Re: The Most Frequently Asked Questions About Islam
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
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John Larkin
<pa...@hovnanian.com> wrote:
>Q1: Why are you spamming this group with off-topic crap?
And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
produce so very few scientists and engineers?
John
Jeff Liebermann
>And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
>produce so very few scientists and engineers?
Because science and religion don't mix well. Despite this, Islamic
science did quite well prior to the 14th century:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_scholars>
Afterwards, Islamic science took a big dive. See:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_science#Decline>
for an explanation.
--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
John Larkin
wrote:
>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
>
>>And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
>>produce so very few scientists and engineers?
>
>Because science and religion don't mix well.
Judaism and Christianity have been fairly friendly to science, even
the Catholics. Irish monks "saved civilization" and the Jesuits have
always been scientific. Many of the great minds of science, like
Newton and Einstein, were believers.
And those monks knew their wine and beer, too.
Despite this, Islamic
>science did quite well prior to the 14th century:
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_scholars>
>Afterwards, Islamic science took a big dive. See:
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_science#Decline>
>for an explanation.
Hmmm, just about the time the West started getting serious about the
Scientific Method.
John
Clifford Heath
> Hmmm, just about the time the West started getting serious about the
> Scientific Method.
Actually a large part of the renaissance was the rediscovery of all
the lost and neglected knowledge of the Romans and Greeks that had
been discarded by *Christian* Europe because it was unimportant to
them, but preserved and extended by the Muslims. The renaissance was
spurred along when Spain was conquered, and especially when the great
library at Toledo was opened to Western eyes. Two-thirds of the Latin
words were unknown to contemporary Latin scholars, and couldn't be
easily deciphered because the concepts they attached to were also lost.
So don't muff on about how Christianity is more friendly to science. It
certainly wasn't during the Dark Ages. The Muslims saved a thousand years
of scientific endeavor.
Clifford Heath.
Eeyore
aassime abdellatif wrote:
Why did Mohammed marry a 9 year old is what I'd like to know the answer to.
Graham
Eeyore
John Larkin wrote:
> "Paul Hovnanian P.E." <pa...@hovnanian.com> wrote:
>
> >Q1: Why are you spamming this group with off-topic crap?
>
> And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
> produce so very few scientists and engineers?
Islam is broadly 'anti-free-thinking' and anti-knowledge. Not exactly a winner
for scientific advancement.
Graham
Eeyore
John Larkin wrote:
> Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> >John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
> >
> >>And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
> >>produce so very few scientists and engineers?
> >
> >Because science and religion don't mix well.
>
> Judaism and Christianity have been fairly friendly to science,
Oh really ? I don't think so.
In 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church's
Congregation of the Index suspended De Revolutionibus until it could be
"corrected", on the grounds that the Pythagorean doctrine thet the Earth
revolved about an immobile Sun was "false and altogether opposed to the Holy
Scripture".[14][15]
In 1633, Galileo Galilei was convicted of grave suspicion of heresy for
"following the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and
authority of Holy Scripture",[17] and was placed under house arrest for the rest
of his life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus
And all for just saying the Sun didn't reveolve about the Earth !
RELIGION is fundamentally incompatible with science. RELIGION requirees one to
believe based on faith and disregard the evidence. Science is the exact
OPPOSITE.
Graham
TheM
> On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:47:02 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
> wrote:
>
>>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
>>
>>>And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
>>>produce so very few scientists and engineers?
>>
>>Because science and religion don't mix well.
>
> Judaism and Christianity have been fairly friendly to science, even
> the Catholics. Irish monks "saved civilization" and the Jesuits have
> always been scientific. Many of the great minds of science, like
> Newton and Einstein, were believers.
I don't think Einstein was that crazy about any special flavour of religion (more in the line
of "universal" God IMHO or not even that) and church was not that crazy about him at the
time when he was living as well. How could they be, he said some pretty contraversional stuff:
- I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively
human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
- It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not
believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called
religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
I do think christianity is more successfull than islam due to better separation
of state and church. If they had things their way we'd be a lot worse off than
we are now.
Its high time to let go of superstition and leave this religious BS behind, this is
21st century after all.
M
PeterD
Because he wanted a young boy?
