heck am I supposed to accept all this reported history from the “experts”? Then, as a matter of faith, a lot of the seemingly ridiculous claims of the Bible, like the 6-10,000 year old earth, well, heck, man-- that’s plenty long for everything to go just like it says. My own personal genetic history disappears from view, like almost EVERYONE’S, well within the past 500 years.

Creationists and Evolutionists, all together now, Prof X, you too man, put that cheeseburger down!

We are the world

We are the children

We are the ones to make a better place so lets start liftin’!

Oh yea…

Amir

This thread needs to die.

What is your contribution to this “get a life” subtitle “who believes?”? You should avoid this tiny section of the site and find one more suitable for yourself. There are so many here for that reason. I think you want the lyrics website, maybe?

[quote]AMIRisSQUAT wrote:
Creationists and Evolutionists, all together now, Prof X, you too man, put that cheeseburger down!

We are the world

We are the children

We are the ones to make a better place so lets start liftin’!

Oh yea…

Amir

This thread needs to die.[/quote]

[quote]Disc Hoss wrote:
That was a hideous example. That is called adaptation which is entirely different from macroevolution. There are variances within a species, but there are NO deviances from one species to the next. That is your big obvious problem as an evolitionist. Adaptation, of course. But the walls of the specific genetic parameters are not breached.

DH

Disc Hoss,

I wanted to point out that, in reading your various posts, your understanding of evolution is very limited. You need to do some reading on this topic because whenever you comment on evolution you use terms incorrectly and make poor arguments. Taking a few days to read a decent book on the subject would be worth while. I grew up very poor and most of the people I knew had little education and were very religious. I was also religious. Then I went to college and grad school and had a chance to travel around the world and meet people from a variety of religious backgrounds. As I stated before, I do believe in God but I think that denying evolution is simply ignorance (despite what the late night television preachers say, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming; I’ve actually had a chance to examine some of the fossil record first hand and anyone who thinks we are “missing a link” in terms of the bones just hasn’t taken the time to look at what has been unearthed in the last twenty years). I also wanted to introduce the idea to this thread that people who literally interpret the Bible tend not to be very well educated. There are, of course, exceptions and certainly some of the world’s best educated people believe in God but it seems to me (in comparing the friends I grew up with to those I’ve made later in life) that a lot of people who think the Bible is a literal document (that the world was created in seven days or that all life forms actually fit onto Noah’s ark) are just not well educated. Some are well spoken and may be intelligent but it doesn’t take much scientific or historical knowledge to realize that the Bible isn’t an accurate historical document. Now, this post might make you mad but again I’d encourage you to do some reading and really try your best to understand why just about every scientist who has studied the issue uses an evolutionary hypothesis. Don’t just get angry and start using words out of context or comment on ideas you don’t understand or cut and paste stuff from some fringe wacko web site. Instead, buy a book (intro text for college students) and do some reading because even if you did read something like this in the past, your use of terms and your arguments certainly indicate that you’ve forgotten most of it…

[quote]pookie wrote:
Jagrazor wrote:
Alright, here is your answer.

Don’t believe this man or any other man - check it out in the word of God.

Read the Bible - Don’t make arguments about something until you know it’s context within the Bible.

If I read the Bible to learn the Word of God, then I’m believing the man who told me the Bible was the Holy Word of God.

Because, you see, this other man told me only the Holy Quran was the Holy Word of God.

Another man told me only the Tanakh really contained the Holy Word of God.

But still another man swore to me only the Shruti actually contained the Word of God; only he called it “the Cosmic Sound of Truth”.

And yet another one told me only the Guru Granth Sahib need be considered, if the Word of God was really what I was after.

All these men were completely sincere in their beliefs. Tell me, why should I accept that your book is the correct one? I don’t think it’s possible for all these men to be right. In fact, I’m not even sure one of these men is right. If any one of them is wrong, then it seems pretty likely to me that they could all be wrong, for all the same reasons.[/quote]

Take my statement as a whole or don’t take it at all - I meant if you are going to argue or debate about the Bible, then Know it before you talk about it. - Don’t take something someone said about something to argue about something.

