birdog1960

what you said "literal interpretation" is an oxymoron. literal: 1. taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory. "dreadful in its literal sense, full of dread" (of a translation) representing the exact words of the original text. synonyms: word-for-word, verbatim, letter-for-letter; More and interpretation: (countable) An act of interpreting or explaining what is obscure; a translation; a version; a construction. the interpretation of a foreign language, of a dream, or of an enigma. (countable) A sense given by an interpreter; an exposition or explanation given; meaning . can't properly be used together to define a new concept. "he's a round ice cube kind of fundamentalist" fundamentalist either literally accept the bible of they don't. they don't. they interpret.

sorry. no. that's ob. or bs. it just doesn't play. fundamentalists interpret the bible. plain and simple. they just do it differently in many instances from Catholics. and they have no universal, formal body, standard protocol or qualifications required to make the interpretations. it's actually much more free form in it's interpretations than Catholicism. doesn't prove that either of them are correct in their interpratations but at least we agree that they both are interpretting.

my point, of course, is that the bible requires interpretation to have relevance and be practical in everyday life. to me the question then becomes, who is best tasked with the interpretation and what remedies are available when they get it wrong?

i follow to a degree. but how is that any less interpretive and more fundamental reading of the bible than what Catholics do on other issues? in effect, the fundamentalists are doing this: "We do not see the aforementioned passage from John's Gospel as physically requiring a baptism. It needs to be seen in the wider context of all of Jesus' teaching in which he speaks of God's universal salvific will" At least we are consistent. We believe in interpretation. In this instance it's literal interpretation only if it fits the specific purpose or dogma.

then what of original sin? does their theology suggest a special dispensation for unbaptized children? i'm not saying that Catholic theology on the subject is necessarily correct http://www.interfaithfamily.com/life_cycle/pregnancy_and_birth_ceremonies/Is_Heaven_Denied_to_an_Unbaptized_Child_Advice_and_Perspective_for_Catholic_Parents_Who_Are_Raising_Their_Children_within_Judaism.shtml but it would seem to take some doctrinal gymnastics to get to only baptizing adults for literal interpreters of the bible. The Church today believes in the interpretation of Scripture--both the Hebrew and Christian texts. So, for example, when we read Genesis we do not take the stories of creation as described in chapters 1 and 2 as literal descriptions of the historical creation of the world. We see them as faith stories that have a message but use the myths and stories of ancient times. In other words, we interpret the text. This principle of interpretation is common to many Jewish traditions and Christian ones as well. Thus, the interpretation of Christian Scriptures and the words of Jesus allow us to understand the meaning of the text in a different manner. We do not see the aforementioned passage from John's Gospel as physically requiring a baptism. It needs to be seen in the wider context of all of Jesus' teaching in which he speaks of God's universal salvific will. This newer interpretation is a part of the common understanding of the Catholic Church today. We believe that God saves all peoples, not only Christians.

interesting observation. as i mentioned in another thread, i'm a Godfather to several nieces and nephews. and their parents generally had little to do with any church prior to the baptism of their first kid (some still don't). i interpret it as them hedging their bets: they don't want to take a chance on their kids meeting their maker unbaptized. they want to do everything they casn for them. and in a way, that's what it's all about - love.

this is certainly much of the problem. another is the "superman" issue. many millenials have no inkling of their own mortality. they haven't been gravely ill in most instances and can't forsee that ever happening. even in less serious issures such as finances, they haven't experienced calamity as they are often bailed out by their parents. many belive they are teflon covered....until they are not. then they go looking for answers religion should be around for them then as well as before.

amazon's "mozart in the jungle" is really good imo. "ballers" and "the brink" are pretty interesting although neither are the quality of other top hbo offerings. "ballers" is actually kind depressing in that i imagine it's a pretty accurate portrayal of nfl players. i love "silicon valley".