John Larkin
As did the Irish. But the Dark Ages happened a long time ago.
John
Phil Hobbs
The 'lost and neglected' knowledge had been preserved by (Christian)
Byzantium, which wasn't overrun by waves and waves of (pagan) barbarians
and (muslim) Moors between the fifth and seventh centuries, as the
west was. They were the ones who sacked the cities and burned the
libraries. What was left was carefully preserved, copied and copied and
copied, by hand, for centuries, in the most difficult conditions, by
_monks_.
When the Seljuk Turks broke the power of the Byzantine Greeks at the
Battle of Manzikert in (iirc) 1071, a flow of refugees started from
Anatolia to Constantinople, Nicopolis, and the West. The Turks burned
the library at Constantinople when they finally took the city in (iirc)
1457.
So the Muslim contribution was to destroy most of the preserved
classical learning of Byzantium, and to squeeze the remnant westward
like toothpaste. What was left was enough to change the whole culture
of Western Europe.
On the other hand, a purely Western revival of learning was already
underway in the high Middle Ages, culminating in the philosophy and
theology of Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham and the experimental
science of Roger Bacon (all of whom were friars--Aquinas a Dominican,
Bacon a Franciscan, Ockham I forget). Aquinas especially caused a lot
of waves by bringing Aristotelian philosophical technology into western
thought. So the new-old stuff from Byzantium fell on fertile ground.
So what were all the atheists and pagans contributing while all this was
going on?
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
Phil Hobbs
religion? (As opposed to calling it names and trying to make it
unfashionable?) Inquiring minds want to know. ;)
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
John Larkin
Until science can absolutely explain the origin of the universe, the
origin of life, and the nature of consciousness, there's a lot of room
for speculation.
Hell, they don't even understand DNA.
John
Phil Hobbs
It's actually worse than that--mechanistic materialism is
self-contradictory, because it logically implies that thought is
impossible. This is an old, old philosophical result, but unfortunately
people aren't trained to think any more. I've written on this point in
my blog, with specific reference to Einstein's writings on the subject:
http://firstaidtheology.net/2007/11/21/does-science-disprove-religion.aspx
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
Rich Grise
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:59:00 -0500, Phil Hobbs
>>> "John Larkin" <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:229nk39dp7fhp6n9r...@4ax.com...
>>>> On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:47:02 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
>>>>>
>>>>>> And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
>>>>>> produce so very few scientists and engineers?
>>>>> Because science and religion don't mix well.
>>>> Judaism and Christianity have been fairly friendly to science, even
>>>> the Catholics. Irish monks "saved civilization" and the Jesuits have
>>>> always been scientific. Many of the great minds of science, like
>>>> Newton and Einstein, were believers.
>>>
>>> I don't think Einstein was that crazy about any special flavour of religion (more in the line
>>> of "universal" God IMHO or not even that) and church was not that crazy about him at the
>>> time when he was living as well. How could they be, he said some pretty contraversional stuff:
>>> - I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively
>>> human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
>>> - It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not
>>> believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called
>>> religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
>>>
>>> I do think christianity is more successfull than islam due to better separation
>>> of state and church. If they had things their way we'd be a lot worse off than
>>> we are now.
>>>
>>> Its high time to let go of superstition and leave this religious BS behind, this is
>>> 21st century after all.
>>>
>>religion? (As opposed to calling it names and trying to make it
>>unfashionable?) Inquiring minds want to know. ;)
>
> origin of life, and the nature of consciousness, there's a lot of room
> for speculation.
>
> Hell, they don't even understand DNA.
>
In order to create a universe from scratch, you first have to discover the
laws of physics. ;-)
(apologies to Dr. Sagan, rest his soul)
Cheers!
Rich
Rich Grise
> So what were all the atheists and pagans contributing while all this was
> going on?
Sex.
Cheers!
Rich
Jeff Liebermann
>Judaism and Christianity have been fairly friendly to science, even
>the Catholics.
Well, I don't think any religion has been particularly friendly toward
science over its lifetime. Religion tends to produce dogma, which is
unpalatable to scientists. Various temple, book, library, and
scientist burnings should offer some clue as to how friendly.
