Well, that’s what gets my goat. It doesn’t go counter to what they teach, and in fact, reinforces what they teach, so…preposterous as it may be, they would never guide the flock away from such silliness. It perpetuates the bullshit. I don’t know about you, but I find that brand of “teaching” infuriating.
Ha. I won’t. I agree. I was quite surprised to see how many state constitutions *required
- belief in a supreme being to even run. There is decidedly a prejudice that needs to be overcome.
I think the fact that this Congress is more diverse than ever is a good sign. If people can run successful campaigns as “unaffiliated” {which probably hides and atheist or two}then open atheism can’t be too far behind. Still, the person has to have the character to win.
It almost makes me ill to have folks praising GWB as a good Christian. I saw on the Huffington Post that one candidate recently said his platform is simply to listen to God more. That is so very wrong.
I really don’t understand what it is that infuriates you. The Vatican investigated what roughly 50,000 people claimed that they saw. They spent over fifteen years on the investigation before they pronounced it worthy of belief. Yet they still left it to the individual to deside for herself or himself the truth of the matter. What more could you expect?
I may be mistaken, but I think that most of the reports said that the sun appeared or seemed to fall. Some said that it zig-zagged. I would find it easy to believe that some very rare atmospheric condition occured.
I don’t find any of this harder to believe that the existence of dark matter and black holes. I marvel at the thought of all of it! There is so much of science that we don’t know now. Who knows where it will lead?
Cite, please.
No, it actually doesn’t.
Nor did I say you did. Do you or do you not think that there is still a great deal of science that we in 2007 know nothing about? If you think that there is much that still remains to be learned, then how can you be so certain that that which is not currently provable will never be provable? And without that certainty how can you make definitive statements about the existence or lack thereof of a Divine?
I think this is an excellent question. It seems that it is merely cultural to some extent . Depending on where we live we are more likely to be exposed to a certain religion. Then it’s a question of what details resonate within the individual and where it takes them from there. I think there is a whole lot mixed in the religious experience that has nothing to do with any spiritual journey. That doesn’t mean the seeds of the real deal aren’t growing.
As to that last question, starting as a Christian in the mid seventies my beliefs have changed quite a bit, mainly in the last ten years.
I asked myself a few questions and set out to do more reading to find the answers. I started exploring other religions and concepts until I came to a point where my beliefs were so different from mainstream Christianity I decided to no longer call myself Christian. Still from my studies and my background I still revere the teachings of Jesus. I see Christianity as one of the available vehicles for spirituality while true spirituality has no doctrine or dogma. No rigid ceremony or tradition.
I agree with you and yet I still choose Christianity as my primary vehicle and I have begun to attend church again within the last few months. In that church I’ve reunited with an old friend from over forty years ago when we were both Christian education majors. Now both of us are open to the wisdom of other “vehicles.” That’s a very sunny and comfortable feeling as I enter my “golden years.”
But at the center of all is spirit without doctrine. You’ve put it so well.
Thank you. IMHO that’s a truth that more religious people need to realize. Honor the other persons chosen path as much as possible and don’t sweat the details. It’s the actions and character of the person that reveals the spirit within.
And please please learn not to worship the doctrine and dogma over the simple truths of love, compassion, forgiveness, and honesty. That will be enough of a challenge to keep most people plenty busy.
Sure (and thanks for your willlingness to engage. As a brief hijack, this is what I like about GD–that we can see the world entirely differently and still treat each other with a modicum of civility.) I’m really confused by your analogy between your view of the Bible and mine of THE WASTE LAND. I hope you’re not just taking random potshot at the English prof here (that’s getting kind of tired, no?)–as it happens I believe all sorts of things about TWL that I doubt you hold about the Bible–that it was written by a mentally disturbed person, that it’s more than a little bit intended to mystify rather than enlighten, that it’s sad in trying to call back a dead world of religion, etc. I have a certain amount of healthy contempt for Eliot (and a certain amount of healthy admiration) but I certainly don’t regard anything he says as doctrine I need to pay the slightest attention to. Where does this differ from your view of The Bible? (If you were just taking a potshot at me, then you needn’t bother answering in detail, of course.) Let’s start there.
