You filter my responses to fit your preconceived ideas as much as does our Fundy friend JohnClay.
I do not believe you are sincere in your inquiries.
Good day, sir.
Kable, I’m interested in factual questions. I’m not required to tell you about my beliefs. I think ranking the relative badness of various institutions has already passed the point of factual questions . I think this discussion has wandered far from the OP about scinetists and believers.
I was talking about the text you quoted, not your post. It refers to the appearance of life from non-living matter in the early earth. The quote in no way rejects the findings the book clearly had just discussed. It points out that while spontaneous generation does not happen today, and certainly as a matter of course like people believed 200 years ago, it had to happen at some point. The writer does not assume a deity, which is appropriate for a science book. I said poorly written because the text could be misinterpreted, which you demonstrated. But I’m all for the author cramming in something to make the students think.
Of course my post was conjecture - but nothing written there flies in the face of science. Your outrage is misplaced.
I think he only used to be a Fundy.
I do believe you are ashamed of your answers.
I understand that in this case you would prefer to do anything but answer a simple question with a simple answer. A lot of people do that when they have something to hide.
Agenda? Do you really believe that liberal Christians have an “agenda”? If so, could you let us know what it is we are planning and why it troubles you?
I realize this is completely off-topic but your bewildering hostility to Christians who are not fundamentalists or bible literalists has me curious about your own motivations. Are you a stealth poster for the religious right?
I think your agenda is to have your faith held in some esteem, as though it was in some degree rational, and not a example of ignorance.
Since you ask, I’m just as hostile towards fundamentalist Christians as I am liberals, except there aren’t any here. I can understand why on a message board with a goal of fighting ignorance why the fundamentalist are gone, I’m just not sure how you liberal Christians remain. I have a few theories and I was thinking about starting a thread on that.
Oh, well, as agendas go that’s surely not very menacing, is it?
Do you want us to leave, then?
Well, you guys do say that faith is good and the Bible to some degree a source of morals and teaches you the will of your god. So you are giving support to fundamentalist who’s agendas are more menacing.
Of course not, I just want you to stop presenting your irrational beliefs as rational. Better still, give them up.
Good point. I was trying to be charitable and it seems the Catholics had a sliding scale of heliocentricity. Most books mentioning it were taken off their banned list after 100 or so years, but Galileo’s book and Copernicus’ unedited works weren’t taken off the list until ~200 years, and the apology wasn’t given until 400 years after, just as you said.
I have asked you on another thread for a specific example of how my being an Episcopalian in any way supports or furthers the goals of the religious right, but you failed to supply one.
You are entitled to believe this is true if you like but it is hardly a cogent argument without a rational explanation of why it should be so. Saying that a group of people who favor separation of church and state, oppose discrimination against gay people in marriage, and disfavor teaching of religion in place of science are in fact “giving support” to those with opposite views is not very convincing without some explication as to why and how this is so.
As I recall I answered you. You just didn’t understand the answer.
How did I answer you the first time?
See if this help you get it:
Let me try - and maybe you can answer a long-running question I’ve had about liberal Christians.
First, even as an Episcopalian some of your beliefs depend on faith - am I correct? You accept that Jesus live, was God’s son, died for our sins, and was resurrected despite the lack of evidence for any of these except that he lived. I don’t think saying you do this is accusing you of fundamentalism.
In fact, your beliefs probably go beyond this. I’m sure you don’t believe in a literal Adam and Eve, but the requirement for salvation depends strongly on them choosing sin. But this is another faith thing.
Fundamentalists believe in all these things also, but take a lot more of the Bible literally. How can you tell them that they are wrong? By appeal to evidence? You are willing to accept things on faith without evidence, why not them? Because their beliefs go against science? Belief in any god does also.
Because the consequences of their beliefs is immoral? I certainly agree, but if God is the source of morality, how can you call a belief taken from God’s word immoral?