>Irish monks "saved civilization" and the Jesuits have
>always been scientific.
From what I've read about Newton, in order to be a scientist at the
time, it was required that one also be an ordained minister.
>Many of the great minds of science, like
>Newton and Einstein, were believers.
Sure. The more successful scientists were the ones that were able to
separate science from religion. That's quite a feat, as there is
considerable overlap. For example, the current debate about what
happened before the big bang versus "Let there be light". Judaism
does a decent job of ignoring the potential conflicts. Christianity
is fairly intolerant or heresy but seems to have mellowed out. Islam
is rigid and inflexible.
It's also not one way. The church also does science of sorts:
<http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo/R1024/VO.html>
>And those monks knew their wine and beer, too.
Yep. How else are you going to get people to show up for services?
Give them booze.
>Hmmm, just about the time the West started getting serious about the
>Scientific Method.
Nope. Just about the time when the Black Death tapered off.
Bob Myers
"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:474BEB63...@hotmail.com...
> Islam is broadly 'anti-free-thinking' and anti-knowledge. Not exactly a
> winner
> for scientific advancement.
But that's hardly exclusive to Islam. ANY religion, when
you're faced with the "fundamentalist" flavor of it, must be
"anti-free-thinking" by the very nature of the thing. Any
belief system which is faith-based requires that certain
propositions be set above and apart from all others, and
with a big "Do Not Question These" label placed on them.
That is the exact opposite of the scientific approach.
Science exists and prospers within a "religious" environment
ONLY to the extent that it is allowed to freely question and
investigate, regardless of the nature of the religion itself.
The only "religion" I am aware of that is by nature reasonably
amenable to science is Buddhism, and here I use the quotation
marks because I'm referring to the basic Buddhist philosophy,
which is not truly a "religion" in the common sense of the
word. All others are to some degree anti-science, and that
degree varies with the inflexibility of the religious proponent
in question.
Bob M.
John Larkin
<pc...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net> wrote:
The inventors of quantum mechanics struggled with the concept that
everything - energy and matter - is unresolved probabilistic wave
functions. They decided that conscious observation collapses the wave
functions to one reality, which isn't a lot different from saying "God
did it."
The issue is, pardon my pun, still unresolved,:
John
Don Bowey
"John Larkin" <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
They will not be able to absolutely explain it (again) until they observe
that the universe is shrinking (again).
Don Bowey
"Rich Grise" <ri...@example.net> wrote:
Not so. It will happen with or without our understanding. Time is on it's
side.
Phil Hobbs
The Copenhagen guys were physicists, and therefore ipso facto terrible
philosophers. One of the very few nearly watertight divisions between
people is the one between good physicists and good philosophers.
Newton, Schrodinger, Bohr, Jeans, and Einstein were all horrible at
philosophy, in different ways. I know of only one possible exception,
namely John Polkinghorne, but I'm a physicist, so I can't follow his
philosophy. ;)
Of course lots of philosophers are horrible at it too.
I certainly agree that you can't prove the existence of God in the
conclusive way you can disprove mechanistic materialism, and I don't
demand that anyone share my particular view. What I object to is people
(on any side of an argument) assuming that their position is somehow
privileged, so that it doesn't need to be defended rationally.
Resorting to name-calling, scorn, and fashion does not constitute a
rational defense.
The sort of knee-jerk materialism we hear a lot of on this group (and
practically everywhere else) damages science more than it does religion,
because reason is all science has to go on, whereas religion has
revelation, prayer, and so on as well--even if one discounts divine
help. The decline in standards of scientific rigour, combined with this
airy superiority, has damaged the prestige of science far more than
anything theists have done. I care a lot about science, so this trend
disturbs me very much.
It's especially amusing when people irrationally assume the truth of
rationalism. :)
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
Phil Hobbs
> The issue is, pardon my pun, still unresolved,:
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2007/11/21/scicosmos121.xml
>
>
> John
>
Just loooked at that article. So not only is human activity allegedly
ruining the Earth, those rotten astronomers are actually destroying the
Universe! And who provides a lot of their funding for this nefarious
activity? GEORGE BUSH, that's who.
