Summer means no religion or politics?

[LimpingFish]

I don't see any disclaimers on the bible:

"This book represents a theory on how life on earth was created. It does not contain anything close to factual evidence to support this theory, and should therefore be approached with an open mind."

Teaching religion as fact, any religion, is a disgrace. And it's the work of Man, not God.

A world without Organized Religion would be such a nice place to live. With or without a supreme being looking down on us.

[Khris]

It's hilarious how telling this part of the sticker is:

Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things.

Aside from the "just a theory" BS, the TofE doesn't say anything about the origin of life. This is such a common fallacy it's sad it's still being used in debates about evolution. Darwin titled his book "On the Origin of Species", and it's about how the current diversity evolved from the first living cell.

You wouldn't believe how many people seem to only doubt the TofE because they wrongly attribute all kinds of outlandish stuff to it.

[miguel]

LimpingFish, but at least you must agree that to have full understanding of a religion or any given subject, one must study it. So, if somebody studies it he gains the ability to teach what he has learned.
You are saying that people do not need a book or preaching about religion because Man corrupts the original message when organizing to spread a religion, right? If so, I can agree with the notion, yet Writing about things is the foundation of humanity.
Also, to fully understand the God that created our world you must dig deeper into history and theology.
The surface of the things you've been writing about is but a layer of the true origins.

Vince, I keep forgetting how big your country is. About evangelizing, I think the main concern you might have is that teaching the Bible to young kids without any form of pedagogical knowledge may create wrong interpretations of it. Yes, it can lead to fundamentalism and that is clearly to me, Wrong.
About intelligent design my opinion is not a favourable one and I'd love to explain why.
     

[Khris]

miguel:
Since you brought it up: you cannot compare theology to a science like biology or even biblical history.
Theology is all baseless claims and "truth", while science tries to approximate the true shape of the actual universe.

What's taught in theology depends very much on where in the world the university is located, while a physics course will be more or less the same in every country.

That's why one needn't study theology to address its claims. Knowing whether Jesus supposedly turned water into wine by touching the mug or just waving his hand at it is useless from a scientific point of view.
For that reason people like Dawkins go "as far" as denying theology the status of being a regular field of study, and I agree wholeheartedly.

[LimpingFish]

LimpingFish, but at least you must agree that to have full understanding of a religion or any given subject, one must study it. So, if somebody studies it he gains the ability to teach what he has learned.
You are saying that people do not need a book or preaching about religion because Man corrupts the original message when organizing to spread a religion, right?

This is partially my point, yes (in so much as the bible has been re-written and edited so many times, you could hardly call it the word of God, regardless of it's validity), but the bigger problem with teaching the bible as fact is that you have no core collection of established facts to start from. The bible begins with the readers belief of God as a given. But as we've said throughout this thread, the existence of God isn't a "fact" you can challenge; not as we can challenge and question the facts regarding evolution, anyway.

So you can't really approach the bible in any meaningful critical way. There is nothing to study. All you are left with is the written word of men who claim to have witnessed This and That happening There, and who, for some reason, had a hotline to what God was thinking at the time. It tells me nothing of why or how God exists, leaving me nothing to study or question or form alternate explanations for.

It's the age old argument of fact vs faith, and postulating that the theory of evolution has as little basis in fact as the myth of Creation is a lie perpetrated by those with an agenda that has little to do with spirituality and faith, and everything to do with power and control.

EDIT: And that largely sums up my Agnostic stance on the existence of God. I'm not equipped to say whether he does or doesn't exist, but I am equipped to question an organization that spoon-feeds me bullshit and calls it ice-cream.

[Vince Twelve]

Edit: Darn, everybody's faster than me!

About evangelizing, I think the main concern you might have is that teaching the Bible to young kids without any form of pedagogical knowledge may create wrong interpretations of it.

No, not really.  It's more that there may not be a correct interpretation.  With all the branches of Christianity and all the different interpretations of the bible being taught by priests and ministers around the world, how can you be sure that your interpretation is the correct one, and thus, should be taught to kids?  Going further than that, with all the different religions in the world, how can you be sure that Christianity is the one that is right, and that all the others, which together make up something like 75% of the planet's population, are all wrong?

And unless you know that your religion is the one true religion, how can you justify teaching it to children as truth?  That's my problem with evangelizing.  Not "Oops, that might not really be what god meant in that verse of the bible," but "Oops, that entire book, and indeed the entire idea of an omniscient being, might be wrong."