In a broader sense (and getting closer to to the OP), it seems to me that many of these attempts by professing Xians to rationalize what I’m terming “criminal” lies (of the Bible, of the Catholic Church, of Bishop Ussher, etc.) all share a common theme: Some religious authority has seriously attempted to pass off as fact an event that we (contemporary scientific thinkers) now accept as impossible. The Sun stopping dead in the sky, a 6,000 year old earth, Jesus walking on water, etc. It seems to me quite obvious WHY these events were incorporated into religion: 1) if true, they would be very impressive signs of a power well beyond human capacity and 2) no one, at the time, anticipated the state of modern understanding that would render these events capable of being refuted. Now, as long as people remained reasonably ignorant of scientific or historical understanding, there seemed little risk in reinforcing belief in such gross improbabilities by invoking the power of Churches and bishops and priests over mainly ignorant people, so they doubled down their bet and accepted–indeed, revelled in–their role as authorities of fact. If humanity didn’t make the advances in knowledge we’ve made over the past hundred or two hundred years, I have no doubt that many, many people would be citing these learned authorities as “proof” of miraculous events (or at least as absence of evidence that frees them to decide for themselves, helped along by the authority of the Church and Bible, of course). But they were wrong–as it turns out, factually wrong, but more to my point, morally wrong to have actively and eagerly sought out the role of authorities when they were in fact pretty clueless as to what had occurred and why it had occurred. This is NOT trivial to me, Polycarp. It is a grave crime against humanity.
What is going on here are attempts to mitigate that grave crime by time-honored (if risible) methods: Tom’s silly and pompous attempts to make the good Bishop seem less egregiously criminal by pointing out (and citing the great Gould as his authority) that Ussher’s boneheadedness has been overstated or incompletely understood in context: So fucking what? He said a colossally dumb thing, he put his authority behind it and he stands for the ages as a citable example of churchly authority telling lies about stuff they had no clue about, thus intimidating good Christians into believing that the Bible had answers to everything on earth if only we were trained to look at it correctly and thoughtfully, as the Bishop was. What Tom and Quiddity Glomfuster and others in this thread are seeking to do (again, kind of laughably) is to keep calling “cite!” and then to nitpick the provenance of facts that, in the end, even they do not deny. It’s kind of a tough roe to how, as the Bible and the Church spent a couple of millennia laying out the laws of the universe as we are intended to understand them, so there’s a huge paper trail. But, since they’re asking atheists for evidence about shit that they’ve been rolling their eyes over for decades, in my case, they’re bound to come up with examples that the atheists don’t know or don’t remember or don’t care much about. I thought Gould’s point was fairly stupid when I first read it in the late 1980s, and hadn’t thought about it much when** Tom** first invoked him as the great authority.
Now, if you agree that the Bible, and various Xian authorities have been deliberately perpetuating a fraud on humanity mainly because it served their purposes to impress the unwashed masses with miraculous events that never happened, you and I can go the same path, for a while. I suspect, if you accept my characterization, that you’re not simply (as I am) rejecting these sources as proven liars, but try to find ways to mitigate their falsehoods. Discussing our differences on this would be, I think, interesting. I certainly have mitigated some literal crimes over the years out of a sympathy (sometimes misguided) for the criminals, as you have no doubt wished a harsher punishment for certain crimes than I would, so we could discuss what you and I think is so terrible (or not) about what harm these authorities have done. That would be perhaps useful, and would speak to the question of the (im)morality of Xianity, which could be one of the dichotomies I set out on page 1 of this thread. But for now, why don’t you try clarifying my small question about THE WASTE LAND and the Bible? Weak analogy or something you care to defend and, if so, how far?
But you see,** cosmosdan**, that your “simple truths of love, compassion, forgiveness, and honesty” are not foreign to atheists, either. Insisting that there’s some of --or any–special claim that Xians have to any of these characteristics, especially given in your de-emphasis on doctrine and dogma, just amounts to a kind of smugness and arrogance that elevates Xians above other people, which we generally don’t appreciate. You want to treat people better? Then do it, and dont bother explaining why it is that you’re so motivated.
pseudotriton ruber ruber, you seriously have no idea what you are actually saying, do you? You want to make Ussher a “criminal” for holding a belief that was universal at the time that he lived. You claim to see that it was “obviously” wrong when Da Vinci, Newton, Galileo, Keppler, Copernicus, Decartes, Brahe, Grassi, and any others you can add to the list held exactly the same view. I have already asked for evidence that Ussher was actually trying to impose a religious belief in contradiction to scientific evidence (or that anyone at the time saw what you pretend is “obvious”) and you keep huriling disparaging comments at my posts and avoiding the issue.
As long as you keep holding to erroneous claims about the people you attack, you are not really going to do anything but work yourself into a froth of unrighteous indignation over issues that you clearly do not really understand.