;)
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
default
<rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
That's easy; 9 year olds aren't allowed to copulate with camels so
they are nice and tight, and Mohammed wasn't much of a man.
--
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Phil Hobbs
You're setting up a straw man. There is no such thing as
"fundamentalism" in the journalistic sense, meaning basically "a
recognizably similar pattern of fear-based religious obscurantism
leading to violence and hatred, common to more than one faith."
Comparing actual groups tarred with that brush, it's hard to find much
similarity of content--though some people do seem to hate them all
indifferently. What exactly is the detailed similarity between, say,
Bob Jones University and Islamic Jihad?
There are billions of Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists, and probably
at least several hundred million agnostics. (I expect real atheists are
a smaller, though still very large, group, but I have no data to go on
there.)
In any group that large, you can find someone to say anything you like.
So what? Why not join in the argument, instead of sniping from the
sidelines like that?
You'd be very hard put to find vacuous generalizations like those ones
coming from an informed Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist. Atheists
generally don't recognise that their view is also a religion, but the
rest of us do--for religious fervour, I'd set Richard Dawkins up against
any televangelist you can find. The difference is that (apart from
Muslims) religious folk generally aren't trying to force atheists into
silence, whereas I'm not sure that's as true of atheists in general.
The scorn levels are pretty different on the two sides, to my eye.
Buddhism, especially Zen, teaches the relativity of all kinds of truth,
and therefore isn't threatened by anything anyone says or thinks, or
demonstrates experimentally. But that isn't exactly a virtue when we're
considering its relationship with science.
Christianity teaches that there's only one kind of truth, and that
therefore it has nothing to fear from honestly conducted science--a view
first articulated (as far as I know) by Aquinas in the 13th Century, and
maintained continuously by most Christian groups since.(*) Some (mainly
American) groups in the late nineteenth century seemed to lack faith in
their own powers of argument, to the point where they decided not to
argue anymore, and retreated into obscurantism. The rest of us kept
going, and are still going.
It's important to realize, though, that what the nineteenth century
folks were up against--modernism--was a far more potent enemy than
post-modernism, precisely because it was superficially
reasonable-sounding. I don't agree with their chickening out like
that, but I'm not in their position.
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
(*) "Honestly conducted science" means "inquiry aimed at discovering the
truths of nature", not "some big fat cat scientist pushing his political
and religious agenda."
John Larkin
<pc...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net> wrote:
>John Larkin wrote:
>
>> The issue is, pardon my pun, still unresolved,:
>>
>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2007/11/21/scicosmos121.xml
>>
>>
>> John
>>
>
>Just loooked at that article. So not only is human activity allegedly
>ruining the Earth, those rotten astronomers are actually destroying the
>Universe!
>
>Cheers,
>
>Phil Hobbs
Does collapsing wave functions travel at the speed of light, or does
it happen everywhere at once? Is a circle of destruction spreading out
from Earth, or did we mess up all that dark matter, billions of
light-years away, already?
See, the Church was right to take away Galileo's telescope.
>And who provides a lot of their funding for this nefarious
>activity? GEORGE BUSH, that's who.
>
>;)
New Scientist couldn't mention galaxies colliding without naming the
Bush Administration as being to blame. Nothing bad like that happened
under Clinton.
John
qrk
There's a few U.S. based Christian groups who are also
anti-free-thinking and anti-knowledge. Heck, they're even supporting
presidential candidates!
Bob Myers
"Phil Hobbs" <pc...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net> wrote in message
news:474C75EB...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net...
> You're setting up a straw man. There is no such thing as "fundamentalism"
> in the journalistic sense, meaning basically "a recognizably similar
> pattern of fear-based religious obscurantism leading to violence and
> hatred, common to more than one faith."
Perhaps I used the wrong term - but it certainly appears to
me that in just about any religion you would care to name, there
will be a subset of followers who are...what's a good term?
Strict literalists? That hard core of believers who are quite
certain that they possess The One And Only Truth, and it
exists in this book, these tablets, or whatever media they
like, handed down from The Almightly in inerrant and
unquestionable form. The anti-science aspect of that sort of
belief is clear. Any time you take a given body of "knowledge"
(assertions, rather) and claim (for no particular reason) that it
simply cannot be questioned, you start down the anti-science
path.
