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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago
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Warbler- "ever read the story".
Yes, in Jr. High Itro. to World History, and continued college.
And, as I recall, Pizarro was acting in regards to the Spanish Inquisition. Catholicism was chosen to unify Spain. They drove out the Protestants who believed in justification by faith through grace and not works, the priesthood of all believers, and the Bible as the ultimate authority in matters of faith.
This doctrine of course is in direct opposition to the papal monarchy of Catholicism. And the Protestants were labeled 'Christian heretics'(I guess myself and Gobee would have been burned at the stake). Tens of thousands were tortured and executed. I do not believe the Catholic church represents what Jesus Christ preached. As a matter of fact, they attempted to extinguish Christs teachings, and withhold the Word of God(Bible)from the common man.
Catholicism, or at least the Inquisition was as much political as it was orthodoxy(Papal). And what happened to the Incas and their leader Atahualpa was the result of greed and human ambition, not Gods.
And likewise with Michenor's classic novel "Hawaii". Primarily Catholic missionaries. I was brought up Catholic, and came to the realisation/conclusion during my early teens, that the Catholic Church and their belief are in many ways in direct contrast to what Christ taught.
But since we are on the subject, did you consider Father Damian and his(and others that followed him)selfless acts in serving the lepers who were interned on Molokai. And he wasn't the first to do so, their were many others ministers of the Christian faith who went to the island before him.
Warbler- "Jesus has nothing to do with my contempt for Christianity's history".
Well, I would have to agree with you in the scope of the discussion thus far. Many atrocities, such as the Crusades and the Inquisitions were carried out by humans whose ambitions were political and self serving. A far cry from what Christ preached.
"How many times have we heard...America founded on Christian ideals."
They are speaking of the founding fathers(Washington, Jefferson, Franklin etc.} and the Pilgrims. Yes they were founded by people of Christian faith. But those ideals have been slowly eroding/crumbling, and often over looked.
"excepted the Truth'...hmmmm..."
Well...hmmmm...obviously you lump anyone associated with Christ's teachings suspect. That includes Jesus Christ Himself, which we believe is the Truth. "I am the way, the Truth, and the Life...".
I was simply saying that we excepted His Word as being true. "In the beginning was the Word...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...".
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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777 wrote
" I do not believe the Catholic church represents what Jesus Christ preached. As a matter of fact, they attempted to extinguish Christs teachings, and withhold the Word of God(Bible)from the common man."
Yet that Church was virtually the only mass Christianity for way over 1000 years. Perhaps that shows we can't trust Churches to represent God fairly. The mystery demands a different approach.
Squid wrote
"* The people who hear Jesus in their car telling them what to do think that people that hear voices in their head are crazy, other than them."
Too funny. I'm imagining a child protective services taking Issac away from Abraham and throwing him in jail after that "almost sacrificed the kid after God told me to" incident.
God might be talking but we have issues with listening. I tell me girlfriend she looks great and she asks if I just told her she's fat.
Peace
Karl
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago
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Warbler- "Silence from dugout".
I typed that post last night before midnight and you responded this morning after seven AM. I just turned on my lap-top less than an hour ago...I have work to do. I will get back to you later this afternoon.
Regardless, Thanks for responding.
Peace, Trip~
EDIT: Kevin I respect you greatly, and have followed most of your posts. I was just wondering what you were thinking. And I do understand much of your reasons(and agree with you)for your disdain for religion and its corruption of Christs teachings. So does Jesus, read about His disdain for five of the seven Churches that go by His name in Revelation chapters 2-3.
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Homer
Mountain climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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I tell me girlfriend she looks great and she asks if I just told her she's fat.