On the other post - I did not call other races animals - Take 2 of each “Kind” and yes I know that it goes on to detail taking 7 of the plant eating types and a pair of the meat eating types - i was trying to save space and make a point, not type out the entire chapter.

Knit picking is all good though.

[quote]Disc Hoss wrote:
That was a hideous example. That is called adaptation which is entirely different from macroevolution. There are variances within a species, but there are NO deviances from one species to the next. That is your big obvious problem as an evolitionist. Adaptation, of course. But the walls of the specific genetic parameters are not breached.

[/quote]

“Species” is just an abstract concept. It makes sense to use it in some areas, but not in others. It doesn?t the way you use it.

You are basically strawmanning but that?s ok because I don?t think you do it on purpose. You just don?t know an awful lot about the ET, except of course that you don?t like it.

Why is your holy book special again?

[quote]Disc Hoss wrote:
Man proves the existence of both a Law Giver and law in that he is BORN with the apriori assumption (programming) that life SHOULD be fair, meaningful, intelligble, measureable etc…

[/quote]

That only proves that we are a highly social species and that we have developed psychological adaptations to be able to work as a group. Reciprocal altruism, social dominance and the reaction to it, the need to conform to beliefs held by the majority even if they are close to insanity, and so on.

Buss, 1999. “Evolutionary Psychology”. Should answer a lot of questions in a more intelligent manner than claiming “god made it so and it is not up to us to question his ways”.

Why was your holy book special again?

[quote]rocksolid wrote:
I absolutely believe. And for those who do not, here is an interesting thought. If I am wrong, and I go through life believing in Christ and his sacrifice on the cross for my sins but in the end we just die and go nowhere, oh well. But if I am right, and nonbelievers are doomed to an eternity in separation from their Creator, what a big mistake it would have been to not believe. At least give it some thought all you nonbelievers. Believing does not mean you are a stupid, mindless, automaton. Give it a shot and enter with an open mind and heart.[/quote]

So… If a person lives their life unselfishly,caring for others, but has a different belief than christianity, they are “doomed”? That seems a bit narrowminded.

[quote]nephorm wrote:
WMD wrote:
According to some pagan Roman historians, what Constantine saw was Apollo’s chariot. He certainly dedicated as many temples to Apollo as he did churches and didn’t convert until he lay dying. It was easier to be a bad boy and repent when one died, you know, just in case.

I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about Keanu Reeves. My Bad.[/quote]

Easy mistake, they look alot alike…

[quote]

Who is disagreeing? Who alive today thinks we need another Crusade? [/quote]

The president…the vice president…a few million fundamentalist Christians…

Just sayin’…

WMD

[quote]Professor X wrote:
The Red Monk wrote:
The explanation (and the point) Professor is that those earlier people associated with that belief would heartily disagree with you on whether or not that belief disagrees with their actions. You are speaking from the point of view of today’s Christianity-- it is the height of arrogance and ignorance to assume that today’s is superior to yesterday’s, especially when plenty of the men of yesterday spent more time than you ever will trying to understand the Bible and its messages.

Why do you think the men of yesterday are so gifted? It isn’t in the bible. No matter how much credit you try to give MEN, none of those actions are in the bible. That is all there is to it. Men are faulted. They always have been and always will be. Why do you put more faith in men on this subject? The Bible doesn’t contain anything about following what “wise men” of the past have done. That is irrelevant no matter how you try to twist it.

There are people who believed that slavery was a “God given right”. The moment you can point out even one perfect man currently on this planet without fault is the moment you will have a point about what men should be followed religiously disregarding what is written.[/quote]

Correct me if I am wrong but there does seem to be an assumption that the men, the humans that wrote the books of the Bible were inspired by God, right? And no one that I know about suggests that anybody since that time has been so inspired, so that seems to suggest that they were somehow superior or at least more worthy than modern people in the eyes of God. And if you are following the Bible, then you are in fact following what humans in the past have done, for at least, let’s say 5000 years if we include the Old Testament. In fact if you are circumcised, following in the steps of Abraham, who was a man (in the sense of human and not God, just to forestall any penis jokes) then you are following what men in the past have done.