> Comparing actual groups tarred with that brush, it's hard to find much
> similarity of content--though some people do seem to hate them all
> indifferently. What exactly is the detailed similarity between, say, Bob
> Jones University and Islamic Jihad?
Similarity of CONTENT is not the requirement here - it is
similarity of attitude, of the beliefs of that group TOWARD
THEIR OWN DOCTRINE (that it is infallible, inerrant, and
not open to question) that is the common thread. It does
not matter if religion A asserts one thing and religion B asserts
its exact opposite; to the extent that both claim their assertions
to be off-limits to investigation, they are equally opposed to
scientific inquiry.
> You'd be very hard put to find vacuous generalizations like those ones
> coming from an informed Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist. Atheists
> generally don't recognise that their view is also a religion, but the rest
> of us do--for religious fervour, I'd set Richard Dawkins up against any
> televangelist you can find.
The claim that atheism is "also a religion" is one that is quite
commonly made, but I would submit that the simple refusal
to belive in a given proposition (in this case, "God (as described
by X) exists") is hardly a "religious" position. EVERYONE is
an "atheist" when it comes to one or more particular descriptions
of "God," and basically no one could truly claim to be an "atheist"
if we define that term to mean simply a denial of "God exists"
but WITHOUT a specific definition for the word "God." By
itself, and without clarification or more specifics, "God" has
been used so broadly as to be virtually meaningless.
> Buddhism, especially Zen, teaches the relativity of all kinds of truth,
> and therefore isn't threatened by anything anyone says or thinks, or
> demonstrates experimentally. But that isn't exactly a virtue when we're
> considering its relationship with science.
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored
by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found
written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely
on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in
traditions because they have been handed down for many
generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find
that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good
and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
- Gautama, the Buddha
The language isn't what you would find in any science
textbook, at least none that I have read, but I find little in
the above to disagree with if read from the perspective of
a scientist.
> Christianity teaches that there's only one kind of truth, and that
> therefore it has nothing to fear from honestly conducted science--a view
> first articulated (as far as I know) by Aquinas in the 13th Century, and
> maintained continuously by most Christian groups since.(*) Some (mainly
> American) groups in the late nineteenth century seemed to lack faith in
> their own powers of argument, to the point where they decided not to argue
> anymore, and retreated into obscurantism. The rest of us kept going, and
> are still going.
And I by no means am trying to tar all of Christianity with
the anti-science brush. The tradition of the Jesuits, for instance,
within a very wide range of scientific endeavor is a wonderful
example of devout Christian beliefs co-existing with scientific
inquiry. But it seems undeniable that there are, within Christianity,
also a number of sects which are quite notably anti-science (as
there are in the other major religions of the world as well). These
tend to be what would commonly be labelled as "fundamentalist"
branches, but perhaps there is a better term.
Bob M.
radiosrfun
news:oqsok3dhh2dnh3db6...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:01:46 +0000, Eeyore
> <rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>aassime abdellatif wrote:
>>
>>Why did Mohammed marry a 9 year old is what I'd like to know the answer
>>to.
>>
>>Graham
>
>
> That's easy; 9 year olds aren't allowed to copulate with camels so
> they are nice and tight, and Mohammed wasn't much of a man.
> --
That was a good one! Actually though - non of those camel dung eaters - are
much of a man. On the other hand - maybe HOMohummed couldn't find himself a
boy - so was "forced" to take a girl. Most of them do look "queer".
Phil Hobbs
> "Phil Hobbs" <pc...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net> wrote in message
> news:474C75EB...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net...
>> You're setting up a straw man. There is no such thing as "fundamentalism"
>> in the journalistic sense, meaning basically "a recognizably similar
>> pattern of fear-based religious obscurantism leading to violence and
>> hatred, common to more than one faith."
>
> Perhaps I used the wrong term - but it certainly appears to
> me that in just about any religion you would care to name, there
> will be a subset of followers who are...what's a good term?
> Strict literalists? That hard core of believers who are quite
> certain that they possess The One And Only Truth,
Hmm. Do you or do you not possess views you are prepared to defend? It
seems you do. Don't you regard those as being true? If not, why defend
them? And when you defend them, don't you maintain that views
contradicting yours are false?