Again, I'm saying that it might be wrong.  I'm not trying to insult anyone for believing, so no mean spiritedness.    But, I think that even a believer like yourself could agree that the power of faith comes from a person deciding what he or she believes by themselves and not because it's what they've been told.  Now, if a person has learned about all the different religions out there, read all the different holy books, meditated with monks in Thailand, felt the caress of His Noodly Appendage, and comes out of it thinking, "You know, that story of Jesus just feels right in my heart.  Something about it makes me want to live a better life and spend all my Sundays bowing my head in prayer," then that would be a more powerful kind of faith than "You guys shut up!  You're all wrong!  My mom and dad told me so!  And it says so in a book!"

So, in a way, teaching one religion in schools as the all powerful undeniable truth would rob students of the ability to find truth themselves, since they have already been biased from a young age.  Let's let schools teach verifiable things like evolution, and leave the "Nuh uh! The world is only 6000 years old and man walked with the dinosaurs!" out of it.

I'm of the opinion that religion should be taught to people seeking it, not thrust upon people who are just in their most impressionable years, or forced down my throat when I'm downing my morning coffee and throwing open the door to go to work only to find two guys in short-sleeve button up shirts, ties, and bicycle helmets with some pamphlets for me.

[Misj']

For that reason people like Dawkins go "as far" as denying theology the status of being a regular field of study, and I agree wholeheartedly.

He clearly doesn't say that 'as a scientist' though. So it's merely his opinion as a person.....then why the name-dropping? - Now it has as much value as if you were to say: "for that reason people like the Olson-twins...".  

[Atelier]

This isn't to do with the teaching of religion, but I had a thought that maybe it's a bit of both theories. The seven days of creation could just be representing important periods in Earth's history, and indeed the seven 'days' could in fact be billions of years apart. This would explain to me why no evidence of dinosaurs living alongside man has been found (animals being created before man). This isn't my belief but it was just a thought...

Also I was questioning what the point of The Matrix is too, seeing how everything ends more or less as it started. I guess it's trying to say that the world isn't necessarily real - but it's a cloak that hides a real world, or the Earth is one big experiment growing on a petrie dish in a lab trillions of light years away. Perhaps time isn't linear, in that it goes in a massive cycle. Maybe time begins every second, and you could trace the Earth's history forever and never reach the beginning.

If you're a monotheist, and you think that a Deity created man intentionally, then that's fine: But if you aren't, humans are pretty arrogant to think that they're alone in the universe.

End of brainstorm thought process.

[Khris]

This isn't to do with the teaching of religion, but I had a thought that maybe it's a bit of both theories. The seven days of creation could just be representing important periods in Earth's history, and indeed the seven 'days' could in fact be billions of years apart. This would explain to me why no evidence of dinosaurs living alongside man has been found (animals being created before man). This isn't my belief but it was just a thought...

This is just a desperate attempt to reconcile the bible with what science found out. It's like claiming that Jesus was an illusionist and didn't actually turn water into wine but used a magic trick.
The bible doesn't even mention dinosaurs explicitly. Did Noah put them on his ark, too? Or did the flood kill them? Why all of them but no other species? Etc., etc.

Misj':
I don't see at all how the last sentence of my posts invalidates everything I've said before. A Theology course teaches a belief system (that is backed up by zero evidence and isn't the prevailing world-view). Every other field of study will teach similar things around the globe, backed up by evidence. Sure, there's also fields like architecture or Latin, but none of those invent facts.
And I'm not sure he doesn't say this as a scientist. What makes you think that?
Plus, it's not just an opinion but a pretty solid argument; why don't you try to refute it?

[Nacho]

The problem, Khris, is that 100% of bible was considered as "totally accurate" by believers some centuries ago. Now they put "lines": "This part is real... this is a metaphor... This is totally uncorrect, it's a missinterpretation humans did... This paragraph is ok, but the following is not...".

And there is no possible way to know how those lines must be put. If you ask any believer about "where would he put the lines of credibility in bible" there would be so many different answers that we would see that all believers are different. Those "lines" would create a "faith type" so different from one to another that it should be so individual as a fingerprint or DNA.

For me, that fact makes religion so human that I can't simply consider the supernatural force. It's just a mirror of the human psyque.

Even football fans do have more consensus about what their teams mean to them that believers towards "God".

[Khris]

I hear you, and you don't even need to focus on the bible. Just take a Christian, a Hindu and a Muslim. Their beliefs will differ so much it's obvious none of them are even close to the truth. I understood that when I was around ten years old and it's sad so many grown ups don't.

[Nikolas]

Khris: But... but... they have formed the "Super friends League" club. They are all together and are not fighing! 

[Nacho]

Yup, like "UFO" believers...

"My abductors come from Ganimedi, and they tell me that they are the only ones who have visited our solar system!"
"Really? My friends come from Jupiter... and they told me they are the only ones who have visited earth... Do you want a beer?"
"Sure!"