That’s in the Bible.

WMD

Yes, I believe!

[quote]WMD wrote:

Who is disagreeing? Who alive today thinks we need another Crusade?

The president…the vice president…a few million fundamentalist Christians…

Just sayin’…

WMD [/quote]

I have been noticing the same and I can’t think of anything more damaging to a nation than to attempt to “force” it to act within your religious confines.

[quote]WMD wrote:
Correct me if I am wrong but there does seem to be an assumption that the men, the humans that wrote the books of the Bible were inspired by God, right? And no one that I know about suggests that anybody since that time has been so inspired, so that seems to suggest that they were somehow superior or at least more worthy than modern people in the eyes of God. And if you are following the Bible, then you are in fact following what humans in the past have done, for at least, let’s say 5000 years if we include the Old Testament. In fact if you are circumcised, following in the steps of Abraham, who was a man (in the sense of human and not God, just to forestall any penis jokes) then you are following what men in the past have done.

That’s in the Bible.

WMD[/quote]

You are right. We have adopted TRADITION from many of the past, however, very few follow acts in the Old Testament. There are no sacrifices made and I doubt anyone today is getting a circumcision because of Abraham. Once Christ came into the picture, the “old school” ways were largely left behind. That is the significance of the New Testament. As far as those considered more worthy, then you simply add to why focusing on who did what during the Crusades while ignoring what was actually written doesn’t mean much.

Im just trying to insinuate the obvious.
The thread has become hideously boring and the arguments are so cyclical my heads spinning.
I simply dont have enough time to make a worthwhile contribution, so Im gonna go amerikkkana on your ass and make a small useless contribution instead.

Enjoy my posts and reply often, no hard feelings and go god!

Amir

[quote]Junior wrote:
What is your contribution to this “get a life” subtitle “who believes?”? You should avoid this tiny section of the site and find one more suitable for yourself. There are so many here for that reason. I think you want the lyrics website, maybe?

AMIRisSQUAT wrote:
Creationists and Evolutionists, all together now, Prof X, you too man, put that cheeseburger down!

We are the world

We are the children

We are the ones to make a better place so lets start liftin’!

Oh yea…

Amir

This thread needs to die.

[/quote]

Anytime you want to specifically call me out on something, you know where I am. Your extrapolations and assumptions are weak. Now if you want to get specific then do so. Don’t waste my time with this diatribe. Ever wonder why it’s called a theory? Ever wonder why so many cosmologists espouse ID? Ever wonder how incredibly idiotic and contradictory it is for scientists to espounse the second LAW of thermodynamics that all is in a state of entrophy/decay which is antithetical to the core to the THEORY of evolution. Good grief. Some consistency please!

This is being brought to the fore not by a pack of redneck hicks singing “When the Saint’s Come Marching In”, it’s being done by hard science and honest (many SECULAR) scientists. I want one thing from you, and one thing only. Prove evolution. Prove it. When the evolutionary powerhouse Steven J. Gould has a star pupil sit under his teaching at Harvard (don’t imagine you’re on the roster there) and be impressed with all the HOLES in this humanistic religion, then maybe you should consider the foundations of your erroneous assumption. Kurt Wise, PhD, is the student.

We are trying to specifically keep it all on an understandable level here. I could blow your doors off with technical theology. My ego is well served and souls still march to Hell. What use is that? Get it down to base points. Every house stands on a foundation. A simple brick and mortar foundation. You can build the most spectacular piece of imagination on it but it’s only worth it’s foundation.

Yours is unfounded, unproven, mathematically (there is a REAL science) impossible, rationally dysfunctional, and much to your dismay being systematically dismantled not by late night TV preachers with great hair, but rather by learned men who are experts in the field. I suppose that hurts. See you in a decade or two in the relic section of the clearance aisle. Your constant attention to the fossil record, that does NOT show macroevolution (used in a reader friendly sense of large scale evolution producing mutations to a siginificant enough degree to literally rewrite the DNA code from the ground up). Microevolution (that reader friendly term meaning adaptation that is capable within the narrow band of gene expression that exists within the boundaries of the current genome)is obvious. I can get a sunburn by laying out for an hour this afternoon. Don’t think I’ll develop a second opposable thumb and a bulbous cranium in the future, though.

I’m willing to bet it was a beautiful sunset recently where you live. Oh that’s right the sun doesn’t set. It’s a literay expression based upon the subjective perception of a localized finite being. The next time you or someone else uses this, be sure to look in the mirror at a hypocrite who used common vernacular and verbiage to get the point across. Better start taking names on all those folks using anthropormophisms too. Old man winter and the long arm of the law are nonsensical. You’re dodging the point by focusing on micro.

DH

[quote]blackjack2 wrote:
Disc Hoss wrote:
That was a hideous example. That is called adaptation which is entirely different from macroevolution. There are variances within a species, but there are NO deviances from one species to the next. That is your big obvious problem as an evolitionist. Adaptation, of course. But the walls of the specific genetic parameters are not breached.

DH

Disc Hoss,

I wanted to point out that, in reading your various posts, your understanding of evolution is very limited. You need to do some reading on this topic because whenever you comment on evolution you use terms incorrectly and make poor arguments. Taking a few days to read a decent book on the subject would be worth while. I grew up very poor and most of the people I knew had little education and were very religious. I was also religious. Then I went to college and grad school and had a chance to travel around the world and meet people from a variety of religious backgrounds. As I stated before, I do believe in God but I think that denying evolution is simply ignorance (despite what the late night television preachers say, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming; I’ve actually had a chance to examine some of the fossil record first hand and anyone who thinks we are “missing a link” in terms of the bones just hasn’t taken the time to look at what has been unearthed in the last twenty years). I also wanted to introduce the idea to this thread that people who literally interpret the Bible tend not to be very well educated. There are, of course, exceptions and certainly some of the world’s best educated people believe in God but it seems to me (in comparing the friends I grew up with to those I’ve made later in life) that a lot of people who think the Bible is a literal document (that the world was created in seven days or that all life forms actually fit onto Noah’s ark) are just not well educated. Some are well spoken and may be intelligent but it doesn’t take much scientific or historical knowledge to realize that the Bible isn’t an accurate historical document. Now, this post might make you mad but again I’d encourage you to do some reading and really try your best to understand why just about every scientist who has studied the issue uses an evolutionary hypothesis. Don’t just get angry and start using words out of context or comment on ideas you don’t understand or cut and paste stuff from some fringe wacko web site. Instead, buy a book (intro text for college students) and do some reading because even if you did read something like this in the past, your use of terms and your arguments certainly indicate that you’ve forgotten most of it…[/quote]

DH,

any house is only as solid as it?s foundation?

What is the reason that your holy book is different from all the others?

And he?s right you don?t know that much about ET.

And because someone had to bring up the “prove” thing again, cut and paste is a beautiful thing.

And there is that “prove” thing again. Science is not in the “prove” business. It never was.

I just don?t get why science gets such a bad reputation for that. It is the only way of thinking that basically states right from the start: Hey, we don?t know, we might be completely wrong, please feel free to take a swing on any idea that you think is wrong.

It is not my fault that that approach leads to a “believe system” that is slightly more advanced than those that preceded it, because constant battle leads to the evolution of superfit ideas.

And,

DH for someone that could probably also blow my doors off with “technical theology” (is that something like applied astrology? Palm reading?) it still seems to be hard for you to come up with an answer to a simple question.

professor, you don’t understand a word of what I’m saying. You are seeing what you want to see-- no matter how many times I try to say that Crusading or any other SMALL example is NOT THE POINT. The idea is not to follow the example of the past or that of any other man-- the idea is to realize that today’s truths (like the idea that true Christian thought does not allow for a Crusade) have not always been true, and will shift again long before Christianity itself dies out.

I look at the history of any religious faith, and see that even very exclusive ones with a solid structure shift to fit the perceived needs of their age and the ideas of the people reading their tenets. Yesterday (in the metaphorical sense) most Christians pored over the Bible and agreed that Crusading was acceptable. Today they agree on the opposite. Tomorrow could be different, although I sincerely hope not. The ignorant in each of these historical examples assume that their interpretations of their Bible are superior and represent Eternal truth, but they all contradict. As each has made their decisions based on interpretation of their faith, they fail to prove each other wrong.

Tell me where exactly I insisted that God did not exist? I never said that. Once again, you are so eager to slap dissenting opinion with the label of “angry atheist” that you aren’t at all listening. Personally, I don’t think it takes a big leap of faith to believe that there is a Creator behind all we see, and that said creator is benevolent-- I think mankind’s misery is largely self-inflicted.

What i have a tough time believing is that the Creator set a hard and fast moral code for all humankind in a book as malleable and open to interpretation as the Bible, thereby cutting off the vast majority of all humankind from salvation through ignorance of the Book, and confusing the shit out of everybody else.

DH, I appreciate your impressive one man show in defense of your belief, especially in terms of science-- I can only learn from you in that regard, and can’t hope to argue. However, do try and restrain your arrogance in labeling me a moral relativist. Recognizing that tough moral questions rarely ever have a stark demarcation between “right” and “wrong” does not mean you don’t do your best regardless. Pookie’s post was great-- the presence of a great Law Giver doesn’t need to be proven for good morals to be something one seeks. I think you have it right in your description of a inherent sense of general “right” and “wrong” that we have built into us. One of the ideas of Buddhism has always interested me-- that experience of truth might take more than one life (and more than one perspective in the great experience of life) to truly discover.

Your Protestant argument is much less persuasive. Luther himself owes much of the survival of his theories to turning coward and selling out his lower class constituents to bolster rapacious german nobles he was depending on for support. He betrayed his allies and ideas to save his own skin, and so a bastardized and much divided shadow of his original faith survives. This is not to say that there isn’t plenty to learn from him-- I greatly admire his stand against tired and bloated institutions like the Catholic Church, and his desire to simplify faith. He’s one more man with some good ideas, but I find it very hard to believe that God’s chosen people are confined to a very small minority that just happen to have lived in the last five hundred years.

As for the Bible-- I can’t disassociate myself from its status as a historical document. I assume you know that the Bible maintains its current form because the very oppressive forces you spoke of put it together from a vast field of disparate Christian gospels and documents in 325? There were plenty of different Christian visions than what oppressive “Orthodox” Christianity put in there, but they had the power, so they determined the book. Uh-oh, professor x, ancient men using their power-- that’s irrelevant, isn’t it? DH, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on that. I’m serious about my request-- I don’t think you’re the type of person to make a point without a solid base, so I’m honestly interested to hear your idea about the formation of the Bible.

[quote]The Red Monk wrote:
professor, you don’t understand a word of what I’m saying. You are seeing what you want to see-- no matter how many times I try to say that Crusading or any other SMALL example is NOT THE POINT. The idea is not to follow the example of the past or that of any other man-- the idea is to realize that today’s truths (like the idea that true Christian thought does not allow for a Crusade) have not always been true, and will shift again long before Christianity itself dies out.[/quote]

Prove this much. Also, speak on the difference between the old and new testament. I explained the concept of power and its misuse and you apparently want to overlook that and blame Christianity itself. Please, show me how today’s truths have not always been true outside of the concept of corruption, greed, misguidance, or plain stupidity. If this returns to the same cycle again you can argue this shit on your own.