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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 10:39am PT
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A species doesn't care how many of its individual males mate. It only cares if enough offspring are created to ensure its survival, given its dynamic environment, and that there's enough genetic diversity in the process to ensure those offspring are viable.
In many animal groups, only one male gets to procreate.
Take a herd of gazelles, for example. The bachelor herd spars until there's a victor. He's the only male in the herd that gets to mate with the local female herd that year.
After about a month of continuous schtupping, the poor/lucky bastard is so worn out that he's easily taken by a lion or leopard.
Next....
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 10:42am PT
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Knowledge is power.
And fruit flies are evil.
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Jawon
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2014 - 10:45am PT
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I'm intentionally staying out of this, as much as I want to jump in, believe me :) But in response to direct comments to me...
rbord:
So just for fun, I think I'll interject a snide comment every now and then about the original intent of this thread being to REDUCE mass spewing about Christianity. and duck as my voice gets drowned out by the grenades getting lobbed over the walls.
You're good, we're bad. Got it. Christian morality.
Looks like the Christians are winning the mass spewing about Christianity contest, at least in number of words.
Sorry if that sounded judgmental. Not my intent at all. My commentary has ONLY ever been about the spewing, not the content of people's arguments. And I never implied (I think) that the non-Christians are the spewers. I realize we holy-joes can get that way too.
Although I think there have been a few intelligent posts here, I stick to my original post that 1:1 discussions with some semblance of a personal relationship is when these discussions will become the give and take they need to be.
rbord:
I don't want to perpetuate the very thing I'm trying to avoid with this offer
Then why haven't you deleted the thread? Too much fun? It's getting harder to accept that even you believe what you said.
Honestly, I didn't know I could delete it. And I wouldn't anyway because in a sick way, that might be worse than letting this thread continue. I can only imagine the hate I might get from "censoring" this thread.
Again, I stand by my original post. It was a suggestion of a better PROCESS to discuss these topics, not a statement or judgment about particular religious/philosophical views.
All I'm saying is that whatever your worldview, continued seeking and wrestling is what we ALL need. And hopefully we will do this with real people, not avatars, understanding that every single one of us has a unique and complicated story that led us to where we are now.
In my particular case, I happen to be Christian. So I am just offering to share my story to those who are sincerely curious how one gets to this point. And in fact, if others who are atheists, agnostic, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever, want to share their stories too, I might take them up on it.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 10:48am PT
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So far, only Christians have employed the oh-so-neutral term 'spew'.
Hmmm.
WWJD?
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nature
climber
Boulder, CO
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Aug 22, 2014 - 11:01am PT
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What Would Jawon Do? :)
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 11:24am PT
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It's been well documented that only atheists spew.
We're basically Rainbirds of Hate, except those few moments when we're loving our fellow man - Biblically.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 11:59am PT
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Not really.
Atheists don't purport to know if there is a God or not (some do, of course, but that lies outside the term's definition).
They just know they don't believe in one.
Many agnostics are, in fact, atheists, but the latter is a bad word in our society, so they don't self apply it.
Do you know you don't believe in God, or are you still undecided? If so, you are an agnostic. If not - you're an atheist, whether you like it or not.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Cave Creek, AZ
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Aug 22, 2014 - 12:01pm PT
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Ed, interesting musing regarding ethics and economics. If there is a compass to ethics it would be based upon behaviors that at ideally increases the likelihood of survival and success of the group and the individual.
Evangelicalism is such an interesting phenomenon to me. It seems that so much of it is driven by a need to reinforce the viability of ones faith through convincing others that your are right to believe what you believe. If you have a deeply rooted faith in what you believe do you need anyone else to agree with you? I am mostly a science kind of guy, but do hold beliefs concerning philosophy and mysticism for which I have no proof and don't care much if anyone else believes the way I do (though validation is always fun). There seems to be an aspect of Evangelicalism that is driven by weak roots in ones faith.
There is such a huge disparity between the philosophy that Jesus outlines in the new testament (as much as we can trust the bible to be accurate being written after the fact and having gone through such a long game of telephone (err, so many transcriptions and translations)) and the actual practice of most people who say they are followers of Jesus and his teaching. What Jesus seems to propose is a philosophy with the fundamental tenets being love/compassion, charity, forgiveness, non-judgement, and service. Pretty sound and beneficial for everyone involved.
Does faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior add much to that? I don't think so. It seems that a huge percentage of people who claim Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour dramatically betray Jesus's tenets of right behaviour. But, that's just my opinion. Certainly one does not have to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior to act in accord with Jesus's calls to action or tenets of behavior. Believe anything you want; I can only judge the value of your religion, faith, or philosophy based on your behavior. Or, as someone once wisely said, "By their fruits ye shall know them."
