Thanks for your response. I’m sure that you are aware that because of the way our brains are built, many people have extraordinary internal experiences. Saying that to be believed they must be checked against outside reality in no way means I doubt they are experienced. But more relevantly, I have read of many people becoming devoutly fundamentalist and born again because of these experiences, and their vision of what God wants differs greatly from yours. Not to mention that people in other religions also have visions of other gods. If you mean that these visions are only sufficient to make you change your path without attempting to get anyone else to change, fine. There is no need for a vision to be “real” (that is, matches external reality) in order to make one happier. But clearly you think your vision was real in the sense that it proved something about God.
Don’t you think fundamentalists are well aware of this not very original rule? What if they truly believe that preventing or discouraging sin will help their neighbor achieve eternal salvation, and that outweighs just letting them sin. Christianity, which at its heart claims to have the one true way to salvation, through Jesus, is particularly bad about this. Religions not thinking they have a monopoly on salvation are more willing to live and let live.
Clearly there is a lot of disagreement about what is constitutional and what is not, but no belief in an ultimate answer - decisions can be overturned by a later court. I wonder if there is a correlation between originalists and the highly religious. It wouldn’t surprise me. Certainly some people speak of the Founders as if they were a pantheon, not men doing an extraordinary, but imperfect, job.
“It.” There you go with the misidentified antecedent again. The point I was trying to make is that life had to begin on earth at some point. Don’t put words in my mouth–I specifically said it was not by “spontaneous generation.”
I also don’t believe in the writer adding ‘creative writing.’ I might suppose that if I were to ask a naturalist (if that is the proper word) by what means life originated on earth, he/she might say “by spontaneous generation,” assuming they don’t prevaricate and talk around the subject, condescending to me.
To sum it up: The results of the experiments by Redi and Pasteur flatly contradict the notion that life originated on earth spontaneously.
Watch them and tell me if they contain any untruths, and let me know if you still have trouble understanding my answer. I’m not asking that you be impressed.
Yes, I do know that people have hallucinations; I haven’t had any that I know of. But I don’t and never have argued that anyone else should be convinced by the experience I had (I’ve never even described it to anyone and likely never will). As I’ve said, accepting it as truth has made my life better and does no one any harm that I can see.
Certainly there are going to be differences of opinion about Christianity, lots who disagree with me, quite a number particularly in the US at present who want to use Christianity and the bible as weapons in causes I consider unjust and unwise. But that doesn’t seem to be a reason for me not to believe as I do, let alone evidence that my faith is assisting the religious right. I assure you that in general fundamentalist Christians think at least as badly of me and my ilk as you and Kable do.
You are quite right that constitutional law (any law) is full of difficulties of interpretation and necessarily evolves. This doesn’t seem to be a good reason to throw out the constitution though, rather the opposite. And it is an interesting idea that bible literalism and Originalism might correlate to some extent–certainly there’s a distaste for ambiguity and flexibility underlying both.
Pointed out to me, eh? This is the text of Post #383:
"Redi and Pasteur showed that molds and bacteria do not appear in a few days in spoiling foodstuffs without an existing spore or seed. That is not the same question as to whether complex chemicals can, given years and steady energy input, bootstrap themselves to self-replicating reactions. "
It probably isn’t, but I fail to see any support for that hypothesis either. Where do you get the complex chemicals in the first place? This puts me in mind of monkeys typing Shakespeare. And what do you mean by “steady energy input?” I think if I tested this (heaven knows how!) against the scientific method, which is a must, it wouldn’t pass muster.
“Bootstrap” indeed! Hawkeye had the best comment on this when he told Frank, “Why don’t you pull yourself up by your own jockstrap?” A “bootstrap” hypothesis has no place in science.
Ah, finally I understand what you are getting at.
That experiment in no way proves that life cannot have originated spontaneously - in the sense of life from non-life. It did prove that the model of life originating spontaneously from rotting meat and the like was false. They had no knowledge of DNA, no knowledge of the chemical structure of life, no knowledge even of viruses and other non-living yet reproducing things. Abstracting the results of an experiment far beyond its limits is just plain wrong.
I have no idea of life coming from self-reproducing molecules is spontaneous or not to you. And, because of the constraints I mentioned, science texts today are boring. Some creative writing would really help.
They think much worse of you, actually. Your beliefs don’t hurt and probably help yourself and other people. I may think you are wrong, but you are less wrong than a Red Sox fan.
With that out of the way, let me see if I can summarize your reasoning:
You had an internal experience => which convinced you that God and Jesus were real => which convinced you to believe in a subset of the Bible => which caused you to believe in just causes (our mutual definition) and not to try to push others into your beliefs.
Compare with some hypothetical person who had an experience, became convinced in God and Jesus, became convinced that a subset of the Bible should be followed, and became convinced that this subset included what we’d call unjust causes.
I’ll stop there. Except to ask you think how we both agree on whether a cause is just or unjust.
I’m certainly not advocating throwing out the Bible. It, like all great literature, has things to teach us. I’m just saying that it should be treated like other documents from the time, with no special power.
Amazing. Have you ever read about work in the origin of life on earth? I think you can figure out where the energy came from, and we have an example of a self-replicating molecule, RNA, which does not have to be the simplest such molecule. And complex molecules are much simpler than Shakespeare.
How do you think life got started?
Assuming you are an atheist, I think we agree on what is a just cause based on principles of equal rights, caring for the poor and disadvantaged, that religion should not interfere with government and vice-versa ,etc (though there are doubtless specific causes we would not agree upon. I think my faith reinforces those principles but I held them before I went back to the Church.
I happen to view the bible approximately the same way you do, but it’s the “should” that troubles me in your statement. I know lots of people who view scripture as the word of God (to be interpreted and understood, not to be taken literally as written) who are extraordinary, spending virtually all the time and money they can spare working for others. I don’t feel I’m in a position to say what they “should” believe about it, only that if the bible is used to promote hatred and unkindness, or to force one’s religion on others, it is used wrongly.
It is so odd to see such hostility expressed here (not by you, Voyager) against liberal Christians. I wish some of you (maybe even Harris and Grayling) could come along to my church and meet the folks–not to convert you, just so you could see and talk to people who do their very best to promote the welfare of others and oppose actions that are unjust. I think those who denounce them would have a harder time despising them in person than as straw people on the internet.
A “bootstrap” hypothesis has no place in science.