DELLAPELLE JOHN Posted October 1, 2009 Author Posted October 1, 2009 Real is the wrong word. Where your Youtube apostle get it wrong is in the premise...... religious truths ultimately have little to do with causation and everything to do with meaning. Saying the ancients used scripture as scientific text is nonsense...this was mostly a 16th century complication. Really the religious life of the West ( including the Greek East) had very little interest in causation, and were quite comfortable understanding scripture as analogy, metaphor and narrative. Virtues such as humility were emphasized much more than causation. What does empiricism have to teach me about humility? Empiricism can teach us a great deal about causation, and knowledge of particulars...but very little about meaning and the properties of "being" ..... such as the moral life, the good life, beauty, love, justice, etc. ....these aren't necessarily religious pursuits in and of themselves....but religion does attempt some answers independent of, and often co-dependent on, competing epistemologies. ......burp...... the problem is that religion keeps us from having a 21st century conversation about what it means to be good or happy, what constitutes the good life. religion masks what we could call a true spiritual experience...like through meditation. religion make humans have convictions about spirtual experience that are not true...like embryonic stem cell research is immoral or contraception is a sin, or gay marriage is evil...etc
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 the problem is that religion keeps us from having a 21st century conversation about what it means to be good or happy, what constitutes the good life. religion masks what we could call a true spiritual experience...like through meditation. religion make humans have convictions about spirtual experience that are not true...like embryonic stem cell research is immoral or contraception is a sin, or gay marriage is evil...etc There are absolutes, whether you are reasoned enough to admit it or not. There is absolute good and absolute evil.
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Quite on-topic, Douglas Adams was a great Skeptic and Athiest... How many roads must a man walk down? What do you get if you multiply six by nine? Either way. Alternately: What percentage of Americans are completely retarded? Never mind, 42 is far too low. Douglas Adams was also a horrible writer. Amazing his drivel ever got published.
Chef Jim Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Douglas Adams was also a horrible writer. Amazing his drivel ever got published. I assume you never read it while high on acid.
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 religion masks what we could call a true spiritual experience...like through meditation. Poppycock. What's your definition of a "true" spiritual experience? By your standards, how can you even DEFINE what truth is? To you, there are no absolutes. There is no right, no wrong, no standards by which man should live because either a) all belief is correct or b) all belief is "make believe" and wrong. You, like many other armchair intellectuals, embrace pseudo-atheism because you think it makes you appear intelligent. It doesn't. It makes you look like a poseur. Your (and Frenkle's) stubborn insistence that those who believe can't be reasoned is a crock. I'd defy you to call a man like CS Lewis unreasoned. Or Ravi Zacharias. Or RC Sproul. Or Timothy Keller. Need I go on?
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 I assume you never read it while high on acid. Er, no. When I DID do acid, I certainly wasn't going to sit around and read a book. Would have wasted a good trip.
Gene Frenkle Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Collectively as a species perhaps, but nobody lives the collective life of the entire species. In particular your average guys engineering ancient aqueducts with an abacus and without Arabic numerals are probably no smarter, nor more or less religious than your average engineer today. People don't know more than the ancients, nor are they smarter.......they just know different things. I'd argue that it's much easier to know more today (internet). Also, we know far more about and have much more proof for the origins of the Universe and the science of Evolution. In my mind, this should logically lead to a less literal interpretation of the ancient texts. The gaps are closing, but there is still plenty of room for whatever faith and belief in science. People today seem to be purposely blinding themselves to any science that disagrees with their faith/worldview. 6,000 year-old Earth, Intelligent Design, Young Earth Creationism - and that's just Christianity. I think is says a lot about how we evolved and human nature in general. Our need to believe is so great that we will lie to ourselves and remain purposely ignorant to continue to believe.
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Our need to disbelieve out of stubborn pride is so great that we will lie to ourselves and remain purposely ignorant and continue to disbelieve. Funny how that sentence describes your attitude.
Gene Frenkle Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Douglas Adams was also a horrible writer. Amazing his drivel ever got published. So were Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Judas and Jesus' wife weren't so bad, but they got censored.
Gene Frenkle Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 There are absolutes, whether you are reasoned enough to admit it or not. There is absolute good and absolute evil. Holy crap. Literally.
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 So were Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Judas and Jesus' wife weren't so bad, but they got censored. ah, yes. the ever-fallacious "censorship" argument. you do realize that the church councils of the first several centuries were headed by the learned scholars of their time? those men had a deathly serious mission: to prevent heretical and unfounded books from clouding the message of Christ. To those men, getting it right was THE only priority. and don't be an ass, Jesus never married, Dan Brown's active imagination notwithstanding.
Gene Frenkle Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Funny how that sentence describes your attitude. Why do you have such a great desire to disbelieve in The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Hath he not yet touched you with his noodly appendage?