So, by accepting that faith is a valid way of determining belief and morality, you endorse the process by which they come to their beliefs if not their beliefs. In fact I content that you both start with a set of beliefs and justify them through religion. I suspect I like yours a lot better, but I don’t think the process is all that different.
My question is: what is your process for determining which parts of the Bible to accept or reject? Even the most fundamental fundamentalist recognizes that the parable are stories and not literally true after all. Have you looked at the dependencies between what you accept and reject?
You didn’t answer me, you just as best I could make out told me to read your statement that ignorance is bad and then again pointed out that I am too stupid to understand your wisdom.
Now you’ve referred me to Grayling and Harris. I’m working and don’t really have time to view these videos, but do you really think that Episcopalians must denounce all followers of Islam, even those who do not believe in killing infidels, or be somehow held responsible for terrorist acts? do you really believe that Episcopalians are providing “cover” for those who would substitute Creationism for science and require prayer in schools? If so, could you explain how that works–in your own words? I’ll admit to being too stupid to comprehend your previous hints if that’s any sort of motivator for you.
Cite?
What would Jesus say about surfing the web on the clock?
I think you should denounce the holy book and denounce faith as virtuous.
Yes I do. Seems you do recall my answer.
Watch the videos and if you still don’t get it, I’ll try to spell it out better.
You’re answer was here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16396992&postcount=405
Also, I would like to see you address Voyager’s questions.
I do believe the things you listed. I will add that I also believe in the trinity and that Christ is present in the Eucharist. But I don’t believe these things based on scripture really. It’s because (a) I had an experience (internal and personal) that convinced me of their truth, despite my then-tendency and preference to disbelieve them; and (b) because once I accepted those things I found myself happier and more useful, less selfish. So it’s rational for me to believe, although I do not claim to intellectually understand any of it, nor do I expect anyone else ot be convinced.
In answer to your second question, perhaps it’s the legal training (or the legal temperament)–the greatest law for Christians is to love your neighbor as yourself. So writings (or interpretations of those writings) inconsistent with treating other people lovingly are wrong. In the same way that the US Constitution makes certain provisions about how government should be limited and rights be protected; lots of laws are passed which are contrary to those provisions (and others are interpreted and applied in unconstitutional ways). Those laws are invalid.
And to extend the analogy (well, stretch it a bit really), one does not support or forward unconstitutional laws by upholding the Constitution. No more does believing in and trying to live according to the greatest law support or condone those who use the bible as an excuse for injuring others.
The questions I posed to you were prompted by my knowledge of things that Grayling and Harris have said (still haven’t watched the videos, but isn’t the Harris speech the one where he begins by saying that liberal Christians are better than extremists because they don’t crash planes into buildings? if so, I am not impressed with either the delivery or the content)
I’m still curious as to whether you can provide a concrete example or even explanation of how and why these things are true. The “answer” you have cited to me twice now doesn’t do that, just asserts that liberal Christians cause a list of bad things just by believing.
Am I to have faith that what you say is true just because you (or writers you admire) say it is?
ETA: There’s no clock in my line of work.
I haven’t been following this thread so I apologize if this seems to be what it probably is - a drive-by post. Even so, I’m fairly confident the topic hasn’t been covered.
When I was studying Buddhism, one of the sutras I read was, IIRC, just a long string of contradictions. I’ve tried a few times to find it w/o success. Maybe I referred to in my senior thesis so I’ll have to dig that out someday but I’m not hopeful. Anyway, it was actually more than just contradictions. They were statements more of the form ‘everything exists, everything does not exist, everything both exists and does not exist.’ The point was simple notions of logic and reason are useless in helping one to understand the true nature of reality. Anyone with just a passing familiarity with some of the seemingly bizarre phenomena described by quantum mechanics such as entanglement and coherence while perhaps not completely agreeing with that notion, will at least probably see that it’s not as daft as it first appears.
So what I would propose is what if both sides are wrong (and right). What if god both exists and does not exist simultaneously? What if the only “correct” view is to be both a theist AND and atheist? And what if the only way to understand what that means, if anything, is through one’s personal experience?