That isn't a specifically religious thing, it just means that we both
actually possess views. If you're maintaining that there is no
possibility of divine revelation, that seems to me to involve the
assertion that there is no God--because if there is one, revelation
would appear not only possible, but likely, would it not? (A God who
made us but then lost interest and went away would be a curious kind of
eternal being.)
> and it
> exists in this book, these tablets, or whatever media they
> like, handed down from The Almightly in inerrant and
> unquestionable form. The anti-science aspect of that sort of
> belief is clear.
It isn't clear to me. Could you explain, for instance, why believing in
the Virgin Birth means you can't be a good biologist? There have been
quite a lot of apparently good biologists who have believed that. You
seem to have an idea of the mental processes of believers that I don't
recognize. We all know that miracles are an exception--that's why they
get written down and talked about. People in the first century knew
perfectly well how every other woman in history has gotten pregnant.
That's why that one was news. The New Testament is full of people who
didn't believe in the Resurrection until they had actually encountered
the Risen Christ. Checking before buying is a good thing.
Any time you take a given body of "knowledge"
> (assertions, rather) and claim (for no particular reason) that it
> simply cannot be questioned, you start down the anti-science
> path.
Again, you seem to have a picture of the thought processes of believers
that I don't recognize. Have you ever asked any what their reasons were
(for accepting their religion, I mean, not for any specific doctrine
within it)? The only people I know whose faith is so brittle that it
can't stand honest questioning (and even vigorous tire-kicking) are
Jehovah's Witnesses. But that stuff is characteristic of cults, not
real religions. Myself, I'm an adult convert to orthodox
Christianity--I was a garden-variety atheist and rationalist until I was
about 32, so I know the territory, I think. I, and people I talk to,
debate doctrine vigorously--it's as much fun as designing circuits
together, which is saying a lot.
>> Comparing actual groups tarred with that brush, it's hard to find much
>> similarity of content--though some people do seem to hate them all
>> indifferently. What exactly is the detailed similarity between, say, Bob
>> Jones University and Islamic Jihad?
>
> Similarity of CONTENT is not the requirement here - it is
> similarity of attitude, of the beliefs of that group TOWARD
> THEIR OWN DOCTRINE (that it is infallible, inerrant, and
> not open to question)
Ah. Why is it upsetting that people believe differently? Unless
they're trying to force you to agree. Has anyone done that to you lately?
that is the common thread. It does
> not matter if religion A asserts one thing and religion B asserts
> its exact opposite; to the extent that both claim their assertions
> to be off-limits to investigation, they are equally opposed to
> scientific inquiry.
But the content of revelation (at least in the Bible) is precisely
things that science does not concern itself with--things like what life
is for; whether there is justice in the world and if so, how does it
work; how people can be free of what binds them; and how to have a real
relationship with the God who is really there. None of that affects
science even slightly. Does it?
It seems to me that the usual atheist's objection to religion is not so
much rational or scientific, although it's often coloured that way, but
rather moral. We differ on things like whether it's okay to kill unborn
children, or conduct scientific experiments on their body parts, what
constitutes human life, what that life is worth, and whether we have to
answer to anyone for what we do. That's the sort of place where we
actually get in each other's way.
>> You'd be very hard put to find vacuous generalizations like those ones
>> coming from an informed Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist. Atheists
>> generally don't recognise that their view is also a religion, but the rest
>> of us do--for religious fervour, I'd set Richard Dawkins up against any
>> televangelist you can find.
>
> The claim that atheism is "also a religion" is one that is quite
> commonly made, but I would submit that the simple refusal
> to belive in a given proposition (in this case, "God (as described
> by X) exists") is hardly a "religious" position. EVERYONE is
> an "atheist" when it comes to one or more particular descriptions
> of "God," and basically no one could truly claim to be an "atheist"
> if we define that term to mean simply a denial of "God exists"
> but WITHOUT a specific definition for the word "God." By
> itself, and without clarification or more specifics, "God" has
> been used so broadly as to be virtually meaningless.
