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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
 Posted - 02/11/2005 : 19:06:12 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by woolytoad
quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
Excellent point. Yes, all logic fingers God as having responsibility at some level for every disaster. We already know he allows every human being and animal to die. That's rough. But he says he has a plan to undo this little horror.
Why is dying a "little horror"?
Well it certainly is for those who lose someone. Gee, your kids are all dead, oh well. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2005 : 20:28:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Not this atheist, and I generally get my sox on. Atleast not the possibility of an omnipotent god as described by any theology I am aware of. And anything less than an omnipotent god is really nothing more than a being with intelligence and some degree of ability to shape the world around them. Not all that much different from good old H. sapiens if you think about it.
It is not possible to falsify God(s), therefore, the possibility, however small, exists.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2005 : 20:49:48 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
Thanks for asking! Actually, can I make a little tiny off-subject point first? It's just this--you folks are to be commended for hearing me out on my views. I appreciate that. Remember that I am skeptical myself, and these exchanges do me good.
Jim, from the way you conduct yourself in words I suspect that you are a very decent man. Possibly one who has never met a stranger.
I have one comment. You have twice claimed in this thread that you are skeptical, implying a skeptic. Though I do not doubt your sincerity, your consistency in its application seem suspect and dependent upon a personal bias. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2005 : 21:22:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
Did Jesus even exist? I'm willing to accept that there was an itinerate rabbi named Jesus wandering with a band of followers through the Holy Land at the time described. The name was, and still is, a common enough one, so there may well have been a number of such.
This is an argument predicated on the notion that all books written in antiquity are fables, largely inaccurate, etc. Do you consider Jesus' biographies so unreliable because they are religious? How about Flavius Josephus, the great first century non-Christian Jewish historian? Pretty good, isn't he? He discusses Jesus, John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, and the controversies surrounding each.
In my opinion, evidence for the historicity of the Jesus story is quite good. I realize this is a big topic.
quote:
Originally posted by moakley
You have twice claimed in this thread that you are skeptical, implying a skeptic. Though I do not doubt your sincerity, your consistency in its application seem suspect and dependent upon a personal bias.
Thanks, moakley, for the nice words. If you're ever in Alexandria, VA, let's have a beer. As I've said, in my circles they're having prayer meetings about me. I've doubted every doctrine I've heard and every text I've read. But if by skeptic you mean that I am committed to doubt as opposed to faith, I don't see that as the necessary next step. I try to go with the evidence I see.
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Jim Robb  |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2005 : 21:59:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
Until you realize that an omnipotent being would already know the answer without need to "test" it.
No, in that case it'd pretty much have to be a being with the power to do anything it wants except see into the future with any accuracy. Obviously, this doesn't describe the Christian God.
jimrobb wrote:quote:
This is an argument predicated on the notion that all books written in antiquity are fables, largely inaccurate, etc.
No, it's an argument predicated upon the idea that books which contain information which can't be verified through other sources may be inaccurate (etc.).quote:
Do you consider Jesus' biographies so unreliable because they are religious?
I consider then unreliable because none of them were written until at least 30 years after Jesus' alleged death. We know that memory is fragile, and try a game of 'telephone' if you want evidence that passing things along orally is a recipe for mistakes. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2005 : 23:07:28 [Permalink]
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quote:
No, in that case it'd pretty much have to be a being with the power to do anything it wants except see into the future with any accuracy. Obviously, this doesn't describe the Christian God.
And, as I said before, a non-omnipotent "god" would be no different than us humans, except in scale.
quote:
Do you consider Jesus' biographies so unreliable because they are religious?
They are unreliable because the people selling them for centuries, the Catholic church, are the ONLY people in control of them during all that time.
The four gospels of the new testament are the "approved" gospels.
It's like this: Say that I develope and make a product. A cleaning solution, for example. Now, if you one day went to look for safety data on this cleaner and found that I was the sole publisher of that data... wouldn't you be a TAD skeptical concerning what I had to say about my product? Quite frankly, you'd be a fool to take my word alone, even if I were a totally honest and trustworthy person.
Now, the church essentially ruled the world for centuries. They decided what the exact story would be. They restricted access to other info. They KILLED and tourtured people who went against their version of events. They were, for centuries, the sole distributor of info. And the stakes of their game were power over nations and hundreds of thousands of people, and the wealth that came with it.
