I certainly believe. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior of my life. And, WOW, do I have miracle after miracle to prove that giving your life completely to Him makes a huge difference…and that is just here on earth.
[quote]The Red Monk wrote:
… Yesterday (in the metaphorical sense) most Christians pored over the Bible and agreed that Crusading was acceptable. [/quote]
I have to take issue with that. Yesterday, people were largely illiterate. They couldn’t read, they only went off what they were told by corrupt, self-serving priests.
I don’t think that could happen today. I’m sure there are this that think of the religous right as being just as illiterate wrt blind following of their leaders. But I don’t think that there is even a remote possibility of a Crusade occuring in the modern day.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
The Red Monk wrote:
… Yesterday (in the metaphorical sense) most Christians pored over the Bible and agreed that Crusading was acceptable.
I have to take issue with that. Yesterday, people were largely illiterate. They couldn’t read, they only went off what they were told by corrupt, self-serving priests.
I don’t think that could happen today. I’m sure there are this that think of the religous right as being just as illiterate wrt blind following of their leaders. But I don’t think that there is even a remote possibility of a Crusade occuring in the modern day.
[/quote]
I agree with rainjack. When Luther translated the bible into german, the church got really mad indicating that they kind of had lost their way as far as Christ?s teachings go.
I now believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Ramen.
[quote]vroom wrote:
I now believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Ramen.[/quote]
That is as believable as the J-bird being the son of god.
L Ron Hubbard and the body theitins(SP) pure non sense.
Hindu and the land of 10,000 gods is just silly.
Native Americans and the worship of mother earth…total crock of ****.
The holy bible now thats for REAL!!!
Professor X-- Do you honestly believe no one consulted the New Testament in justifying Holy War? If you’re interested in the citations, look them up. But I suspect you’re not-- you steadfastly refuse to address my points about religion and faith in general, you ignored my point about the formation of the Bible, and everything I’ve said about how people’s interpretations determine faith in human history, not the other way around, has gone completely over your head.
You want me to PROVE that people alter their religious faiths and their ideas about truth depending on the age they live in? That the truth people are “sure” of in their own age isn’t necessarily true? Take a basic world history course and stop wasting my time. By your attitude, you prove my point that people adapt their faith and everything else they see to fit the worldview they already have. You’ve evidently got nothing else to learn— enjoy yourself.
rainjack-- I figured someone might call me out on consulting the Bible in the past. Yes, priests were entrusted with Bible interpretation because the overwhelming majority of folks were illiterate. First of all, is it truly safe to say that all of those priests were greedy and self-serving? Would you agree if someone a thousand years from now made the same remark about all lawyers from our age, or would you call that a ridiculous generalization? I would say there were probably many of those priests who took their job seriously.
Secondly, the basis of your argument here can only point us in two directions-- either that reading the Bible is not essential to being a good man, pleasing to God, or that it is essential, and therefore everyone unable to read it, for whatever reason, is doomed to failure in some fundamental sense. If the former is true, then who NEEDS to know the Bible at all? If the latter is true, it places salvation in the hands of such a small elite in the scope of human history, that its validity is difficult to accept. It certainly doesn’t conjure up the image of a benevolent God who’s got everybody in mind. I know I’m on uncertain ground here, but if you’ve got time I’d like to hear your answer.
[quote]endgamer711 wrote: Perceiving in this fashion can enable one to perform literal miracles - one illusion is just as unreal as the next
[/quote]
I was with you up to this point. Since you do seem careful in your language, and you call heaven a metaphor but miracles literal… do you have any evidence for this? You’ve never struck me as a “Holographic Universe” kind of chap, so…
Also, if life itself is an illusion, what’s to prevent the illusion from continuing after an illusory death?