haven't read the thread but the kids of brazil challenge the premise of it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/27/pope-francis-in-brazil-dr_n_3664952.html and the strategy for growth and retention: Francis offered a breathtakingly blunt list of explanations for the "exodus." "Perhaps the church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas," he said. "Perhaps the world seems to have made the church a relic of the past, unfit for new questions. Perhaps the church could speak to people in their infancy but not to those come of age." Francis asked if the church today can still "warm the hearts" of its faithful with priests who take time to listen to their problems and remain close to them. "We need a church capable of rediscovering the maternal womb of mercy," he said. "Without mercy, we have little chance nowadays of becoming part of a world of `wounded' persons in need of understanding, forgiveness and love." sounds good to me

it's a war of attrition. i link to an article showing the modeling is quite good and you just keep advancing groundless arguments in far flung areas, no doubt disseminated by the thugs i described. it's a stupid persons tactic. but it is truly tiresome.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/01/ipcc-global-warming-projections-accurate it's called magical thinking.

to me this is the key point. i trust science. you trust politically and financially motivated thugs. NO it's not 79 scientists. read the paper that this number comes from. It's one paper. it stipulated that 50% of submitted papers on climate change be published fopr a scientist to be included.. this greatly limited the number of experts. there are many other studies and more informal polls. they all show consensus among the vast majority of scientists in the field.

let's see: we have a huge majority of faculty from every conceivable discipline from virtually every prestigious and less prestigious faculty in the world versus a handful of skeptics, many of whom have a financial tie to an industry that produces green house gasses. it shouldn't take a scientist to calculate which group is mor3e believable... 97%? who knows. it's clearly the vast majority.

"this guy"? the viscount with a ba in zoology? any time someone uses the word "all" it is cause for skepticism. however in this case there really is a none. as in the number of scientific societies that reject the idea of manmade climate change. from wiki: Dissenting[edit] See also: List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming As of 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement,[13] no scientific body of national or international scientists rejects the findings of human-induced effects on climate change.[12][14] included here is a substantial list of scientific groups that do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change . also included are a number of studies re scientist polling. not just the cherry picked one that included 79 scientists. it's amazing to me that y'all can be swayed with such weak argumentys and evidence. i don't need to refute the flimsy arguments here. they've been debunked repeatedly by the worlds experts in peer reviewed studies, books, symposia etc. it's a constant battle against a few bought and paid for hacks.

untrue. look at the Harvard link I provided. there are scientists from multiple disciplines included: chemists, geologists, environmental studies, law, statistics, climate scientists, oceanographers etc. and they trained at a diverse group of institutions. oh yeah and engineers: http://cgcs.mit.edu/people/faculty

79? there are 50 faculty members at unh alone. so assuming the 90%, that's 45 there. how many scientists involved in climate study do you think are in the big ten? the ivy league? MIT? pac 10? top tier liberal arts schools with research programs. etc, etc, etc… a few more than 79. type in some school i just mentioned and check their faculty rosters. if it were football you would. this is wayyyyyy more important. here's a head start: http://environment.harvard.edu/about/directory/faculty/all?taxonomy_vocabulary_2_tid%5B%5D=8&combine=

not surprising that you didn't get the point. i can make a reasonable guess at the trend illustrated by a simple linear regression analysis of data this complex. i can't fathom the significance of the raw data. and i doubt the poster knows what a linear regression is. did you miss this part intentionally or by mistake? "this is some complex, difficult shite. pulling a graph here and a table there doesn't constitute analysis of the data."