Quite frankly, we'd be fools to accept their word.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 03:48:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
This is an argument predicated on the notion that all books written in antiquity are fables, largely inaccurate, etc. Do you consider Jesus' biographies so unreliable because they are religious? How about Flavius Josephus, the great first century non-Christian Jewish historian? Pretty good, isn't he? He discusses Jesus, John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, and the controversies surrounding each.
In order to accept the notion that Jesus is the Son of God, faith is a requirement. I have no faith, and no beliefs in the metaphysical.
These biographers were writing from a position of faith in the holiness of their deity and those writings were certainly colored by that faith. They are stories loosly based on a man that might not have even existed. I have heard it argued that the missing years in the history of Jesus are evidence of the whole thing being made up. I won't go quite that far, as I really don't know and the various histories are of doubtful accuracy. How many times has the Bible been translated and even edited by a church that wanted to meet it's own ends?
Are all of the ancient writings fables? Certainly not. The ancient Greeks and the Egyptian alchemists wrote some excellent, scientific works, as did the Chinese, long before the days of the Christ. And shortly following the time of the prophet Mohammid, the Arabs had few peers in science and medicine. All recorded their works.
Many of these writings have come down to us with little lost or gained in the translations, as they were taken directly from the original documents. Although colored by their own faiths, most of their claims were testable.
I haven't read Josephus other than about him, and I should.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 15:24:18 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
They are unreliable because the people selling them for centuries, the Catholic church, are the ONLY people in control of them during all that time.
As a Protestant, I must protest! The Catholic Church did not exist in any sense most historians could accept until the emperor Constantine did Christianity the great disservice of making official in the fourth century. At this point the state (Rome) began assuming ecclesiastical authority, and that egg was darn hard to unscramble.
Now the earliest papyrus fragment of the New Testament quotes part of the gospel of John. Named "p 52," this manuscript dates from about 125 A.D. We have manuscripts of most of the New Testament books dating from about 200-225 A.D. Love the Catholics or don't, but they don't appear to have altered the New Testament at all. |
Jim Robb |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 15:29:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
It is not possible to falsify God(s), therefore, the possibility, however small, exists.
The invisible and intangible pink unicorn in my garage is not falsifiable either.
Just because a statement cannot be falsified does not lend it the possibility of being true.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 15:52:58 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
It is not possible to falsify God(s), therefore, the possibility, however small, exists.
The invisible and intangible pink unicorn in my garage is not falsifiable either.
Just because a statement cannot be falsified does not lend it the possibility of being true.
Nor does it state unequivocally that it not true. You are trying to pick nits where none exist.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 00:49:25 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
Excellent point. Yes, all logic fingers God as having responsibility at some level for every disaster. We already know he allows every human being and animal to die. That's rough. But he says he has a plan to undo this little horror.
I'll ask again: And why - exactly - do you trust him? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 12:24:42 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
I'll ask again: And why - exactly - do you trust him?
Thanks, Dave. Germane. First, I believe I'm hardwired to trust in God. This is my evolutionary explantion. [See yesterdays's interesting NYT piece.] Since we now know that religious believers (at least in the United States) live longer and stay healthier, some scientists are beginning to conjecture that religious believers are better adapted to survive and pass on genes. Could be.
Second, I trust God because I don't feel betrayed by God. My sense of justice is not offended by a divine being who created the world using natural processes, then allowed those processes to hold sway most all the time. When there is intervention, I take it as the unusual exception and time for a party. I know many SFN contributors seem unable to reconcile themselves to a God who could prevent every tragedy but does not. I feel otherwise.
Third, I feel genuinely grateful for certain second chances and healthiness in me that I attribute to divine favor. Can't help it--I feel blessed in many ways.
There are other reasons I trust--many others--but that's enough for one post. I am also full of doubts. Have a ton of them. But so far, and the trend is strong in me, my beliefs are much more powerful than my doubts. [Much more along these lines in my blog, Skeptics Club.]
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Jim Robb |
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Wendy
SFN Regular
USA
614 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 12:37:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
But so far, and the trend is strong in me, my beliefs are much more powerful than my doubts.
Don't you think perhaps that's merely because you've been fortunate so far?
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Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon.