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Holy crap. Literally. Whatever. Well, then, Mister Moral Relativity, please tell me whether you think the starvation of the ukraine, the bataan death march, dachau, dresden, rwanda...were those not acts of absolute evil? I suppose someone with your warped, self-indulgent, pseudo-intellectual view would find SOME way to find redeeming good in THOSE acts, right? And that's just the 20th century. We won't even touch the Ancient world.
Gene Frenkle Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 ah, yes. the ever-fallacious "censorship" argument. you do realize that the church councils of the first several centuries were headed by the learned scholars of their time? those men had a deathly serious mission: to prevent heretical and unfounded books from clouding the message of Christ. To those men, getting it right was THE only priority. and don't be an ass, Jesus never married, Dan Brown's active imagination notwithstanding. Sounds like a pretty !@#$ing arbitrary and subjective process to me.
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Why do you have such a great desire to disbelieve in The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Hath he not yet touched you with his noodly appendage? Why do you feel such a need to mock what you can't (or won't) believe in? Aren't you linguini-spined anything-goes liberal types supposed to be "open-minded" and "inclusive" in your world views? Or is that just another example of prideful hypocrisy?
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Sounds like a pretty !@#$ing arbitrary and subjective process to me. Ah, so maybe that's your issue. Maybe the judgement of a body of church elders THOUSANDS of years ago made some decision that YOU in your infinite intelligence and wisdom disagree with and therefore you just CAN'T subordinate your over-inflated ego enough to admit that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE they might have been right? It all makes perfect sense to me now, Gene.
Gene Frenkle Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Whatever. Well, then, Mister Moral Relativity, please tell me whether you think the starvation of the ukraine, the bataan death march, dachau, dresden, rwanda...were those not acts of absolute evil? I suppose someone with your warped, self-indulgent, pseudo-intellectual view would find SOME way to find redeeming good in THOSE acts, right? And that's just the 20th century. We won't even touch the Ancient world. The people who perpetrated those acts were certainly evil, but I'm sure they all committed some good act at some point in their lives, so they can't be absolutely evil. How about the Crusades? Islamic jihads? The Inquisition? Human Sacrifice? The Salem Witch Trials? The Mormon Mountain Meadows Massacre? The conflict in Northern Ireland? Civil war in Iraq? Pedophilia in the Roman Catholic priesthood? There are many, many, many more. The common thread here is that all of those horrible acts were committed by humans. Religion, belief, or lack-there-of has little to do with it.
Gene Frenkle Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Why do you feel such a need to mock what you can't (or won't) believe in? Aren't you linguini-spined anything-goes liberal types supposed to be "open-minded" and "inclusive" in your world views? Or is that just another example of prideful hypocrisy? It's no less likely than Christianity or Scientology.
Gene Frenkle Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 Ah, so maybe that's your issue. Maybe the judgement of a body of church elders THOUSANDS of years ago made some decision that YOU in your infinite intelligence and wisdom disagree with and therefore you just CAN'T subordinate your over-inflated ego enough to admit that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE they might have been right? It all makes perfect sense to me now, Gene. I claim no absolute knowledge about anything, unlike you.
Pine Barrens Mafia Posted October 1, 2009 Posted October 1, 2009 The people who perpetrated those acts were certainly evil, but I'm sure they all committed some good act at some point in their lives, so they can't be absolutely evil. How about the Crusades? Islamic jihads? The Inquisition? Human Sacrifice? The Salem Witch Trials? The Mormon Mountain Meadows Massacre? The conflict in Northern Ireland? Civil war in Iraq? Pedophilia in the Roman Catholic priesthood? There are many, many, many more. The common thread here is that all of those horrible acts were committed by humans. Religion, belief, or lack-there-of has little to do with it. Why is that, Gene? Why do people do those kinds of things? Is it because of our genetic makeup? Is it because of some latent chimp gene? As far as I know, no chimp's ever car-bombed the tribe the next tree over. It's because human beings are all born with sin. Got kids? What's the first word a kid learns to speak? NO. That's right, ask any parent and they'll tell you, NO is the first word just about every kid ever learns. The penultimate word of defiance and selfishness. And really, all evil is sefishness. And selfishness, Gene, selfishness is at the root of all sin. So we're born with sin, whether you like it or not. And DESPITE whatever good deeds we do, we can't overcome that sin. That's where the salvation thing comes in to play, Gene, but you...no, you've got it all figured out. You don't need any salvation, right? You're not a sinner, right? I mean, if there's no God, then you can't possibly be intransigent. See where I'm going with this? The guy who crosses his arms in the corner and states with all authority possible to him that "God does not exist" is just like the child that won't eat his broccoli. It's because that guy doesn't like what the message, the TRUTH, has to say, so he refuses to accept it looking for answers elsewhere. How do I know this? IT USED TO BE ME.
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