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Jan 30, 2005 9:52:25 GMT -5
Post by Electron on Jan 30, 2005 9:52:25 GMT -5
I'm not satisfied to think that god created all these distant galaxies full of stars (this is a view of a tiny bit of space - about one-tenth the width of the moon!) when all along he was mainy interested in us. Whatever the reason behind all this, I think it deserves more respect than is provided by all the practising religions of this world. The only group of people I see making any sort of attempt are the scientists and mathematicians who busy themselves revealing such wonders. It sickens me to observe all the silly costumes and rituals that seem so importantl to every religion - with all the arbitrary lecturing on morality and so on, when all the time the cosmos is out there becokning for us to open our minds to the reality of its splendor. If god really did set this all up just for us, then he'd be rightly dissapointed in our muddled and messy attempts to show our respect to him.
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Jan 30, 2005 20:11:23 GMT -5
Post by bobarian on Jan 30, 2005 20:11:23 GMT -5
Amen.
Cross-apply my analysis from the other thread I responded to except substitute the word "grace" for "love"... thank God I believe in such an awesome God...
Remember those who have let their blood flow for such a God...
There have been more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in all the previous centuries combined.
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Jan 31, 2005 5:19:57 GMT -5
Post by Electron on Jan 31, 2005 5:19:57 GMT -5
With great respect to the martyrs you refer to, your comment underlines my feelings exactly: They were put to death becasue thier beleifs did not correlate with the beliefs of others. This should hardly be of suprise given that their beliefs were essentially random - arising from arbitrary faiths.
If instead their confessed beliefs were in those things provable with evidence, and universal in operation i.e. 2+2=4 they would have got on alot better. I don't mean to trivialise this - but I do think your mindset is one that cannot see the trees for the forrest:
Such confilicts (past and present - but I'll pretend that we are more enlightend nowadays!) are performed in a vacuum of knowledge. Our planet and its place in the cosmos was unknown. There were no unifying photograph of Earth from space that we have now. Life and nature in general appeared to people as a constant series of miracles in the absence of a deeper understanding. One can hardly blame the people of the time for "stabbing around in the dark" for their beliefs and explanations.
But the gradual dawn of scientific revelation has been too slow to jar people into an awakening from this dreamlike state. Like the frog that remains in a pot of water gently heated to boiling point - he doesn't notice what's happening and stays put. That is where I think the various faiths still are right now.
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Jan 31, 2005 15:17:16 GMT -5
Post by H-Zence on Jan 31, 2005 15:17:16 GMT -5
It's my humble opinion that believers should stop pounding non-believers with such statistics, expect them to be "amazed," and that they'll change their mind about who's "right."
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Jan 31, 2005 21:38:00 GMT -5
Post by bobarian on Jan 31, 2005 21:38:00 GMT -5
Hmmm...
#1
First of all you counter my example of Christians who recognize the awesomeness of God by dying for Him by stating that they are deluded, while in your first post you say that you don't respect Christians because they don't respect God. So which is it? Do you not respect Christians because they are deluded or because they don't respect God (there is an underlying contradiction between the two statements.)
#2
I don't understand what science has to do with God except in saying how big God is. Science is relative in the sense that it cannot explain everything but only that which has a natural (and somehow observable) cause (cross-apply my analysis from the thread on Hubris.) Science merely comes up with more complex explanations for how things happen - a perfect example is physics, which was brought up in another thread. Newton had his ideas, which were then extended by Einstein and which were then extended by quantum physics and are being extended today. Thus there has never been an "enlightenment" and neither did people ever believe that everything was a "miracle." People who lived 6000 years ago were just as smart as the people today, they merely didn't have the same level of empirical knowledge that we do.
Quite frankly, science doesn't prove or disprove anything. This was Socrates' argument in the Phaedo (Dialogues of Plato) when he said that it is impossible to say why something is blue except by its relation to Blueness (any other explanation does not give the reason why blue is blue and not green or red but merely about its observable physical properties.) Another simple example is air. Science has proved that when air is heated, it rises. But science has not proven why it can't be that when air is heated, it sinks. Thus we can know how things work now but we can't really explain how they all came to be this way. Big Bang theory doesn't entirely work either because you still need to find some starting point even for a singularity. Stephen Hawking's turn on this using infinite universes has many philosophical problems and doesn't really explain anything besides say that it always is.
Phew.
Anyway, what I am saying is that "science" and "religion" are not in conflict and never were. I appreciate your very deep thinking though and look forward to hearing more.
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Post by Satori on Feb 1, 2005 4:27:29 GMT -5
Science is relative in the sense that it cannot explain everything but only that which has a natural (and somehow observable) cause What else is there?