No. I am actually asking for genuine citations for the broad brush claims that you make over and over again, pretending that it is information that “everyone knows” when it is mostly part of the fairly recent mythologization of the aura of science that has nothing to do with either real science or real belief, (or, certainly, real history). I find it ironic–although in no way surprising–that you dismiss Gould’s essay of Ussher. From the earliest Science essays collected in The Panda’s Thumb to his final works, Gould continued to fight against a history of science that appears in many popular works but that never really happened. You have swallowed that myth, whole, and cannot even let go of it long enough to see that your entire battle is waged against a history of thought that has never occurred except in the imagination of a few science popularizers (not scientists). You should really sit down and read the entire Gould opus, noting how often he reveals that the “popular” image of the brave, lone scientist struggling to overcome the ignorance (religious or secular) of the hidebound people who went before is actually an oversimplified retelling by later people who were trying to promote that image–and generally getting their facts wrong as they did.
As with any True Believer, of course, I do not actually expect you to make the effort to examine the theses on which your Belief is constructed. However, it has been your broad brush claims about the tension between science and belief (rooted in historical error, which better explains why you can never provide evidence for your beliefs), that has generally brought me into any discussion to challenge your historical misstatements.
(And i am not claiming that there has never been tension between science and religion. I only note that you condemn religion for holding as true exactly the same beliefs as those held by scientists of the time and that you have tried to claim that (all) religion has deliberately tried to make false claims about “scientific” events or knowledge where you have provided no evidence of that actually happening.)
I haven’t digested your whole post, but I did want to respond to this.
I don’t understand why “modern understanding” renders something like Jesus walking on water more incredible than it would have been in the first century. It’s not as though one day scientists discovered, “Hey! People can’t actually walk on water!” Everyone from Jesus’s time onward has known that this is the kind of thing that can’t normally happen—that’s what makes it a miracle! Maybe more scientific detail is available now to explain why such an event would be miraculous, but beyond that, I don’t see what we have now that makes us any better able to refute such events than we used to be.
As for “WHY these events were incorporated into religion,” well, many of the miracle stories recorded in the Bible (including the ones Jesus performed) seem to have some “point” to them, beyond just “This shows that this Jesus guy is something special.” (By a “point,” I mean than they have some symbolic significance, or they reveal something about Jesus’s character, or they are used by him to make a point or teach a lesson, or something like that.) Some of the more liberal Christians, as well as non-Christian admirers of Christianity, will say that these miraculous events (or some of them) didn’t actually happen (and some would go so far as to say the biblical writers didn’t intend for us to believe or care about whether they actually happened)—the stories are still worthwhile and contain truth because of the point that they make. And the more traditional believers, who believe the miraculous events did actually happen, can still say that their value to us—the reason they were done in the first place and recorded by the biblical writers—is because of what we can learn from the “point” that they have.
No, no. I’m avoiding dealing with you, because you have no idea where you’re a maddened vituperative vicious poster spouting pseudo-rational nonsense, and where you’re a Mod judiciously settling issues on your forum. Please don’t mistake my reluctance to get myself banned (over engaging you in dispute where you can “warn” me any time I piss you off) for reluctance to deal with the issues here. I’ll deal with other posters: thanks so much for your participation in this thread.
Ex post facto reasoning. If Jesus had transformed a banana into a coconut, I’m quite sure some nutjob could invent an interpretation showing why those two fruits exemplify some important principle of God’s Laws that have deep significance for all of us. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my decades of reading literary criticism, there is no shit so bizarre someone can’t attach significance to it.
Petard. Hoist.
I beg your pardon? Is this a game? If so, “Canon.” “Self-slaughter.” Am I doing this right?
I think I’ve mentioned this before. If you want to make a point that is a generalization about what some Christians belief, or how they behave, then please make that clear in your post. Here it appears you are responding directly to me about points I didn’t make.
my post uses the words, which you quoted, “honor the other persons chosen path” which would include all religious and non religious belief systems. {please no nitpicks about what is chosen and what isn’t} I have made this point repeatedly in several threads. A persons actions and character tell who they are and what they value far better than any spoken or written words, be they believer or non believer. That goes for every person on the planet. We’re clear on that right?
Furthermore my post urges believers to to value the qualities I mentioned over any label of religion, flavor of religion, or doctrine, in any and all people they meet. I in no way implied that these qualities are the exclusive rights of any religious group.