[Jim Reed]

If you're a monotheist, and you think that a Deity created man intentionally, then that's fine: But if you aren't, humans are pretty arrogant to think that they're alone.

Hmm...I'm a monotheist.
Alone? Not on earth, exluding animals, plants and LGM. True.

[miguel]

Vince, God and Jesus messages that can be taken from the Bible, and I mean the ones even you consider good and have accepted as something you did not need to be told not to, never did harm to anyone.
Do not forget  who told man that killing was wrong.
It wasn't a scientist. In fact, from his point of view, killing is just part of the process.
It wasn't a philosopher because human emotions like jealousy and revenge always took the best of them.
You all take your existence for granted, I am Vince, I am Natcho, I am Miguel and I am this being that is so intelligent that really believes that he thinks for himself, above everything else. I mean, look at me! I believe in what I want, God? Doesn't exists, Science? It proves we are cells fuelled by electricity running through neurons, AKA robots! Philosophy? It's true, all of those theories. Until the next soulless creature that agonizes inside white walls trying to dismantle some others concept!
The bonding element is God, it's what makes you have a soul and be different from others.
About the guys in short-sleeves, did you happen to see if one of the helmets had a AC/DC sticker on it?

KhrisMUC, a theology course isn't something you take around the corner.  And I can see you still did not bother to search more into Christianity. The concept you have from the God that most of you write about and even Jesus is not accurate. I would like you to spend just half-an-hour on it and then we could talk again.
A Christian, a Hindu and a Muslin share many things btw.
How could you understand something that well when you were 10 years old. And haven't you questioned your absolute certainties until now?


 

     

[Nacho]

He had. He reached to different conclussions that you. Respect his opinions, please.

[Vince Twelve]

It wasn't a scientist. In fact, from his point of view, killing is just part of the process.

No.  You would be very hard pressed to find a scientist who thinks that killing other human beings is justified.  Just as you would any other type of person.  This is just silly, sorry. 

Do not forget  who told man that killing was wrong.

Other men?  Men developed concepts of right and wrong which allowed us to grow and flourish as a society.  Does that idea of right and wrong (which are still somewhat subjective and shifting to this day) have to have come from some supernatural being?  Do I just have more faith in humanity than you do?

I am Miguel and I am this being that is so enlightened that what I believe is the Truth, and what the 98% of the world that disagrees with me believes is False. I mean, look at me! I believe in what I want, God? Exists, to my specifications, and we are beings running around doing his will, AKA robots! Philosophy? It's true, as long as it agrees with me.

  Just playing here!  Please don't quote me and pick apart my choice of words!

The concept you have from the God that most of you write about and even Jesus is not accurate.

That's just the problem Miguel!  The god and Jesus that he's writing about are accurate portrayals to certain branches of Christianity.  There are a huge number of different beliefs within Christianity and most of them don't agree with each other.  What kind of church do you go do?  If Catholic, why not Lutheran?  If Lutheran, why  not Protestant?  If Protestant, why not Southern Baptist?  (I know some of these probably aren't found around your parts, which only further demonstrates the role of upbringing and geographic region in the development of religious beliefs)

[Akatosh]

I love your anti-abstract-rational-thought rants, miguel.

And haven't you questioned your absolute certainties until now?

Apply some rational thought to yours. For example, how come prayer healing isn't any more effective than placebos, at best? Makes you wonder, doesn't it...

/EDIT: Also, this:



and

[Jim Reed]

Hmm...maybe those who don't belive in prayer healing, should go to a church nearby, and ask a priest where can he witness one. One form of faith healing is performed in the capital of my country at a Christian church. Those services o healing differ from prayer healing, by not praying to God for help, but commanding the disease/sin/devil to go away from the man. It doesn't get much media attention, but it is there. A few years back, some muslim brothers came to one of the larger cities in my country and performed (or is it preformed?) that kind of healing on anyone willing. There are other priests in my country that perform thoose kind of services, too.

And while I'm at it, why do the people who have stgymas (blood marks on their body), have (at least to my knowledge) a blood cross on their forhead and/or blood on their hands, in the places Jesus was crucified? Why don't they have H20 or something scientific or whatever marked on them? =D hahahaha I can imagine someone walking down the street with AST (American science team) driping blood on their new shirts. AST should be in bold so it can be seen better at a greater distance. =D =D =D

[SSH]

I hear you, and you don't even need to focus on the bible. Just take a Christian, a Hindu and a Muslim. Their beliefs will differ so much it's obvious none of them are even close to the truth. I understood that when I was around ten years old and it's sad so many grown ups don't.

By that token, if I disagree with you that automatically invalidates both YOURS and MY beliefs...