I didn't mean to offend you. But atheism, at least as practiced by
people like Dawkins and Carl Sagan, does involve the irrational
assertion that God certainly does not exist--which being a negative
assertion, is a good deal harder to prove even than God's existence.
And you're simply mistaken when you say that "everyone is an atheist"
about something. That just denies the plain meaning of the word. So to
my eye, anyway, popular atheism has all the characteristics you seem to
dislike in other religions. There are more rational forms of atheism,
of course--explicitly atheist ones like Epicurianism, and functionally
atheist ones like Stoicism and Deism, as well as totalitarian ones like
Marxism, but they all share the fatal logical flaw I pointed out in my
blog post.
>> Buddhism, especially Zen, teaches the relativity of all kinds of truth,
>> and therefore isn't threatened by anything anyone says or thinks, or
>> demonstrates experimentally. But that isn't exactly a virtue when we're
>> considering its relationship with science.
>
> "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do
> not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored
> by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found
> written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely
> on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in
> traditions because they have been handed down for many
> generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find
> that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good
> and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
>
> - Gautama, the Buddha
>
> The language isn't what you would find in any science
> textbook, at least none that I have read, but I find little in
> the above to disagree with if read from the perspective of
> a scientist.
Well, if you don't believe anything on authority, it's pretty hard to be
a scientist, actually. I can't imagine having to repeat every
experiment underlying the things I do all day. Way over 90% of
everything we know, we know on authority. Isn't that so? Aren't the
fat cat pundits like Dawkins expecting us to believe them, not just on
authority, but really solely on their prestige?
And apart from that, what exactly does Buddha have to say there that's
so earth-shaking? He doesn't seem to have been talking about natural
inquiry anyway, but rather moral inquiry--what is there to 'live up to'
about the theory of relativity or Mendelian genetics? Just telling us
to do our best to live a good life isn't the sort of thing that makes
headlines.
>> Christianity teaches that there's only one kind of truth, and that
>> therefore it has nothing to fear from honestly conducted science--a view
>> first articulated (as far as I know) by Aquinas in the 13th Century, and
>> maintained continuously by most Christian groups since.(*) Some (mainly
>> American) groups in the late nineteenth century seemed to lack faith in
>> their own powers of argument, to the point where they decided not to argue
>> anymore, and retreated into obscurantism. The rest of us kept going, and
>> are still going.
>
> And I by no means am trying to tar all of Christianity with
> the anti-science brush. The tradition of the Jesuits, for instance,
> within a very wide range of scientific endeavor is a wonderful
> example of devout Christian beliefs co-existing with scientific
> inquiry. But it seems undeniable that there are, within Christianity,
> also a number of sects which are quite notably anti-science (as
> there are in the other major religions of the world as well). These
> tend to be what would commonly be labelled as "fundamentalist"
> branches, but perhaps there is a better term.
Okay, fine. There are nutcases everywhere, it's true. But maybe you
ought to tone down your rhetoric--you appeared to be attacking all
religions (except yours) as anti-science.
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
Phil Hobbs
Given the current choices, anyone enthusiastically supporting any of
them is pretty irrational. Hold your nose, it's only a year away.
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
John Larkin
<nospam...@address.invalid> wrote:
>
>"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:474BEB63...@hotmail.com...
>> Islam is broadly 'anti-free-thinking' and anti-knowledge. Not exactly a
>> winner
>> for scientific advancement.
>
>But that's hardly exclusive to Islam. ANY religion, when
>you're faced with the "fundamentalist" flavor of it, must be
>"anti-free-thinking" by the very nature of the thing.
Absurd.
>Any
>belief system which is faith-based requires that certain
>propositions be set above and apart from all others, and
>with a big "Do Not Question These" label placed on them.
Again, absurd. Many religions see their mission as a quest for
understanding, not a defense of fixed beliefs. And many, indeed most
religions, accept science and define their area os interest as
something else.
>That is the exact opposite of the scientific approach.
>Science exists and prospers within a "religious" environment
>ONLY to the extent that it is allowed to freely question and
>investigate, regardless of the nature of the religion itself.
That's true anywhere. Communism was profoundly anti-scientific, more
than most religions ever were.