The outcome of living in accord with the tenets for behaviour that Jesus (is presumed) to have proposed is a form of altruistic egoism. This philosophy was first proposed by the Canadian endocrinologist, Hans Selye, and basically says that doing good things for others ultimately benefits you emotionally and physically/economically as well as those those you've done good deeds for.
People claiming they have proof of their religious faith just sound silly. Proof comes from physical and tangible measures of phenomena. Nobody has proof for their beliefs or faith. Saying so doesn't make it so. But, then that is the beauty of faith and belief; we believe and have faith in spite of no actual proof.
Ultimately, we just make sh#t up when it comes to philosophy and religion. Some of it is useful and some of it is not.
Finding Jesus's words (just read the red print of the new testament sometime; an interesting exercise) concerning right action interesting and useful as a philosophy I took a few passages from the bible a few years back and asked if there is any science to back them up as to whether they have measurable positive value to the individual and society. It became a referenced paper 'The Science of Compassion Revisited.' http://www.theelementsofhealth.com/resources/articles/articles-mind/the_science_of_compassion.pdf
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Aug 22, 2014 - 12:10pm PT
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This has to be right up there for most ironic thread evah
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 12:13pm PT
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Jesus-as-bigot and humiliator:
Matthew 15:21-28
The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
The Christian interpretation of this obvious bigotry is that God humiliates us all the time to 'test us'. Yeah. Right. How does that one work in a marriage or other supposedly loving relationships, I wonder?
Humiliation can play no role in any truly loving relationship. It can only degrade it. Humiliation as a "test of love" is the kind of game sociopaths play.
That Christ was all Love They Neighbor is a re-write. Scripture indicates he was a small town preacher with all the prejudices and tribalism of his time and place. That Christianity has whitewashed Him into something bigger and better than he was isn't necessarily a bad thing, however. This whitewashing has produced a set of ethics which can make the world a better place if taken for what they are.
Biblical literalism short circuits this process, however. Hence, the anti-gay movement, et al. Love thy neighbor as thyself? You married? Good. Afford that right to everyone.
I'm not really sure "love thy neighbor as thyself" is all that healthy a recommendation. What if you hate yourself? "Love thy neighbor" seems better. That's not scripture, though.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Aug 22, 2014 - 01:07pm PT
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The Christian interpretation of this obvious bigotry is that God humiliates us all the time to 'test us'. Yeah. Right. You have issues. Really.
Do you hate mommy and daddy too since they told you what to do?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 01:14pm PT
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Humiliation is one of your parenting tools? How about your wife? Do you humiliate her to get her to do what you want?
Let us know how humiliation is working for you and those around you.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 01:19pm PT
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I'd wager we're not alone in our opinions with regards to the justification for and ethics of humiliation.
The problem obviously lies in my misinterpretation of scripture, which is, after all, the error-free Word of God.
I would also note that Jesus failed to convince his own home town of his divinity.
That must have been humiliating, however predictable.
Jesus was small time. Paul inflated him into a Superstar.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Aug 22, 2014 - 05:10pm PT
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The Christian interpretation of this obvious bigotry is that God humiliates us all the time to 'test us'. Yeah. Right.
Just when I thought I was outty... more spew!
Oh, right... bad word, I guess.
But, accurate, so I'll very intentionally use it.
Again, you would do FAR better to give up claiming what "Christians" think, or, in this case, how this verse "is interpreted." YOUR version is NOT what most Christians think, and I have not heard one single Christian interpret the verse as you say. Not one.
So, yes, yet more misguided spew.
Look, have all the personal opinions and justifications you want. But, really, you should give up spewing about "Christians," because you clearly do not know what you are talking about.
For a guy as vociferous as you are on this thread, your ignorance is EPIC!
And I'll call spew what it is any day. ;)
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 05:18pm PT
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I read that interpretation off of a Christian web site.
You'd have more credibility if you were to provide your own interpretation...if you, in fact, have one to share, rather than just defaulting to the dick thing.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 05:20pm PT
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Others can know what they do and do not believe, even if you choose not to.
Anyway, the definition of 'atheist' is a button push away, although you are certainly free to make up your own dialect.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 05:25pm PT
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Tiresome.
Just look it up already.
Yeah, none of us knows what happens after death.
Not exactly breaking news.
If you can't discern the distinction between certainty and belief...I'm sorry.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 05:28pm PT
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I don't speak for anyone else. Talk to them about it.
Atheism has an agreed upon definition - the one I gave. That's kind of how language works. All my atheist friends - which is just about all my friends, subscribe to the very same definition I do. We don't claim to know what we cannot - but we do know what we believe.
Your argument is a common strawman, used to label atheism as a 'just another religion', but you'll probably have trouble finding an actual debate partner for it. Hitchins notwithstanding.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Aug 22, 2014 - 05:33pm PT
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So talk to them about your concerns, already. Probably varies by individual, I reckon.
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