Iampunha:
In practice, those who do not base their faith on the inerrancy of a book, and instead base it on something like God’s love or something equally strong, do not have the same problem with toothpicks. I don’t see why this should come as any grand surprise to you
Please, Polycarp and other wishy-washy Christians still base their beliefs to a large degree on the bible. Ask Polycarp where he got the idea that Jesus is loving if not for the gospels. Again if not for the bible he and you never would have heard of Jesus. What the errency of the bible demonstrates is that what you know of Christ is uncertain, and I do not think this is an area where intelligent people can disagree.
What do you believe are their meanings behind their uses of “shaky”?
Most recently it has been something to the effect of the bible being written by man with his subjective experiences with god. Inspired but not without error. For example when Jesus says he loves you that was inspired by god, however, when god has 2 she bears kill 40 and 2 children for making fun of a bald man, that is one of the errors. The trouble is that when you admit there is error and don’t have an demonstratively effective and objective method of determining what is the error, it is just as likely that the love part is an error and the killing of children was the inspired word of god.
Badchad:
Just for clarification, what god is it that you accept as existing? Perhaps I misunderstood but I took your post to mean that you were accepting Polycarp’s version of god which he describes as Christian.
Just for clarification, do you intend to mask such a clear disingenuous sense of things behind all your questions?
What is disingenuous about asking what your religion is? You said you weren’t Christian but it seems you accept Polycarp’s version of god, which he clearly labels as Jesus and his religion as Christianity. Without clarification that seem contradictory.
That is not borne out in any meaningful sense in your posts to this thread, as of yet. The only place on the SDMB where I have seen a post like Lib’s outlining proofs and such of God’s existence was in this here thread. The vast majority of people on this board, from what I have learned of them, if they do believe in God it is not based merely on semantic proofs or evidence.
Fine, let me know what I forgot from my list. Looking back it does seem that I left out the tendency to follow the crowd.
Right, then. What inherent cherry picking do you see in Polycarp’s “version of Christianity”?
Well to quote Polycarp:
“Likewise, the attribution of the genocide of the Canaanites and Amelekites and the killing of 42 boys who sassed Elisha by two bears to the command of God is, for me, a case of “passing the buck upstairs,” little different from President Bush thinking that it’s his Christian duty to lead us into an invasion of Iraq.”
See the nasty stuff is not picked. IIRC he doesn’t believe in eternal punishment either. But heaven, of course he believes in heaven, he’ll take that cherry. Lots more where that came from but I have a day job.
What inherent cherry-picking is necessary for any version of Christianity?
How about keeping the 10 commandments, with the exception of the 4th commandment.
What is your voice?
IMO, the bible was written buy a bunch of superstitious guys who obviously weren’t inspired by an omnipotent, omniscient, omni benevolent being.
1. Just because I believe a source is infallible doesn’t mean it is.
True, and I stated as much.
2. Even if it is, The Bible is not a scientific text and it should not be given the importance of such in a scientific debate.
You only say that now that science has shown it to be wrong. Now if you ask any fundamentalist who still holds that it is not wrong, the bible is very scientific, or so I have seen it argued.
3. Even assuming the infallibility of the Bible it is incorrect to say that the Bible and evolution contradict, or do you know something the Jesuits don’t?
It seems I do. Please inform the Jesuits that according evolutionary theory the beasts that creepeth the earth millions of years before birds did, not one day after. See Genesis 1:20-25.
You will cite justification for the allegation that Polycarp believes in only the pleasing aspects of god in the Bible or retract that RIGHT FUCKING NOW…
I did so above.
Might even be too late … I recall him saying that the next person who said something like that about him was going to get a very thorough pitting.
Oooh, I’m scared now. I do recall that as well. If he doesn’t pit me then he’s a liar, which is a sin. If he does pit me, well that’s anger and that’s a sin too. Kind of funny.
Now. I think what you mean to say, rather than “Polycarp only believe the happy fun stuff about God”, is ACTUALLY something more like “Polycarp emphasizes God’s love to those who have been beaten over the head with Bibles by those who only cite God’s wrath/hate/judgment”.
Nope your first characterization is closer to what I meant to say.
And the answer, since I have yet to see anyone be driven away from God by Polycarp, is that I place a hell of a lot more stock in him than I do in those who use the Bible as a weapon.
I think he does people a disservice by trying to bring them such an illogical believe system as that of Christianity regardless of how much he waters it down.
I think a benevolent God could have made the world turn out better, sure. I also think I ain’t its maker so I don’t know what this God is going for.
So do you think it possible that if there is a god who created this world, he is not benevolent?
Rather than assuming that I am looking at the world from my own little perch atop the food chain. I doubt you’d find a gazelle or amoeba who is bawling its little eyes out that its friends got eaten by Timmy the Tiger or Wally Whale or whatever.
So you don’t think a gazelle cares if it is eaten, how about a dolphin or a chimp? At what level of creature do you think animals are not capable of missing their friends?
- here’s a reason the cycle of life isn’t a Lifetime Original Movie: THIS IS HOW SHIT HAPPENS.*
Sure it’s how things happen, it just isn’t benevolent or even remotely close, rather it’s nature.
If I were being hunted for food I doubt I would have the mental capacity to hope. Cows et al. do not dream of getting married and sending their calves to college. They don’t go to the grocery story and spend their last $5 on milk. They do not have the capacity for the things humans do, such as hoping.
So if a species of aliens came to this planet, who were mentally, physically and emotionally more advanced as us, you wouldn’t have a problem with them eating you and your family because you don’t have the same “capacity” of said alien species? From all indication animals feel pain, don’t like it, and avoid it for the same reasons you do.
quote:
Because as much utter fucking bullshit as exists, that there is beauty that shines through it means that something must be propelling it forward.
Cite?
See my sig, for one
I don’t see anything in your sig line that demonstrates that beauty must have something propelling it.
Don’t tell me what I think and I won’t try to tell you how far up your ass your head is, mmkay?
Don’t think so predictably, mmkay.
I don’t know how my other grandfather managed to live for years with a horribly abused body (drugs and alcohol), then manage to die in his sleep of pneumonia. I don’t know why I didn’t die from amniotic fluid intake and my sister didn’t die from (IIRC) conjunctivitis when she was a toddler … which disease kills far more than it leaves alive. And I have no fucking clue why God would have my aunt abort a child at the EXACT SAME TIME my mother misscarried. Why not save both of them and have my mother get pregnant with the kid who had to be killed by a doctor and save my aunt the grief? I don’t know why there are kids in Rwanda missing limbs because the local government doesn’t give a fuck.
Chance.
But I get the sense that there is a good reason for it. Because my grandfathers both lived long enough for me to know them well, and then they died. And my sister didn’t die because now she and I have lots of things in common regarding depression and she’s been able to help some kids I’d never be able to reach. And without that miscarried baby I wouldn’t be here. Can’t help you with the Rwandan kids, though.
Nice of god to love you and your family. What about all the folks who didn’t get to know their grandparents? What about the people whose siblings did die and what about the dead siblings themselves? What about them poor Rwandans? It seems you take a pretty egocentric view of the world.
Iampunha:
It is the Polycarps of this place (specifically and in general) which point to an actual reason for all the heinous things in this world.
Badchad:
And what might that reason be? I think Polycarp admitted to me that he did not have an answer to the “problem of evil.”
Iampunha:
Love.
Love is the reason for all the heinous things in the world?
