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Sir loin of leisure...
Trad climber
I'm from Idaho..bitch
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Aug 14, 2010 - 01:40am PT
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maybe they can help set the time on my dvd...I can't figure it out...
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 14, 2010 - 10:06am PT
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Tung, I regularly read his stuff.
And I am very unimpressed.
Take apart Dawkins? What a joke.
Invite Dawkins to reply directly in print, and its all over, again.
There is NO theistic "defense" against the rigorous scientific method.
If YOU want to believe in the Guy in the Sky, and Santa Clause, then do so.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Aug 14, 2010 - 10:36am PT
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I just got back from doing flowers for a couple of the local Marine Corps chapels. I was doing special flowers for the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary tomorrow and other special flowers for the feast of the Transfiguration for the old calendar Russian Orthodox on Thursday.
At the other end of the large room I was working in, the Muslim congregation was chanting in Arabic and doing their prayers in preparation for the breaking of their Ramadan fast. --- People of different faiths can get along if they want to.
Meanwhile, after reading the NY Times articles and the even more interesting letters which follow, and which cover much the same ground we have on this thread, I've concluded that no one will ever prove God by rational means.
The existence of God is something you either feel or not. You can start out agnostic, but you have to be open to the encounter or it won't happen. A person either enjoys classical music and art or they don't. No one can make them, or prove its value to them, they have to feel it.Same with the spiritual.
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Tung Gwok
Mountain climber
South Bend, Indiana
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Aug 14, 2010 - 10:38am PT
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Norton,
How about replying to Gutting's stuff -- now, on this thread, in detail -- instead of just dismissing it by saying you are "unimpressed" and throwing off some comment about "the Guy in the Sky."
In other words, provide an argument, like the kind you say theists are incapable of. That's the idea isn't it? That atheists can provide arguments? Show us. And show us at least at the level of Gutting's analysis. Otherwise it is just namecalling, and you are no more evolved than the theists you deride.
Are you up to it? And that goes for Fructose and Pate too. And don't go saying that you have been doing so all along, because so far it has just been fancy namecalling.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Aug 14, 2010 - 11:58am PT
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Most of us fall into a category of believing in Santa Claus in one sense and not believing in Santa Claus in another. A similar thing exists when it comes to believing in God Jehovah / God Jesus or believing in the Bible stories.
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Pate, it appears you were all over the Briar Patch last night. LOL!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:02pm PT
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Given that there is always going to be religious people amongst us (i.e., those who are smitten with the God Story and want to live life in its terms), the challenge for us moving forward in the 21st century is...
...how to distinguish (a) the harmless ones (like the Jans and Britney Spears out there) from (b) the harmful ones (those who believe the God Story is true - actual description of how the world really works - who are 100% committed to living up to its story elements each and every one of them, who believe with all their hearts that God hates this and God loves that, and that he expects the righteous to destroy his enemies). Won't be easy.
.....
Highly recommended: the film, Countdown to Zero
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:04pm PT
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do a few flowers, jan, for the dead people in iraq and afghanistan. oh, sorry, forgot. god bless america, screw the rest of the world.
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:22pm PT
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Ya know, if I was god, the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, and I wanted people to believe in me and worship me, I'm sure I'd do something spectacularly obvious to everyone that would leave no doubt as to my existence and beneficence. Say, cure everyone simultaneously from all maladies. Or maybe simultaneously have all the priest pedophiles' (or any pedophiles' for that matter) packages turn into giant bowling ball sized excruciatingly painful tumors. Or instantly turn the deserts into rich tropical paradises. I'd definitely be on board with something like that.
Just seems that the ambiguity of the current situation along with the overwhelming evidence of evolution precludes any real possibility of a sentient god...
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:24pm PT
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Tung,
I have no problem at all if you or anyone else wants to believe that one individual spirit of some sort "created" the known universe.
BUT, after the great spirit did that, then simple random evolution made life evolve on this particular planet.
Tung, I am not clear what your own position is on this.
Are you a creationist like Gobee and Trip7?
Also like them, do you interpret every word of the bible literally and insist it was all written directly from the god as defined in the Old Testiment?
And so therefore you reject the scientific fossil study of evolution?
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Tung Gwok
Mountain climber
South Bend, Indiana
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:28pm PT
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Fructose,
The labor of separating harmful "Christians" from other Christians is a task for Christians too. I don't disagree with you and T-Bird and others about the problem of Christians using violence in their efforts to prove themselves right (though it should be mentioned that Christians are not the only ones with this problem).
The question is whether it is possible to be a consistent Christian and be non-violent. There is, as you likely know, a whole tradition of Christian non-violence -- Tolstoy, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement, Martin Luther King. What do you think of these people and movements?
With regard to Pate's last response, I rest my case.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:31pm PT
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Norton- TG exposed himself many pages ago. His God is Jehovah (the God of Moses and Abraham) who gave us orders (Commandments, Laws) to follow. His God isn't some vague abstract God or hybrid God (like Moosie's) about which we know nothing specific.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:34pm PT
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TG wrote-
"the problem of Christians using violence in their efforts"
So how can you as (modern reformed) Christians blame them (the traditionalist Christians) when it is written in your own scripture? When what they're doing is actually "living up to" their "God Story" and its commandments and laws.