That is funny Karl! Seems like the gist of the thread at this point is trying to understand if that's a talking problem or a listening problem - we believe we hear more than just the words, sometimes to our advantage, sometimes to our disadvantage.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Some questions for all the believers in SuperTopia. Let's say that I'm a believer - that is, that I believe in a presence/force/person whom humans ought to worship/obey/consider. Or at least that I've convinced myself to so believe, or wish to claim that I believe, for social, economic or other reasons. If so:
1. Do I have to belong to any recognized or organized religion, or is the simple fact of my belief enough?
2. If I must belong to a religion, which one? Which of the many different brands of Christianism, Islamism, Judaism, Buddhism, Sihkism, Taoism, Hinduism, and cow-worshippingism? Not to mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
3. How will I know which is the best/right/true religion?
4. What should I believe (or not) about all the other ones?
5. Can we judge religions by the actions of their adherents, and if so, do the followers of any religion live up to its supposed beliefs and practices?
6. Is religion a satanic plot?
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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"is religion a satanic plot?"
kinda looks like it, course ya gotta believe in Satan...
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Bronwyn
Trad climber
Not of This World
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Hi Warbler,
I will try to address your question regarding the way the historical church has acted through the centuries.
I am an American citizen. I accept my citizenship... However, I do NOT accept or embrace all the ways the American government and American military have acted through American history, acting, as it is claimed, on behalf of Americans. However, these things are in the past. My duty as a current American citizen is to be the best, most informed citizen I can be, and to require an accounting from our government and military for some of their (current) actions.
I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. This does not mean I accept or embrace things the historical church did throughout history. We are all human, and humans make some horrible mistakes.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Gonna blow the margin buffers here.... which seems somehow appropriate.
The new Hubble deep field. Just look at all those galaxies.
And yet we're supposed to be God's precious one-and-onlys?
How naive.
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jstan
climber
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This is an excellent example of our poor use of language.
We debate about "intelligence" and each participant has their own definition of what the word
means.
We debate about "intuition" and the same applies.
We are not doing our homework.
One of the definitions of intuition: "quick and ready insight."
The truth is there really is nothing "quick and ready" about intuition.
Einstein was very interested in geometry and spaces, as they exist in the technical sense.
Transformations and the like. DeSitter. Hilbert. That background influenced the questions he
asked when confronted with a question about the physical space in which he was living. He asked
the question he did because because he was comfortable with those concepts.
Intuition, guided by our past experience and innate talents, is that process which causes a
person to ASK THE QUESTIONS THEY DO. After the question is asked then logical processes are
generally used to identify which answers are the most probably correct.
Now there is an aspect of Einstein's intuition that bears mention. He was naturally inclined to be
a philosopher. What do I mean? If he had two possible answers he would choose to do the
hardest logical work on the answer which, to him, seemed the simplest and most beautiful. If you
explain something by assuming all kinds of things ad hoc, he would probably not spend much
logical effort on that hypothesis. He used his intuition to avoid wasting time trying to prove
something he thought highly unlikely.
At an APS meeting eons ago I listened to a paper that asked if all the human senses are at the
quantum limit. For instance after you have slaughtered a cow and place a sensitive microphone
next to the animal's ear you can hear the cilia vibrating in the ear. The ear detects sound
interferometrically by listening to the beat frequencies. This mode of detection is orders of
magnitude more sensitive than are more simple modes of detection. As I remember, way back
then, he was leery of claiming our eyes can detect single photons. But if you watch the literature
you still see that question being asked. Why do I bring this up?
Much in this world seems improbable. That each of us is quantum limited? Incredible! Until you
reflect that this world is much much older than you or even myself. What we see is the result
obtained after billions of years of failed experiments. We are looking at only the successful
experiments. Or the ones that have yet to fail.
My own intuition as I look out at our planet causes me to ask a question.
Are we now to become one of the failures?
Bronwyn:
You state an entirely valid position.
But what must we conclude if America were to carry out an atrocious act
and not one american protested?
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Are we now to become one of the failures?
Have to ask you the same question you asked of others regarding the use of language.
What do you mean by "failure"? Were our evolutionary predecessors all failures?
If we evolve into whatever comes next does that mean we (humans) are a failure?
I suppose if we blow ourselves out of existence then "failure" would be a reasonable
term to brand us with. But I don't consider Homo Whateveris to be a failure because
we're here now and he isn't. Nor will I consider h. sapiens a failure just because
we are eventually succeeded by h. somethingelse
Just steps along the path.