interestingly, i can't locate this data on the noaa or GISP2 sites which presumably were the sources for the "graph" you reproduced. a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. see it all the time in the daily practice of medicine. but i know what a linear regression is. from the same data set, it's that line trending upward towards higher temps from the same data over a similar period or time. http://www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu/GISP2/DATA/Obrien.html. perhaps we should leave the science to the scientists. PhD's http://www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu/GISP2-prog_list2.html printed on dime store printers aren't worth the paper they're printed on (unlike these legitimate ones). would you seek out a medical doctor for a health problem with no degree or some degree from a vaguely related discipline but endorsed by some conservative propaganda group? don't feel bad. i see people ripped off by quacks all the time. just like medicine, this is some complex, difficult shite. pulling a graph here and a table there doesn't constitute analysis of the data. i wondering which side of the climate debate you guess the folks that actually did the science http://www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu come down on. as to the argument that the experts in the field are "inbred" - trained by the same few biased experts, look at the faculty list from u new hampshires program that was heavily involved in the science: http://www.eos.unh.edu/pdf/eosexperts.pdf while experts from as varied places as china russia and czechoslovakia might run into each other as often as yearly at conferences, they're not breathing down each others backs.

if all the righty tighties could just put aside the question of controversial solutions and concentrate solely on the question of manmade climate change, we might see a few (probably none here) more on that side realize that at least a proponderance of the evidence supports that claim. unfortunatley, the first condition seems impossible and therefore debate is futile.

it's amazing that you cann definitively say it is not manmade and simultaneously definitively say that it is cyclical. your bias is showing, sir. that is not analysis.

really? from the wiki entry on Jesuits: Within the Roman Catholic Church, there has existed a sometimes tense relationship between Jesuits and the Holy See due to questioning of official Church teaching and papal directives, such as those on abortion,[60][61]birth control,[62][63][64][65]women deacons,[66] homosexuality, and liberation theology.[67][68] Usually, this theological free thinking is academically oriented, being prevalent at the university level. From this standpoint, the function of this debate is less to challenge the magisterium than to illustrate the church's ability to compromise in a pluralist society based on shared values that do not always align with religious teachings.[69] The previous two Popes have appointed Jesuits to powerful positions in the Church; John Paul II appointed Roberto Tucci, S.J., to the College of Cardinals, after serving as the chief organizer of papal trips and public events. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have appointed ten Jesuit Cardinals to notable jobs. Benedict XVI appointed Jesuits to notable positions in his curia, such as Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, S.J., as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J., Vatican Press Secretary.[70]Pope Francis, has become the first Jesuit Pope and is initiating discussions on social matters, elected in 2013

you may have been better served at a Jesuit school. they're quite accomplished at independent thought.

and endorsed by their roman occupiers. they were part of the stable fabric of jewish society and almost certainly payed off their roman masters. from a pbs series: But let's think for a moment what Jesus might have been doing if we take the story seriously as told in the gospels. To cleanse the Temple of these money changers is an act of protest against something apparently, but what? Now there's no reason to say from a perspective of the way the Temple was run that there's anything wrong with the money changers in the Temple, of buying and selling things that are part of the religious activities of the Temple. In fact it was an absolutely necessary activity within the way the Temple was run. So whatever the protest represents it must be a protest against some sort of idea of what the Temple should be, that they represent as having gone awry. It may be the case that Jesus represents the same kind of criticism that the Phariseesthemselves would have brought against the Temple, that in fact the kind of piety that happens only once a year at Passover is something that ought to happen every day and every week in your private lives. In that sense, Jesus' criticism of the Temple sounds very much like the Pharisees wanting to bring piety home. Wanting to make it much more personal. Another possibility though is that Jesus sounds more like the Essenes who were really criticizing the whole way the Temple is run as having become too worldly. Too caught up in the money of the day, or maybe just too Roman, and if that's the case then his actions look much more like an act of political subversion.

well, he actually did. the temple money changers incident was an afront to the status quo and roman dominance. he declared himself at the very least a liberal, if not radical jew with his actions there. many historians believe that act was the percipitant for his execution. and you are clearly not Catholic if you imagine immersive baptism as a standard procedure. perhaps this is emblamtic your limited knowledge of the traditions of the church. on the last point, i fully agree. but let's metaphorically turn the tables here: do you believe that methusala lived til the age of 609, overlapping the lifespans of both adam and noah?

how did Jesus answer when asked yes/no questions by pilate? he didn't accept his authority or sincerity. i don't accept yours.