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Feb 1, 2005 16:11:58 GMT -5
Post by Areopagite on Feb 1, 2005 16:11:58 GMT -5
The existence of the supernatural
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Feb 1, 2005 16:57:52 GMT -5
Post by Electron on Feb 1, 2005 16:57:52 GMT -5
Hmmm... #1 First of all you counter my example of Christians who recognize the awesomeness of God by dying for Him by stating that they are deluded, while in your first post you say that you don't respect Christians because they don't respect God. So which is it? Do you not respect Christians because they are deluded or because they don't respect God (there is an underlying contradiction between the two statements.) I find the visible paraphernalia, customs and methods of worship adopted by all the different religions of the world deeply troubling. It divides peoples into camps - like football supporters wearing team colours - readily sponsoring conflict where no common agreement can be made. If it did indeed exist, I would expect the object of such multipartate worship to be none too pleased by the conflict that ensues as a result of such an arbitrary approach. Far more repect is paid in my opinion by those in an open-minded persuit of concensus truths through scientific invetigation. This approach can indeed lead to concensus because at some fundamental level, the universe operates according to definite and verifyable laws that are accessable to all. The fact that progresses in science have revealed the underlying causes of many a mystery that were previously attributed directly to god suggests (in a line on a graph sort of way) a path towards an ultimate understanding of our existence. Science is in conflict with religion whenever it topples some wrongly held belief e.g. the creation myth or the mechanism behind rainbows (discovered by the monk Francis Bacon). There are highly compelling suggestions coming forward lately which point towards the universe as a logical neccessity arising from the laws of physics - of which science is particularly good at revealing.
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Feb 1, 2005 17:53:50 GMT -5
Post by Satori on Feb 1, 2005 17:53:50 GMT -5
The existence of the supernatural But isn't even the supernatural ' somehow observable', as Bob put it. What I'm trying to get at is that if something was in no way observable, how do we ever know it existed?
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Post by Electron on Feb 2, 2005 3:55:04 GMT -5
Yesterdays supernatural is tomorrows physics. I'm having a day of today ;D
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Feb 2, 2005 17:05:41 GMT -5
Post by Areopagite on Feb 2, 2005 17:05:41 GMT -5
But isn't even the supernatural ' somehow observable', as Bob put it. What I'm trying to get at is that if something was in no way observable, how do we ever know it existed? Yes even the supernatural can be somewhat observable at times. The Son of God supernaturally took on flesh in the incarnation. Naturally, you can observe that His earthly body was made of flesh and blood. Science can't observe the supernatural forces that allowed that to happen. Because the supernatural cannot be observed by science, it must be taken by faith. For example, Lazarus was dead for four days before Jesus raised him from the dead. Naturally, this isn't possible. Therefore, how could this have been done? Through supernatural means.
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Feb 2, 2005 17:41:28 GMT -5
Post by Satori on Feb 2, 2005 17:41:28 GMT -5
Or not at all perhaps
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Feb 2, 2005 17:56:10 GMT -5
Post by Areopagite on Feb 2, 2005 17:56:10 GMT -5
Except that there is more textual evidence of this occuring than there is of Julius Caesar ever invaded Gaul. Guess that never happened either.
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Post by Satori on Feb 3, 2005 4:47:54 GMT -5
Well they recorded David Copperfield floating across the Grand Canyon for all to see, but I'm not sure I believe it.
Except that there is more textual evidence of this occuring
Is there? As far as I know it's only recorded in the Gospels which, to the best of our knowledge, have their root in a single document. What other historical documents is it recorded in? - I'm intruiged.
In actual fact, I simply don't know whether or not Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and neither do you. It's very up in the air as to what Jesus actually did and what was later attributed to him to 'flesh out' a story that would convince people to believe.
The miracles of Jesus are not anywhere near as historically sound as the sayings of Jesus (I don't think Paul even mentions them in his letters) and they're most likely to be mythical.
However, if he did raise Lazarus from the dead, I'd be inclined to believe it was via some medical means rather than a supernatural one.
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Post by Electron on Feb 3, 2005 5:31:12 GMT -5
All this debate is really just skirting around the edges - religious doctrine is based around a set of statements that have logical self-consistency but remain untestable. Reports of eye-witness accounts of events taking place a few thousand years ago are not likely to be any more testable than a personal revelation from god reported by an individual.
Any fictitous story can be produced by such a process. This gives rise to the diversity of various secular writings - and there are no shortage of these in the world. The motive for such works are equally easy to understand, systems can be constructed to provide structure for peoples conduct. Within these structures key areas of human behaviour can be bought under the control of those seeking the control of populations.
The authority of these systems comes ultimately from the innapropriately irrefutable nature of the statements they make about themselves.
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