Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post. Register to become a member today!
funny you mention gravity. I'm sure you're familiar with Newton and the apple, however Newton was actually better know as a theologen than a physisist. As his work in the field of physiscs progressed, he ended up comming to the conclusion that he could not accept his ordination as priest by trinity college. Maybe his example shows you that to fully believe in God, you have to reject a lot of science.
to spell things out for you : Gravity according to a peroson of religious conviction would have to believe that it is a force that is a product of God, not a mundane fundemental force of the universe that is explainable without God's help.
Gravity is explainable without God -- therefore it is hersay according to faith.
The only absurd statements here are those of religious faith.
You asked how one is not suppose to believe in gravity if they are believers in scripture. Gravity is a force uncontrolled by God. Before there was Newtonian physics, individuals of religious faith held to the notion that it was part of God's power to hold things together. You can find in the quotes how one individual claims that there is no gravity, and that things are held down by the weight of sin... This I’m sure he developed using scripture, and not scientific reasoning.
My claim is that religious moderation is less justifiable than religious fundamentalism. Fundamentalists at least adhere to all of the claims within their religious texts. Moderates pick and choose convenient articles of faith, as well as ignore bits of secular knowledge to create a world view to their liking.
If religion addresses a genuine sphere of understanding and human necessity, then it should be susceptible to progress; its doctrines should become more useful, rather than less.
I am not kidding you. And you cannot speak on behalf of every christian. You speak only from your point of view, I argue from the basis of the bible, and from centuries of "idiots" who believe exactly what i said they believed. Your modern day take on things is as coherent as saying the flying sphagetti monster created the universe.
if you go by the basic fundamental belief as the bible as the literal word of God (as you must because that is the only way to argue with religion), then yes, it is, along with many other matters of scientific theory/fact.
(You really saying that the bible is compatible with modern day science-- it's not)
If the theory of gravity was something that is compatible with the doctrine of faith in the bible than Isaac Newton would have been ordained as a priest.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To defend my self
If religion were benign, I would have no quarrels with it. However it is not. Do I need to run through a list of 'evils' done in the name of religion?
well I will for you:
Recent conflicts where religion was the explicit cause of millions of deaths
Palestine -- Jews vs. Muslim
Balkans -- Orthodox Serbians v Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians v. Bosnian & Albanian Muslims
Northern Ireland -- Protestant v Catholic
Kashmir -- Muslim v. Hindu
Sudan-- Muslim v. Christian
Nigeria-- Muslim v. Christian
Ethiopia & Eritrea -- Muslim v. Christian
Sri Lanka- Sinhalese Buddhists v Tamil Hindus
Indonesia -- Muslim v. Timorese Christians
Not to hate on any one in particular-- many Muslims are basically rational and tolerant of others, however I doubt that this stems from their faith
Maybe you'd care to defend Muslim faith against a few of these examples --
(and mind you I’m not asking that Muslims burn in hell, I’m asking for religious faith that allows for these events to occur to go the way of Thor, Ra, Ares and any other ancient God you can think of...)
"mothers were skewered on swords as their children watched. Young women were stripped and raped in broad daylight... then set on fire. A pregnant woman's belly was slit open, her fetus raised skyward on the tip of sword and tossed onto one of the fires that blazed across the city."
actual occurrence describes the violence that occurred between Hindus and Muslims in India during the winter of 2002 * (C.W. DUgger, "Religious Riots Loom over Indian Politics" New York Times July 27, 2002)
Rioting in Nigeria over the 2002 Miss World Pageant claimed over two hundred lives, at the blade of machetes or burned alive all in the name of stopping women from appearing in bikinis.
In 2002 religious police in Mecca prevented paramedics and firefighters from rescuing teenage girls trapped in a burning building because they were not wearing the traditional head coverings specified in the Koran. 14 dead, 50 injured.
** LA times, March 18, 2002
Do you remember what Afghanistan was like under the Taliban? The creatures walking about in shrouds and being regularly beaten for showing an exposed ankle were the dignified and illiterate women of the house of Islam.
Islam is not the only religion guilty here. Given it may be one of the few whose moral code is still stuck in the Middle Ages.
Christianity is responsible for the 40 - 50,000 killing of witches during the three centuries of the inquisition.
While Nazism evolved out of economic and political factors, it was held together by the belief of the racial purity and superiority of the German people. The hatred for the Jew’s in Germany was expressed as predominately secular; it was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. (Even before Hitler in 1861-1895 German anti-Semites offered 'solutions' to the 'Jewish problem' by advocating physical exterminatiion.
Fun facts about heresy
-- 1907 pope pius X declares modernism a heresy.
