Hi, am back prematurely due to poor weather and a bee sting to my foot which resulted in an allergic reaction that has grounded me for at least five days.
A nice discussion
Although the study of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is intriguing (how do we know it is pink?), unfortunately the Unicorn did not leave us a set of books detailing his involvement in the human race.
Ah, but it has. Written by humans, much liek the bible, under divine influence of the IPU. it is called "The Babble", but is relatively unknown because it didn't become the huge bestseller the Bible did. To say it in other words; it is circular to say that the bible says god exist and god created the bible. It's a fallacious logical argument; I could just as easily apply it to the Babble (qwork in progress due to dwindling sales numbers).
I would find it “intellectually dishonest” to have a personal moral that is based on nothing more than my own judgment.
How can it be so? You have to evaluate each and every situation; there is no clear cut answer. Every time, you must weight available evidence and be able to logically defend your point of view.- There is no references to something final. No "goddidit" or "thebiblesaysso". This, I think, encourages the release of the potential of the human mind, helps advancement and at least works to defeat dogma that is unsound.
This sounds to me like it is a religion; a religion of self.
There is no dogma, there are no rules. There is no deity, and formality has been thrown out the window. All the characteristics of a cult or a religion are shining with their absence. What it can be said to be is an ideology, but that is stretching it quite far, since the question remain: what is the ideology about? More is it a set of questions and one basic tenet: question, and base your facts on available evidence and logically sound arguments, and at least you will be able to defend them. They might or might not be right, but no one will be able to say that they are not justified. In cases where you do not have justifiable belief, state so and hold an opinion.
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The truth is, there is an absolute right and wrong.
I would be very interested in seeing some absolute bad and good things?
I know this is an unpopular idea in today’s society, but relativism (for example: that’s fine for you but not for me, that may be wrong for you but not for me) has got us to the point where nobody can agree on the lines between right and wrong anymore. The problem is that humans are not inherently good, but inherently bad. But these lines are clearly drawn in the Bible.
Ah, you might mistake me for a moral relativist. I am not. I am a relativist in many senses, but not in the moral one. My morals are based on available evidence, science and logic. Of course, the moral issues have long confounded the great thinkers and I am really not the person to say I have the ultimate one; what I can say is that I can defend my moral standpoint logically and point to evidence supporting it.
As far as I know, all moral systems currently in existance are flawed in some ways and picking the gold bits from each that are justifiable is the way to go. With regards to the bible, there are several moral standpoints I disagree with, like the take on homosexuality and equality, but I will not debate them here. Just want a general discussion
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Mythology is not the right word here. I understand why you are using it, but it is a far different case than Roman or Greek or Viking mythology. Their societies crumbled after a few hundred years and have been followed by others. I don’t know that anyone still believes that Zeus, Apollo, Hercules, Diana, or Thor actually exist. Christianity has outlived the radical changes in the World’s societies, and it was born out of Judaism, which began when Moses brought the tablets from Mt. Sinai thousands of years before that. Ask any ancient historian if Moses (or Jesus for that matter) was a real person.
Well, if wew were to judge religions vs mythologies based on how long they have existed, Christianity really is a mythology. It is a mere 2000 years old. Tribal societies have existed for eons with basically the same religious belief. Furthermore, to suggest Christianity has no adapted and changed wheverver it has spread would be wrong; we do no longer hunt witches, for instance.
Humans were never created to be gods. We have tried to raise ourselves to that level for centuries and always fail. The positive side is that although we fail there is a means of redemption – a rescue from the bleak inerrancy that when you die, that is the end of your existence.
Hm, I never aspired to be a god. All the people I've met haven't either as far as I know. I am quite content with being human; for I have a magificent mind and the most capable brain in the whole of the animal kingdom as far as we know (I as a homo sapiens sapiens, that is). I do not fail; I experience, learn and move on. This one life I have has no room for failures; setbacks, aye, but to me, the only failure possible is *not living in the present* because I want a possible, but unlikely reward in the afterlife. An unexamined life is not worth living and all that
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Actually C.S Lewis was not a Christian until he began a study to disprove the Bible and discount Christianity.
Interesting. What books did he write prior to becoming a Christian?
I have done a bit of study on this recently. As Udie said, doesn’t it take a larger leap of faith to try to disprove the existence of God with a theory loosely based in natural phenomenon (the changing of allele frequency in a population over time) than to believe that the order we see in nature came from a higher intelligence than a natural phenomenon? Life came from amino acids coming together in precisely the right way at precisely the right time? Forget about the missing links... how many evolutions would it take for a single bacteria cell to mutate its own cell wall or a protein transport system for energy from the thousands of strings of thousands of specifically ordered proteins that “somehow” formed precisely in the required fashion? How many billions of cells died until a method of reproduction evolved? To even get to the stage where an animal needs a method of respiration, let alone a brain,instincts, sight, hearing, touch, you have to put a blindfold on. Available scientific evidence does NOT support this idea.
Hm, it does. I belive it is called accumulated change. It's an established fact in the world of biology. A book for the layman dealing with it is The Selfish Gene bu Richard Dawkins. It explains it more eloquently than I can. If a mo in depth scientific understanding is needed, he and his colleagues has it. Again, for starters, the website I referred to is quite good. It answers the "this is unlikely!" argument.
But just for a good mudslinging debate; you are saying that this is unlikely, but it is more likely that an infinitely more complex being created it all?
;D
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
He bloody well had to, didn't he? I mean, it is akin to me pushing you off a boat and then offering to save you. Should you express gratitude towards me for my most warm and heartening deed?
And, as a sidenote, this particular bit from the bible has always amused me. God interferes with a woman on earth without her consent, produce a human baby, let his creation do its thing and then have his son rejoined with him in heaven, and then we are supposed to see it as a loss to him?
Seen from my point of view, it would be akin to sending my son down to say a group of monkeys, have them ridicule him a bit and then take my son back, provide him with a shotgun and say "shoot 'um when you have the shot, if you feel inclined to"
Is jesus dead? The historical person certainly is. But it seems to me Christian dogma (or maybe scripture is a less offensive word? Pardon my English from time to time) is quite certain he is not.
He helped all us poor critters. He created a perfect world that we had to go and screw up by using our free will to destroy ourselves. That scripture may be overused, but I am sure you are familiar with it and it applies directly here.
An analogy would be me writing a cool operating system for my new computer, and then, for the first time ever, I produce a truly AI little program, called Humanoid. It is by all means nothing more than a harmless virus with the ability to learn. Who is responsible for the destruction or good my program produces? Should I have seen destruction being a possibility? Should I furthermore punish my Humanoids for acting within the parameters I've created?
The world isn't screwed up. Not yet. We have time to fix what is rotten, but that means getting rid of politicians and educating the plebeian masses. I, of course, am way above them in all regards and in no need of reeducation
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Never been to Norway – grandparents are Swedish
Nice place, Sweden
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StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"