[quote]Disc Hoss wrote:
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
Disc Hoss,
I cannot possibly refute all the points you’ve made because you have gone on and on in this thread and just about everything you’ve said has just been incorrect. For instance, you clearly do not understand what scientific theory means. Evolution does not violate any laws of physics (you don’t understand the second law of thermodynamics or evolution). DNA isn’t rewritten from the ground up (we share a lot of ours with simple plants). I can’t possibly educate you on this forum. Evolution is an accepted theory used by almost all scientists in all fields. As for your Harvard quote, I did one year of grad school there (the rest at Brown University). I just don’t see the relevance. I picture you as a man who is quick to anger and easily offended. You need to read more on these topics. Don’t read “Why Evolution is Wrong” type of books before reading up on and really understanding the theory itself. You use terms out of context and make poor arguments. I do not think you have ever actually studied evolution or physics at the university level. In my opinion, this means you are not qualified to comment on these topics. You may reply something to the effect that “just cause I don’t got no book learning don’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about” but I think it does. To put it in your terms, it is like someone reading a single copy of Men’s Health and then deciding they are qualified to critique the training programs of professional athletes. They may be able to throw around terms like “Essential Fatty Acid” or “Branched Chain Amino Acids” and they may know the difference between a deadlift and a squat but this does not mean they are qualified in the same way that people who spend years studying and working on these things are qualified. You sir are at the point where you know some of the terms related to evolution theory and I sense that you may have read some poorly referenced material on intelligent design but you don’t understand this stuff at a very deep level. Now, you have two choices at this point. You can continue to hold yourself up as an expert in evolution or you can take some time to actually learn some things about what you are writing about. If you do the latter you will probably begin to at least not sound so ignorant whenever you write about these things. Reading your posts is like talking to a pretentious 13 year old who knows some big words but doesn’t know how to use them properly. As a human being you owe yourself better than this. If this post sounds mean spirited I am sorry. I have been around a while and I am sick and tired of people who show up in the gym and do some bicep curls and don’t understand why they don’t look great overnight and people who read an article or two and then don’t understand why others who have spent years of very hard work studying these things don’t consider them intellectual equals. Grow a backbone and do the hard work it takes to understand these things. Grow your mind.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I don’t think that could happen today. I’m sure there are this that think of the religous right as being just as illiterate wrt blind following of their leaders. But I don’t think that there is even a remote possibility of a Crusade occuring in the modern day.[/quote]
“This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.”
[center]- George W. Bush, September 16, 2001[/center]
[quote]Ironlung wrote:
vroom wrote:
I now believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Ramen.
That is as believable as the J-bird being the son of god.
L Ron Hubbard and the body theitins(SP) pure non sense.
Hindu and the land of 10,000 gods is just silly.
Native Americans and the worship of mother earth…total crock of ****.
The holy bible now thats for REAL!!![/quote]
Really? You can make $250,000 if you can prove that Jesus is NOT the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Website here: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/19/boing_boings_250000_.html
Scroll down a bit for this:
“We are willing to pay any individual *$250,000 if they can produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.”
Update.
I’ve just reread the site, and the purse money is now at $1,000,000.
Easy money! Go for it.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
endgamer711 wrote: Perceiving in this fashion can enable one to perform literal miracles - one illusion is just as unreal as the next
I was with you up to this point. Since you do seem careful in your language, and you call heaven a metaphor but miracles literal… do you have any evidence for this? You’ve never struck me as a “Holographic Universe” kind of chap, so…
Also, if life itself is an illusion, what’s to prevent the illusion from continuing after an illusory death? [/quote]
All disassembly of the universe into parts and pieces is a trick of the mind. Does this make it holographic? I don’t know.
It is quite commonplace in our everyday experience to see things that aren’t there, and fail to see things that are. Reality as we know it is a function of our perception. A tiny example is how a change in perception may make a seemingly insoluble problem almost trivial. from there how supernatural does it have to get? For me, not much, but I leave the door open.