-- 1992 Galileo absolved of heresy
-- Hitler Never excommunicated.
I'm not against individuals, I’m against religious faith. Religious faith is not open to change; it is not open to discussion. I cannot criticize it without you jumping down my throat and calling me a bigot, and intolerant.
I believe it good to be intolerant of individuals like Hitler, and to be intolerant of institutions that promote the death and killing of others. You should not be tolerant of individuals who hold God hates fags posters at soldier's burials. Religion needs to go, we are ready and capable of new thoughts, new morals, and every other part of our life has progressed immensely, religion has not kept up.
A. yes you can believe that humans are born into sin and are all prone to sin; I agree that this can be found around the world with ease. However this doesn't mean that men are born inherently evil.
Would you say you are inherently prone to sin? I do not go around day to day having urges to steal, lie, kill, fill in the rest...
B. You argue that the crusades are not religious, but economical. O.K. but how could the crusades has been waged if it were not for religious belief? Economical motives, enabled by religious ideologies.
C. Catholic church runs from practically the same book that all other Christians do, your discredit of Catholic intensions is applicable across the board.
D. What is the true knowledge of faith? I'm sure you actually have an answer for this. What sort of knowledge can you actually ascertain from something that you have no proof for?
One commonly give reason to believe in go is because it provides some good The fact that I would feel good if there was a God does not give me the slightest reason to believe that one exists. Let’s redraw this example. I want to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in my yard the size of a refrigerator. It is true that it would feel uncommonly good to believe this, but do I have any reason to believe that there is actually said diamond? No. If I have faith that such a diamond exists there, will I find it? -- Well if it worked I’d be rich wouldn’t I.
E. NO I’m not equating every single Christian with people who do not reflect what a Christian really is. I claim two things: One, that moderate Christians who do not take the bible literally are failed fundamentalists, and according to what their bible says are "going to hell" along with myself. And two Christianity based upon the bible, the only source I can rely upon to provide me with what Christian faith really is, is as bad as I’ve been saying.
F. The story of Jesus and the actual message of the bible, and religious faith are two separate things. You do not need to be a Christian to be able to extract morals from an example such as Jesus. I'm sure Buddha did some pretty great things during his life that you'd agree with, and would live by, but that does not make you a Buddhist.
J. What the fuck are you talking about? Yes we need to rid the world of hunger, genocide, and well misery is tough because of all the emo kids... Seriously though, religious focus on the morality of gay rights, abortion, stem cell, lack of sexual education and promotion of abstinence programs, to start are helping heaps. We've got some major priorities with in our own society to work out. You can call me a hypocrite for saying we need to give up a majority of our material possessions, and start redistributing wealth across the globe. I justify my existence here in the first world because you need to work with what is available to initiate change. I'd happily give up my possessions and live on my own, however it'd be quite selfish to not attempt to bring about change so that those who are the majority of this planet can attain food, a right to life, and a decent standard of living.
Last I checked, Old Testament, still in the bible.
Rather than bring the full force of our creativity and rationality to bear on the problems of ethics, social cohesion and even spiritual experience, moderates such as yourself, as that we relax our standards of adherence to ancient superstitions and taboos while otherwise maintain a belief system that was passed down to us from men and women whose lives were simply ravaged by their basic ignorance about the world.
Moderates do not want to kill anyone in the name of god, but they want us to keep using the word God as though we knew what we were talking about. And they do not want anything too critical said about people who really believe in the God of their fathers.
for me to say the bible and Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish, is antithetical to tolerance -- as now I’m being called a bigot for this-- but looking at our future where one person has the ability to wipe out tens of millions of people at the push of a button, we cannot afford to live in the luxury of political correctness.
I know there are smart and stupid people on both sides of the argument.
Religion has caused directly plenty of wars; it also has been a device to propagate wars even though religion was not the motives behind those in power.
sure greed, jealousy, fear, and hatred play parts in people doing bad things, but religion gives these people a facade to cover their true (read list mentioned) motives for action. Take away religion, and people will have to come up with some better excuse to perform these actions.
If you have the actions out in the open, frankly people will not be able to get away with performing these actions. It's a lot tougher to get people to rally for your side if you have to portray your argument as almostaskier pretended to do about the jihad.
Human ignorance is the leader in the slowdown, I agree, only I believe that the human ignorance is to hold on to these traditions of faith.
Don't let my atheism make you believe I say you can't have any sort of spirituality -- why couldn’t there be some sort of consciousness to the universe, some sort of phenomenal power within our heads to provide self awareness... does this mean there is a God as described by any of the religions of today? No....
recall a thread from a while back, worth a read about how drastically different religion could be for today's age -- http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal
