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EADD Theology Megathread - Book II - Exodus
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THECATINTHEHAT
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Will be, I'm always willing to keep my mind open to benefit my soul.
I'm interested to know what your answers to the questions I posed are though.
I'm interested to know what your answers to the questions I posed are though.
BecomingJulie
Bluelight Crew
I can accept that religion and superstition serve some evolutionary purpose, by reinforcing certain behaviours even without knowing the scientific explanation for why they are desirable. (Example: Funerals. It makes little difference in practice whether you bury a dead body, burn it or just leave it somewhere far away from the village. What's important is to get rid of the thing any way you can before it breeds germs and attracts scavengers. A tribe that develops a funeral rite will have a definite survival advantage over a tribe that dies not. None of this requires any knowledge of medicine; just the ability to learn to repeat behaviours which are associated with favourable results.) Theists often (mis)interpret this as somehow saying that humans are hard-wired to believe in (their own particular version of) God.
But what I really can't get my head around, is why anyone would continue to accept superstitious / religious explanations for phenomena whose true explanations are known. Why does anyone still take seriously the Genesis creation myth, when we know, better than we ever have yet not as well as we will one day, how the universe really began?
For that matter, since it is entirely possible to derive a moral code from first principles without reference to any religion's scriptures, why does anyone consider "faith" a virtue rather than a vice?
But what I really can't get my head around, is why anyone would continue to accept superstitious / religious explanations for phenomena whose true explanations are known. Why does anyone still take seriously the Genesis creation myth, when we know, better than we ever have yet not as well as we will one day, how the universe really began?
For that matter, since it is entirely possible to derive a moral code from first principles without reference to any religion's scriptures, why does anyone consider "faith" a virtue rather than a vice?
THECATINTHEHAT
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Well disbelieving the findings of science is not totally unreasonable.
500 years ago we 'knew' that the world was flat because science told us so.....
150 years ago we 'knew' that the newtonian view of physics explained everything....
Science gets things wrong all the time, and certainly isn't even close to explaining how the universe works. We don't even have any evidence for what 95% of the universe actually is. We 'know' precisely fuck all really.
Believing that some random book written 2000 years ago explains things better when there is lots of evidence to suggest otherwise is silly though imo.
BecomingJulie
Bluelight Crew
Yes it is. It's an intrinsic property of the scientific method that your knowledge gets closer to the truth each time it is updated.
500 years ago, a flat earth was a reasonable model for the kind of calculations that were being done. 150 years ago, Newtonian physics worked. (In fact, Newtonian physics got us to the Moon and back. The first big experiment that really proved Relativity was the GPS satellites. They were originally made with switchable firmware; one based on Relativity, and one based on Newtonian physics, just in case Einstein was wrong.)
But the point you seem to be missing is, science has been getting it progressively less and less wrong every time since forever; and will continue to get it progressively less and less wrong, until it's exactly right.
THECATINTHEHAT
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No shit sherlock. That does nothing to counter the assertion that I made.
You manage to admit that science gets it wrong over and over in the same post as saying that disbelieving the findings of science is not unreasonable right there, you're totally contradicting yourself.
How do you think we keep getting closer and closer to the truth without people disbelieving the status quo?
You manage to admit that science gets it wrong over and over in the same post as saying that disbelieving the findings of science is not unreasonable right there, you're totally contradicting yourself.
How do you think we keep getting closer and closer to the truth without people disbelieving the status quo?
Vurtual
Bluelighter
Raas - i think that you are far too preoccupied with twisting the chinese-whispered third-hand english bible to some intellectually-correct worldview that magically answers all questions, and you're in danger of missing the real message of jesus: love one another and the rest will sort itself out (i paraphrase). It's understandable how the emphasis on the literal bible grew in european christianity, as it was the source of authority in pre-literate times, but to be so dogmatic (as opposed to kerygmatic) is to risk missing the wood for the trees. In eastern christianity (the more true-to the-original version), the obvious paradoxes in the bible like the trinity are meditated on like zen koans (they call it contemplation) to try and glimpse god momentarily, or trip out if you like - they're not necessarily supposed to make sense to us unenlightened mortals.
The bible inevitably contains errors and anachronisms - it takes ludicrous effort to explain them all away intellectually, which just discredits the rest of the message in the eyes of non-believers. By focusing on the core heart of the message (love), you can take the christian essence fully into the modern world, as jesus would surely have done if around now (if the essence has shifted in emphasis and details from what it was in 1st century palestine, that's to be expected surely). Doing it this way means you don't even need to mention jesus, which probably means more people will get the message (and that you can avoid the sin of wallowing in your (partially justified) persecution complex (not personal, it sort of comes with the religion)).
Plus i think the literal/materialistic spirituality of western christianity misses an important mystical part of the original religion - the direct one-to-one experience of god (some evangelicals get a bit of this, but a good dose of acid in the holy wafer would be much better (though more chanting and incense would be a start)). Anyway, all just my non-christian opinion buddy; merry crimbo (or solstice)
The bible inevitably contains errors and anachronisms - it takes ludicrous effort to explain them all away intellectually, which just discredits the rest of the message in the eyes of non-believers. By focusing on the core heart of the message (love), you can take the christian essence fully into the modern world, as jesus would surely have done if around now (if the essence has shifted in emphasis and details from what it was in 1st century palestine, that's to be expected surely). Doing it this way means you don't even need to mention jesus, which probably means more people will get the message (and that you can avoid the sin of wallowing in your (partially justified) persecution complex (not personal, it sort of comes with the religion)).
Plus i think the literal/materialistic spirituality of western christianity misses an important mystical part of the original religion - the direct one-to-one experience of god (some evangelicals get a bit of this, but a good dose of acid in the holy wafer would be much better (though more chanting and incense would be a start)). Anyway, all just my non-christian opinion buddy; merry crimbo (or solstice)
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lurching
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KUHN'S SSR. READ IT LADIES. WRITTEN JUST 42 YEARS AGO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions ; PDF HERE https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Kuhn-SSR-2ndEd.pdf
BecomingJulie
Bluelight Crew
Nor need it, when your assertion was so self-evidently fallacious.
You are conflating two different kinds of getting it wrong and making corrections. The Scientific Method is about incremental improvements with an obvious arrow of time, not capricious changes of mind.
If you take Einstein's equations of motion, and you incorporate the simplifying assumption that everything under consideration is moving much more slowly than the speed of light, then you find some terms that will be so close to zero, you can neglect them. And what you end up with when you do, is ..... Newton's equations. That's about as beautiful a demonstration as you're likely to get.
pinkpapaver
Bluelighter
^ I physics. science was once called natural philosophy which is much more beautiful and accessible.
physics. science was once called natural philosophy which is much more beautiful and accessible.
lurching
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The relativistic field equations are fundamentally different from the classical laws of motion, though. No matter how many terms you neglect you won't end up with Newtonian gravitation, as at the core it's still all curved spacetime, described in a completely different language (curvature tensors). It is not an incremental improvement, it really is fundamentally different and starts from whole other principles. Thomas Kuhn calls such developments anomalies. I'd say the Schrodinger wave equation is another such storied anomaly from that era, as Feynmann said:
lurching
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It's kinda beside the point but Eddington's eclipse experiments already showed in 1919 that light bends around stars, evidence of (relativistic) gravitational lensing. I just looked up the date, but really wanted to find his poem, as per The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
heh, no the reason I didn't answer is because I was blind drunk. heh heh What a Christmas, actually no quite a very bad Christmas.... just sorta coming around now.
Let's look at the posts again:
I think the foundation of the religion, is and always will be God. The divine. All man has tried to do is purport this "message". Jesus did a pretty good job, and radically changed the church. But the fault's with the church; where murder, corruption and dirty priests have crept in, has always been the fault with us, not God. It's routes are true, we've just obscured that here and there on it's road to fruition.
Owen/Catinthehat said:
A fundamental belief of the church is that homosexuality is curable, through Jesus Christ. So if someone is to claim to be homosexual and lead some kind of promiscuous lifestyle, it's contradicting the church's belief. I would say this is not homophobic because it is not a way of condemning the individual, just suggesting they are not suitable. For instance, someone wanting to join the Army or police force must be above a certain height. This is not prejudice against smaller individuals, just that they are not suitable for the job.
In this mini-skirmish I think Julie was initially correct, that science does disprove Genesis. The argument is still very primitive in regards to theological discourse however: most modern Christians see the genesis stories - like much of the bible as allegorical, rather than a scientific document. For philosphical reasons also it makes sense that God would make it allegorical, because proving his existence with science would negate our choice of free will.
No not really, I was concisely quoting from the Bible accurately. I highly doubt translational errors are so great that the meaning these basic verses has been lost. Rather, I suspect you're looking for excuses not to accept the obviously pointed out: The Bible is in no way homophobic, and teaches of love towards those who Sin - and no human is without sin.
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BecomingJulie
Bluelight Crew
So everyone has got something wrong with them, not just gay people, and you think that makes it alright?
Can you not see just how nasty and ..... anti-human this is?
THECATINTHEHAT
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I never said that the findings of science don't disprove genesis.
BigG
Ex-Bluelighter
I'm still struggling to believe you just said that.....your "humorous trolling for the benefit of the forum" excuse is wearing thin mate....
pinkpapaver
Bluelighter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM9-8qj_Js8&feature=youtu.be
Osiris and Christianity - The Christian adoption of Egyptian iconography , symbolism and myth. quite interesting.
Osiris and Christianity - The Christian adoption of Egyptian iconography , symbolism and myth. quite interesting.
Vurtual
Bluelighter
It's not just about translational errors (though there are plenty), it's about out and out editing of the original message to suit the people who later took control of christianity (whether paul/other disciple sects, or later romans or other european bishops); but more importantly, it's about social/cultural context - there are many beliefs and concepts which were just the way people thought back then, but have later been dropped and replaced by concepts that suit our own time - to preserve the anachronistic elements of 2000 year old society in aspic is to do a disservice to the message - like i said, do you really think if jesus came back now he'd be insisting that everyone start following social/cultural practices of 2000 years ago, or that he'd update his message to the modern context (tolerance for gays included)?
You just conceeded the point above that the story of genesis is allegorical - why so literal with the rest of the bible? I really can't see why you can't get my point about the core message of the bible - love your enemy, turn the other cheek, do unto others... - if you follow those most important parts (what's more important than these?), you have to interpret the rest of it to fit. I know these core messages are correct as i've independently come up with them through my own reason and experience (and psychedelics helped); and then later re-realised it's also what christ said (and gotama, mohammed, and all the rest (not to mention later game theory)).
The pharisee Rabbi Hillel (~50bc) was asked if he could recite the torah while standing on one leg - he stood on one leg and said 'do as you would be done by - that's the whole torah, the rest is just explanation - now go and learn' - jesus comes directly out of this pharisee tradition (do unto others) - so a similar abbreviation of the christian bible is appropriate.
(and i won't complain that you did the usual answer one line of my post and ignore the rest (woops i just did) , cos i know it's OT waffle)
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[/quote]
No trolling here, this thread is holy ground. This is my understanding of Christianity belief. A handful of denominations may perceive it differently, notably the gay church. But the strong majority of Christian denominations and believers would see homosexuality as something to be overcome and something achievable with the help of Jesus Christ. This belief would be formed from scripture:
1 Cornithians 6:9 suggests homosexuality as more of a bad trait, than a definitive existance of that person.
"Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.…"
Romans 10:13 suggests coming to Jesus to be saved from this
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved"
It leans towards sexual chastity, it suggests we are eventually angels and can supercede primitive desires like them. That we can attain purity. It suggests a person isn't limited to being "gay" or "straight", but infinitely greater than whatever primitive desires we develop on this planet.
Matthew 22:30
But Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30"For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven
It teaches to live above the flesh (ie, negating sexual desires)
Romans 8:6
5For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,"
I think you're not grasping the concept here. It is showing that there is no shame to have sinned, for no-one has not sinned minus Jesus. It leads us to reason that we are on this planet to learn and develop. Be freed of ignorance. It suggests we're not perfect and have a reason to be here, I don't see that as "anti-human" but as realistic reasoning for our place on this planet.
The Bible is very pro-human, likening ourselves to God himself for we are "Made in the likeness of God" (Genesis 1:27) - just says we gotta learn a few lessons to get there.
Virutal: gee, gimme a break a second, this thread can get very time consuming when you have lot's of comments to respond to individually.
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