I’m a minimalist who’s well used to invoking Occam’s razor, even in his faith. I believe reality is an illusion based on a false duality, and death is the release therefrom. Thus I don’t expect there is either an individualized afterlife nor an individualized reincarnation. I’m not a child who needs to be tantalized with promises of candy in the afterlife to secure his good behavior.
Nephorm, on the other hand, should believe however he prefers.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Update.
I’ve just reread the site, and the purse money is now at $1,000,000.
Easy money! Go for it.[/quote]
I own you bitches. That money is MINE!!
Empirical evidence: Jesus is currently dead.
Therefore, he cannot be the son of God, therefore he is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Unless God can die… which by definition, he can’t: All-powerful, All-knowing, and more importantly, Eternal.
I win… pay up, FSM fuckers. 
[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Empirical evidence: Jesus is currently dead. [/quote]
Erm, no. He’s actually in heaven enjoying his beer volcano and stripper factory.
If you opened your heart, or some other bodypart, and let the Great Noodly Appendage of the FSM touch you, you’d know that too.
[quote]pookie wrote:
rainjack wrote:
I don’t think that could happen today. I’m sure there are this that think of the religous right as being just as illiterate wrt blind following of their leaders. But I don’t think that there is even a remote possibility of a Crusade occuring in the modern day.
“This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.”
[center]- George W. Bush, September 16, 2001[/center]
[/quote]
For the highly educated person you present yourself as - using quotes like this and thinking they are proving a point is really not helping your image.
He made no religous reference in that statement. At the worst, Bush used the wrong word. Certainly you can do better than that to prove me wrong, can’t you?
374 posts in less than 12hrs.
only possible when the topic is religion/evolution
endgamer711 wrote:
“I’m a minimalist who’s well used to invoking Occam’s razor, even in his faith. I believe reality is an illusion based on a false duality, and death is the release therefrom.”
WTF? A minimalist incapable of understanding their own existence because it is somehow too complex? I can only assume that these statements are effective at last call.
A minimalist that subscribes to Occam’s Razor will conclude that a creator is not required for the universe?s existence as probability and thermodynamics sufficiently explains its State. The creed derived from this understanding: A god is not a prerequisite of our existence. More importantly, we should be ecstatic that we are lucky enough to be sentient beings aware of and witness to, the universe and all things within it (both good and bad). Therefore, you better make the most of it, because this is not a dress rehearsal.
To DiskHoss:
Your use of entropy is incorrect. Entropy is the net disorder to a SYSTEM. The universe is the system and all life is a component of it. In the context of evolution, although current iterations of life are more complex that its predecessors, rest assured the UNIVERSE SYSTEM has become more disordered during the brief period that life has existed on Earth. A simple example: You know all those gamma-ray bursts popping daily in the sky?; those are stars blowing up. All those neatly ordered balls of gas have been blown clear across the Milky Way. That’s a shitstorm of disorder than cannot be zeroed out by evolution processes on Earth.
These philosophical arguments are silly. What gives us the right and arrogance to think that we are somehow special? A strategically aimed asteroid will efficiently wipe the smug smile off our face forever as well as clear up any remaining doubts that people may have that the universe is getting more disordered.
It is entirely possible to be spiritual but not believe in religions.
All in all, I only believe in one sentence in the bible. “Aimez vous les uns les autres, comme je vous aimes.” Sorry I only know the quote in french, and even there I am not 100% sure of its exactness. I believe the true purpose of the book was developed upon that (at least the new testament), and it was all fluffness added to be more spectacular. In my eyes it is either that or this religion was invented for the profit of some men.
[quote]daraz wrote:
All in all, I only believe in one sentence in the bible. “Aimez vous les uns les autres, comme je vous aimes.” Sorry I only know the quote in french, and even there I am not 100% sure of its exactness. I believe the true purpose of the book was developed upon that (at least the new testament), and it was all fluffness added to be more spectacular. In my eyes it is either that or this religion was invented for the profit of some men.[/quote]
I believe that would be:
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”