Since you bring it up and FTR it really irritates me to have people use the term, Christian principles" as in, we live by Christian principles, or we teach Christian principles, or the popular and wrong “this country was founded on Christian principles.” IMO there’s something fundamentally wrong in using that kind of language. It supports a mindset of separation and perhaps the slightly superior attitude you mention. There are no principles that Christians {or Americans, or any other group} can claim as exclusively their own. As if love isn’t really love unless it’s Christian love, or brotherhood isn’t brotherhood unless you’re brothers in Jesus. I find it offensive and dangerously pervasive in it’s casual acceptance.
That being said, I don’t see a lot of people doing good deeds and then explaining why they did it. If someone does do something and because of their sincere belief adds a “praise God”, or “thank you Jesus” I don’t find it offensive or won’t presume it’s pretentious.
That smugness and arrogance you refer to exists across the board and isn’t any more or less attractive in Christians than it is in atheists who take on an air of intellectual superiority because they aren’t “foolish” enough to believe in fairy tales. We can’t control those qualities in others but we can try to look honestly at ourselves and strive for improvement.
No, sorry, I’m not talking to you, though your post did set me off on other Xians, and I wrote my post to make it seem I was addressing you. I pretty much agree with you on many of your points, and my respect for you grows as I get more acquainted with your positions and your emphasis on discussion rather than trading insults.
Maybe we should examine this.
“Maddened vituperative vicious poster.” Can you point to one example where I have demonstrated madness? Vituperation? Viciousness? Most of the insults, explicit and implied in every encounter you and I have had since October have been launched by you. I have responded in a smart-assed fashion on a couple of occasions, but I have not once entered a thread to attack your person.
You then move on to what is, effectively, a lie. I cannot warn anyone for an action that would not be considered an infraction of the rules. Were I to do so, I would be taken to task by the other Moderators and Administrators. If I made that a habit, I would find myself stripped of my Moderator status and, possibly, jeopardize my staus as a poster.
Now, aside from your clearly invented claim, do you have any evidence that I have even threatened to Warn another poster for actions that were not outside the rules? Or are you simply flinging mud in the hopes that you can pretend that you have been picked upon?
On the other hand, I have explicitly addressed the actual issues you have raised, if only to point out that most of them are in your imagination. (Note that I have not challenged any assertion that religious belief is ill-founded or wrong. I have only pointed out the errors in your claims that relgious groups have (always) tried to establish a recounting of physical world as a religious truth and then retreated, incrementally, in the face of science. The reality has been that prior to the nineteenth century, religious and scientific beliefs in the Western world were pretty much identical and that there have only been a very tiny number of specific ideas and a similarly small number of religious groups who have actually been “forced to retreat” in the face of scientific knowledge. While I have not laid out every single instance (a waste of time, since you are not even reading what I have pointed out), I have provided specific references to specific instances where the two systems of thought have overlapped and conflicted. Instead of considering those matters, you have simply called me names and pretended to hold some “truth” (that you presistently fail to document or support).
You and I will never persuade each other, but I suspect that you are failing to sway any of the audience at home with your broad-brush, historically inaccurate, and personal attacks.
Examine whatever you like. I’m done with you.
Thanks for your concern that I am failing to sway people to agree with me. I’m sure that’s a big concern of yours. You are a thoroughly dishonest bully and a liar, who is far more interesting in presenting specious bullshit about trivia and engaging in senseless “cite” wars than in actually discussing substantive issues. I have no use for you, and I have no interest in getting into discussions that jeopardize my future standing as a poster here. For one example of your speciousness, look at the b.s. reasoning behind your “I could be admonished fpr abusing my mod status if I were …” blah blah blah. Most of these calls are judgment calls. You could as soon issue warnings or not, depending on your interpretation of what is and isn’t an insult. (You let Polycarp get away with insults that you busted badchad’s chops over incessantly, and finallly got him suspended over.) I’m not providing you with cites–anyone with eyes can read those threads and draw their own judgments, and this is mine–and no one can prove that your interpretation is right nor that mine is. I’m sure you get a lot of slack in what your judgment is, and you’re clever enough to have some kind of slim pretext on which to hang your warnings. But the big picture is that it’s total bullshit letting you get away with your mixing of Mod/poster personae, and it’s a total loser of an argument for me to engage in beyond my pointing out that that’s what you’re doing. So I will answer any poster in this thread other than you. Is that clear enough for you?
OK.
Now I AM calling you a liar.
You have made this false accusation multiple times in the Pit and have failed to provide a single instance to support your claims. I really do not know why you seem to have decided to make me your whipping boy for your delusions, but even my amusement at your gripes is getting frayed by your constant repetition of this false claim.
Take it to the Pit if you need to, but stop making personal attacks against me in a wholly inappropriate Forum.