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jstan
climber
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A failed specie is a specie none of whose members still lives.
I am not practiced in this but a specie is always changing and I take two individuals who are unable
to mate as being of different species.
Survival requires constant adaptation.
It really seems homo sapiens, right now, is not keeping up.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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We do seem to suffer from evolutionary imbalance.
We've evolved power to destroy ourselves faster than the wisdom to use that power wisely
Time will tell
Peace
Karl
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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I am not practiced in this but a specie is always changing and I take two individuals who are unable to mate as being of different species
Donkeys and horses can mate and are considered different species. it is a bit silly to think of the inability to mate as defining a species. There are animals that can mate with other almost identical animals and they in turn can mate with yet others, yet they cannot mate with the first (okay, there are a few more in the middle but the point is valid). A little research and understanding of evolution theory and you might see that we are better suited to our environment than homo-before-us but that might only be because the environment changed and he changed into us. If he changed into us, that shows him, homo-way-back, as being very successful, even if he is of a different "species." After all, he did adapt to his environment very well. It just had the side effect of losing some mating capability with a long dead homo-not-here-any-more.
That's at least one way of looking at it.
Dave
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Bronwyn
Trad climber
Not of This World
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Cintune,
I don't recall any Christian posting on here saying that our humble little planet is God's "one and only", but maybe I missed something.
I fully believe that He created many, many other worlds, with many, many forms of life. There is nothing in the Bible, either, that says that ours is the only inhabited planet.
Space is infinite. God is infinite. Actually, I can't wait to see more of what is out there!
AWESOME picture by the way...gotta love the Hubble!
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jstan
climber
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Like I said I am not practiced. But let me ask. Can the two mules mate, successfully?
As I understand it, they cannot.
All specie have to evolve to keep up with the environment, if it is changing. If they cannot, they
do not survive.
What I see is the the population of homo sapiens has increased to such a degree that the
enviroment is being driven by us. The rates of change this will impose upon us is quite outside
historical experience.
Here off CA's coast, as on George's Banks, fishing as we used to know it is nearly dead. Even the
urchin harvests are showing depletion. The kelp will be next. Today's paper has the fishermen
complaining that reducing their catch further is only part of the answer. We need to reduce
plastic waste drifting on the ocean INSTEAD of reducing catches.
This is not adaptation.
This is more tragedy of the commons.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Bronwyn, I suppose it depends on how strictly you want to interpret Genesis.
This is what it describes:
No mention of galalxies, for starters. Just stars - which were all the
book's human authors could see. Actually no mention of other planets,
either, just the earth smack-dab in the middle of it all. Hence the
implied precious one-and-only status at the heart of creationism.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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"excepted the truth"... hmmm...
I'm so glad to believe in the God of the bible, who is for us, forgives and cares for us. I put my trust in Him 110%, I don't deserve to, but He is God and I want Him to be. How cool is that, that he wants to!!!
I can't live without Him, and don't want to!
God doesn't want words put in His mouth He didn't say;
Revelation 22:18-19, I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
God will judge all the wrongs done in His name, (even Moses)!
The Waters of Meribah
Numbers 20:2-13, Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him.
Moses Strikes the Rock
Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in Me, to uphold Me as Holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them He showed Himself Holy.
Moses was a WAY WAY WAY WAY,, better man then I am!!!
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Bronwyn
Trad climber
Not of This World
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Jstan,
But what must we conclude if America were to carry out an atrocious act
and not one american protested?
If I read this question correctly, I think you are asking if Christians have ever protested some of the atrocities carried out by the church.
Well, that is why the Crusades ultimately ended...people were rioting and protesting against them. Many missionaries, such as Hudson Taylor, protested against the method of trying to make other cultures adopt Western dress and customs. He spoke out against the way native people had been treated, and his voice ultimately prevailed. He scandalized 19th-century England with his views.
I am sure there are many more historical instances, but not having been raised around this kind of information, I defer to someone who many have more citations to offer.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Moses was a genocidal maniac, Gobee.
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WBraun
climber
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Cintune -- "No mention of galaxies,"
Heavens ..... = galaxies
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