I don’t know if he’s trusting me or not. He’s dropped out of this thread, so there’s no reason to pay attention to his aura anymore. And why would I want to? He’s one of the few people in this thread who’s actually been courteous to me. As for whether he’s lying or not…as already explained, I failed that part of the class. 
I’m watching…nothing seems to be happening yet.
That’s because you can never prove anything. Someone can always come up with an alternate explanation. You can, however, falsify things.
As for evolution, there are plenty of facts - fossils, DNA, experimental results. But how to explain those facts? We are 99% like chimps - fact. (Or 95, same difference.) Are that similar because we evolved from a common ancestor, or because God randomly chose to make us that way? Theory.
The reason good scientists are so “negative” is because they realize how easy it is to convince yourself of a finding, especially if the finding is earth shattering and will get you a Nobel Prize. That’s exactly when you need to really work hard at proving yourself wrong. If you fail, you might have something. If you succeed, you are disappointed, but at least don’t look like an idiot to your colleagues.
For the record, I like the IPU as a demonstration of epistemological principles. The proper theistic response, however, is “yes, I know that there’s no reason that an atheist would believe in God over Thor or the IPU, but my faith justifies my personal belief. I don’t have proof, I rely on faith.”
I’d suggest that a ‘tighter’ and less offensive analogy on the issue of biblical authority would be something like “How can you tell the difference between a holy book which was written by people pretending to have communion with God from a holy book which was written by people who honestly thought that they were in communion with God, from a holy book that was written by people who were actually in communion with God?”
I’d agree that you’re partially right in terms of religious power structures. But I’m not aware of any sane people who claim that God communicates via words. Most claims are something along the lines of God communicating via circumstances, or intuition, or ‘spirit’, or what have you.
I’d also argue that’s because those can be interpreted as divine (and cannot be falsified), while hearing voices is pretty much universally recognized as a sign of mental illness.
I don’t think that Reform Judaism is at all secular.
Well, yes and no. We can prove conclusively, for example, that canines do not possess the vocal cords, lips or tongue required to speak to human beings in any manner that humans would recognize as language. So that’s actively disproved. Claims of an amorphous, limitless, omnipotent extra-reality based entity whose existence or qualities can neither be confirmed nor falsified must, by definition, only be taken on faith. They’re not subject to the formal steps of proof and refutation, so scientifically/epistemo0logically they rate something like “unknown, indeterminate, meaningless” as opposed to the simple “false” that we’d assign to talking dogs.
Which is why, I’d argue, that most religions create God in their image, and not hte other way around. The KKK worships a God that hates Jews and blacks. The Jews worship a God that’s overly harsh on them all the damn time but only expects gentiles to follow the Noahide laws. Jew-hating Christians followed a God who wanted Jews converted at the point of the sword or burned at the stake if they refused, etc, etc, etc…
Depending on the time, culture and place, a people’s ‘moral filters’ will determine how they construct God, and what they do or do not accept as coming from that God.
Coming from a tradition that looks at the Tanakh as a collection of ‘sacred stories’, then no I don’t see any of that destroying Reform Judaism as a faith.
There are some. I had an ex girlfriend who believed that Bast was in communication with her. I’ve known a few others who would claim that they directly channel ‘power’ or ‘gnosis’ or what have you, directly from the godhead.
No need to preach to the choir, I’m totally behind evolution. You missed my point, though – people, in general, are stupid. Stupid and vain. They are too stupid to understand what “theory” actually means, they can’t recognize the logic supporting scientific theories, and worst of all, they are too vain to admit it. So they make up their own stupid shit, and tell their peers it’s the truth, and their peers believe it because they are equally stupid and vain.
This is basic human nature – which means, scientists and skeptics are also stupid and vain. Only difference is, they are more cunning and eloquent about it.
(As for we creatives and spiritualists – yes, we’re stupid too. But at least we’re not so vain. Doesn’t make us any better – we just don’t give a fuck, that’s all. 
)
Funny…all this time, people have demanded that I be the one to “prove” what I say…well, I guess hypocrisy is part of human nature, too. :rolleyes:
Nah, so far it’s been more like the fizz of an explosive cord, with people spitting on it occasionally. I’m waiting for a really big bang. 
p.s. Not that I think it will happen, KGS, but it would brighten a dull Sunday! 