-- Susan Ertz
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 13:21:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
Thanks, Dave. Germane. First, I believe I'm hardwired to trust in God. This is my evolutionary explantion. [See yesterdays's interesting NYT piece.]
Many of the Bible's teachings are about overcoming base instinct, like xenophobia, lust, etc.quote:
Since we now know that religious believers (at least in the United States) live longer and stay healthier, some scientists are beginning to conjecture that religious believers are better adapted to survive and pass on genes. Could be.
Speculative, at best. Living to 90 instead of 80 has little impact on reproductive success, since most people are done reproducing by 40 or 50. For a male, you're more likely to pass on your genes successfully if you give in to wild adultery starting at puberty and continuing until you die.quote:
Second, I trust God because I don't feel betrayed by God.
I don't feel betrayed by the heroin addicts in Wallawalla, either, but I've got no reason to trust them.quote:
My sense of justice is not offended by a divine being who created the world using natural processes, then allowed those processes to hold sway most all the time. When there is intervention, I take it as the unusual exception and time for a party. I know many SFN contributors seem unable to reconcile themselves to a God who could prevent every tragedy but does not. I feel otherwise.
My sense of justice is only offended by the contradictory tales many of the believers in such a god tell to reconcile their beliefs with the real world.quote:
Third, I feel genuinely grateful for certain second chances and healthiness in me that I attribute to divine favor. Can't help it--I feel blessed in many ways.
So do I, but I'm able - without much effort - to find natural reasons behind such events. When I fail to find such a reason, "random chance" is a perfectly acceptable explanation for me.quote:
There are other reasons I trust--many others--but that's enough for one post. I am also full of doubts. Have a ton of them. But so far, and the trend is strong in me, my beliefs are much more powerful than my doubts. [Much more along these lines in my blog, Skeptics Club.]
Okay, thanks. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 14:00:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
.... I believe I'm hardwired to trust in God. This is my evolutionary explantion. [See yesterdays's interesting NYT piece.] Since we now know that religious believers (at least in the United States) live longer and stay healthier, some scientists are beginning to conjecture that religious believers are better adapted to survive and pass on genes. Could be..... Can't help it--I feel blessed in many ways.
I wouldn't be so quick to buy the idea religion has much of a natural selection pressure. There is no definitive research here just because a few surveys have been done. Catholics believe in no birth control, Mormons use less drugs, smoking and alcohol. There are many many variables that haven't been weeded out in any research I've seen. So if you have any studies you want to share, feel free to post them.
Second, the current religious trend in the US is just that, a trend. Religious movements have come and gone. And, there is a loud voice by some of today's religious persons that distorts how big this trend even is.
And while you can currently say the majority of the population in the world is religious, no studies I am aware of have looked at worldwide 'hardwiring'. I have only seen one study that looked at a small number of people in the US that were religious and non-religious and found distinct behavior differences between the groups. Got any more research?
I am often asked if the rapidly reproducing populations in the world may overtake the healthier, more educated, but slowly reproducing populations. Just when you think it might happen, disease and disasters take another big toll. It's a reminder there are more than single or more obvious selection pressures at work.
I do not believe that the dogmatic religious brain has any advantage over the more flexible and adaptive science brain. This is a continuum, BTW, so don't think I am stereotyping anyone and everyone. I meant to put it in an exaggerated statement to make a point.
Besides selection pressures on brain hardwire, you also have to take into account the scientific advances taking place in the world. Science has so obviously contradicted the Bible, you'd have to believe science was going to be replaced by religion to believe evolution will make all the world believers.
Since science has been waaaay more successful in making people's lives better than religion has, I just don't see that happening.
You speak of not being sure and of wanting to sort of critically analyze your religious beliefs. Allow me to admonish you to take off the tunnel vision glasses you are looking through. First rule of science, go where the evidence takes you, don't look for the evidence that supports where you already are.
You like the idea religion might have an evolutionary advantage. I think that has led you to buy speculative conclusions from a tiny bit of research. Instead, go to the original research, not the NYT's reporter's version of it. See what the sample size was, which population was studied, to which populations do the conclusions apply, what were the controls, and did the research results support the conclusions or were the conclusions noted as a possible hypothesis to explain the results that now needs to be tested?
As far as being 'blessed', we all are in this country anyway. It depends on who you compare yourself to. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 02/13/2005 14:01:53 |
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