TG wrote-
"The question is whether it is possible to be a consistent Christian and be non-violent."
-exactly.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:50pm PT
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Amongst the religious - who can really blame the traditionalists (even militant Muslims) when all they're doing is (a) taking the so-called "God Story" literally and (b) busting ass to live up to its commandments and laws point for point.
In lieu of battling naturalists, scientists and others who have no love affair with any God Story, modern revisionist Christians should've batttled this issue instead. Indeed, they still have this opportunity to turn their intellectual swords on the traditionalist Christians.
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Tung Gwok
Mountain climber
South Bend, Indiana
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:50pm PT
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Norton,
It's been awhile since I have been on this thread. From an exchange you and I had June 24:
Jun 26, 2010 - 09:26am PT
Tung, you missed my point, which was to point out the flawed reasoning of those literal bibleists who insist that the entire bible, every word of it, was written by god.
There are sections of the bible that are very clearly NOT written by a rational and the all loving god.
These sections were clearly written by men.
Does ANYONE dispute this?
Of course not, even Gobee seems to agree that humans wrote the bible.
Which then begs the questions of WHICH sections were written by humans and which sections were written by humans with god directing their pens on parchment?
So, answer that question, kindly please.
Jun 26, 2010 - 12:41pm PT
Norton, your last comment helps clarify. If all you are talking about are biblical literalists who naively interpret the whole of the bible without acknowledging that they are in fact involved in the act of interpreting (the ones I have in mind often highlight teachings on homosexuality in Leviticus and conveniently ignore, for instance, Jesus' teaching on poverty; note the Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, John -- say not one word on homosexuality) then we are in little disagreement. If you want want to move from that to saying that all believers are fraudulent jerk-idiots, then there is not much to talk about.
If you really want to learn about the various ways of interpreting the bible, take a good course in biblical hermeneutics. In my own case, given that I am called to be Christian, I begin with the words and actions that can reasonably historically be attributed to Jesus of Nazareth (because in my belief system God's revelation demonstrates itself most forcefully in Jesus)and work from there. Yes, this often involves rejecting certain parts of the bible as incomplete or even errant readings of who God is.
There is not even agreement among those who start with what they can know about the historical Jesus as to which acts and sayings in the Gospels are most authentic.
Any interpretation of anything will involve a process of selection ("You can't use that hold, its not on the route") and weighting of what is central and what is not ("That's not the crux; up there is the crux"). All I ask in your exchanges, Norton, is that you not take one (in my judgment erring) version of religious belief and leap to the conclusion that all religious believers are willfully deceived oppressive half-minds.
Climb on!
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Tung Gwok
Mountain climber
South Bend, Indiana
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:55pm PT
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High Fructose's argument seems to be: The only authentic Christian is a biblical literalist one. This is what I meant about atheists needing to offer up some rational arguments that can take on Gutting et al. H.F. simply wants to define Tolstoy, Day and King out of existence.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Aug 14, 2010 - 12:58pm PT
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Select this or that. Select this Commandment but not that one. Select this Law but not that one. Select this day or hour to live up to a biblical prescription but not that one. Why not take it a step further. Select Ashtar or Marduk instead of Jehovah. Or select none at all.
Who needs a hermeneutics (i.e., interpretations) course for this. I didn't need a climbing course. I didn't need a hermeneutics course either. To make sense of these things.
The problem is, the Abrahamic God Story (staring Jehovah) is misleading - it's not an accurate description of how the world works or how life works. It makes no effort at all to deal with reality, the constraints of reality, at all. That's why it is a deal breaker for many of us.
Reality consists of constraints. The constraints of the natural world. Someday we will have belief systems that don't ignore these constraints but teach their adherents life strategies (in narrative form, too) for dealing with them.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 14, 2010 - 01:08pm PT
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Tung, I have NOT done so.
I NEVER stated that I believed that ALL Christians are fundamentalist.
And, please do not suggest to me that I get some understanding of the bible.
I was raised strict, practicing Christian.
I can quote the bible all day long.
Knowledge of the bible makes no one a better person, or better Christian.
I have NEVER sought to deny anyone what they want to believe.
I am not asking or suggesting that you or anyone else become a non believer.
Among other issues I have is with the literal bible fundamentalists and their anti science, 6000 year old earth contentions.
And if YOU are one of "them", then ok for you. But that is where we differ.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Aug 14, 2010 - 01:16pm PT
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TG- the definition of Christian used to be one who believed in the Jesus is God doctrine. (Like my grandmother did, like hers before her, too.) Is the definition changing? Has it changed now? Having hermeneutic skills, have you reinterpretted God Jesus? Is any enlightened human (Buddha to Sai Baba to Dalai Lama) God now? Or at least God-like?
All this hermeneutic restructuring - that we see going on in the world today regarding Christianity - by the Rick Warrens, etc. - you think that's cool? you think that's noble, something to be proud of? Many of us don't. Many think it's lame.
....
TG wrote-
"High Fructose's argument seems to be: The only authentic Christian is a biblical literalist one."
That's not my argument, that's the fundamentalist Christian's argument. But that is part of my point: You revisionist Christians should be battling them instead.
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