Behold my POWER I am post 666…
Oh and hats off to KGS, you are officially to stupidest poster on the SDMB…
Although people are throwing around this dog worshipping idea rather irreverantly, and even insultingly… the dog is one of the most important channels to God in Zoroastrianism. In fact, I believe it was a Capital Offense to kill one in early times.
But I’d say that by any meaningful sense of importance and intrinsic worth, a religion should be measured by its longevity and its precursion to and influence on following Religions. In this sense, I’d say dog worship and Zoroastrianism is a more relevant, credulous, and believable religious stance purely by ancient rite.
“Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the revealed world-religions, and it has probably had more influence on mankind, directly and indirectly, than any other single faith.”
-Mary Boyce.
Could I get a Cite/More information on that please?
As of the Major religions, I’d never really heard that **Zoroastrianism **was the oldest. Then again, “revealed” might play a part in that definition.
Could I get more information on that one please?
Yea, apparentyly that is a misquote… got it from some other website.
Should read…
“Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the revealed credal religions, and it has probably had more influence on mankind, directly and indirectly, than any other single faith.”
Here is the quote in its original text
Wikipedia on Mary Boyce.
Interesting. I’ve always heard that Hinduism was considered the oldest of the major world religions. (Though Mary Boyce doesn’t seem to mention it in her first page- then again, I’m not sure if she considered Hinduism to be a “revealed credal religion” as she doesn’t mention them really. It does appear that both came about at similar time periods though.
Thanks for your cites.
I believe Zoroastrianism is the oldest religion that worshiped a single deity as opposed to many gods demons and spirits.
Interesting. How does it compare in antiquity to Judaism?
I guess what I’m trying to say, Autolycus… is that some of the major tenants of your religion were founded by dog worshippers. It’s a fact. Your religious tenants are borrowed and lynchpinned in heritage from ancient dog communers.
Depends. Some scholars dated it to 8000 BCE well before judiasm apparently many scholars are dating it much later now but when I was in college the 8000BCE date was discussed. But when I was in college we were still using BC not BCE, not that they are different just that I went to college a while ago.
Gah.:smack:
Hinduism can be considered to be Monotheistic, it’s just a common misconception to label it polytheistic!
That one ALWAYS gets me… It’s so frustrating. Ah well, all I can do is point out the misconception. :shrug: Anyways back to your regular pitting.
/hijack
Your revelation gives me paws.
I gotta admit, I chuckled.
Sorry it frustrates you so. The fact is there is no one Hinduism. The wiki article has some good information and may be a good starting place for you.
One could question whether judaism was montheistic in it origins. The first commandment “Thou shall worship no other gods before me” kind of concedes that there are other gods. Also when moses went up to get the tablets the old testament explains that god got pissed off because the Israelites were worshiping Baal. Also there is the part in genesis where god says something like “Now they shall be as one of us” after eve eats the apple. Other more recent archeological evidence suggests a more polytheistic origin as well.
It would not surprise me if Judaism emerged from a pre-existing polytheistic basis.
Though personally I find other cites for the same theory more compelling - for example, in Genesis, where God is quoted as refering to himself in the plural:
Not reading Hebrew, I do not know if the original contains the plural “us”, or if this has significance (for example, it could be a type of royal “we”). It does seem to imply multiplicity at forst glance though.
In another place, the “sons of god” mate with human women to produce demi-gods or heroes (Genesis 6):
Which is awfully similar to some forms of Greek mythology - heroes having semi-divine origin.
My guess would be that it emerges from a common ancestry, a sort of neolithic (or even older) proto-religion. Anthropologically, the “Chieftian” stage of cultural evolution is often marked by the “Chief” being viewed as semi-divine, or being able to trace his ancestry to a divinity - this passage seems to be a remnant of that.
However, what we don’t know is how long ago proto-Judaism became more or less officially monotheistic - and I’m not familiar enough with Zoroastrianism to know to what extent it is “monotheistic” (I was under the impression it was dualistic, having a “good god” and a “bad god”, but I could be wrong).
Tenets.