>
>The only "religion" I am aware of that is by nature reasonably
>amenable to science is Buddhism, and here I use the quotation
>marks because I'm referring to the basic Buddhist philosophy,
>which is not truly a "religion" in the common sense of the
>word. All others are to some degree anti-science, and that
>degree varies with the inflexibility of the religious proponent
>in question.
In what way is, say, Methodism or Judiaism anti-science?
John
Bob Myers
> Hmm. Do you or do you not possess views you are prepared to defend? It
> seems you do. Don't you regard those as being true? If not, why defend
> them? And when you defend them, don't you maintain that views
> contradicting yours are false?
I'm not at all sure how any of that relates to the topic
at hand, but - certainly I have views that I am prepared to
defend. I regard them as being "true" to the extent that
they agree with available evidence and reason, or are of
a nature which is not subject to rational analysis (e.g., "I
like chocolate" is a true statement as far as I'm concerned,
but there is no way I can defend it on purely rational
grounds). When faced with contrary evidence and/or
sufficient rational argument, I at least try to be open to
changing those views. Being only human, of course, I
don't do a perfect job of that any more than the next
person. If a view that contradicts mine does not come in
with sufficient evidence and/or reason to cause me to
change my views, then of course I will personally label
that view as "false" and will not accept it. What others
do with respect to that "other view" is not my concern,
although if they ask for my opinion of it and the reasons
behind that opinion, I will certainly give both.
> That isn't a specifically religious thing, it just means that we both
> actually possess views. If you're maintaining that there is no
> possibility of divine revelation, that seems to me to involve the
> assertion that there is no God--because if there is one, revelation would
> appear not only possible, but likely, would it not? (A God who made us
> but then lost interest and went away would be a curious kind of eternal
> being.)
At what point did you get the impression that I was asserting no
possibility of "divine revelation"? Even if I did, such an assertion
would NOT be the same as asserting that there is no God, but
rather would be an assertion that if there IS a God, said God is
of such a nature that He/She/It is either disinclined or incapable
of "revelation."
The likelihood of "revelation," assuming that there is a God in
the first place, is strongly dependent on the nature of that God,
no?
On the other hand - if we assume that there both IS a God and
that He/She/It IS of the sort both inclined to reveal His/Her/Its
existence (dealing with Divine Gender is NOT something
that English is well suited to...:-)), and we further assume that
said God is either omnipotent or at least capable enough to have
created the universe - would it not also be likely that said
revelation would be in clear and unambiguous form? What
does this God have to gain by being mysterious? Why would
the revelation NOT be in the form of, say, 10-mile-high letters
of eternal flame, written across the face of the Moon, saying
clearly so that all can see "I am God, and I am real!"? You
seem to be arguing that the existence of a God implies that
said God will participate in some form of "revelation," but
that there must also be constraints such that these "revelations"
are pretty much always extraordinarily subtle in nature, at least
in terms of revealing any details about this God. Were this not
so, we should not have so many conflicting (mutually contradictory,
in fact) descriptions of God across the world.
> It isn't clear to me. Could you explain, for instance, why believing in
> the Virgin Birth means you can't be a good biologist?
No one said it did. You are giving an irrelevant specific example in
response to my speaking about the general tendencies of a *sub-set*
of religious believers. Which is not to say that there are NOT
specific examples pertaining to that sub-set and their beliefs -
for instance, it very likely IS difficult to be both a "good biologist"
and a strict believer in young-Earth, seven-day Creationism.
> There have been quite a lot of apparently good biologists who have
> believed that. You seem to have an idea of the mental processes of
> believers that I don't recognize. We all know that miracles are an
> exception--that's why they get written down and talked about. People in
> the first century knew perfectly well how every other woman in history has
> gotten pregnant. That's why that one was news. The New Testament is full
> of people who didn't believe in the Resurrection until they had actually
> encountered the Risen Christ. Checking before buying is a good thing.
Or in the words of Thomas Paine:
"If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely
out of the course of what is called nature, that she must go
out of that course to accomplish it, and we see an account
given of such a miracle by the person who said he saw it,
it raises a question in the mind very easily decided, which is,
--Is it more probable that nature should go out of her
course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never
seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have
good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told
in the same time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one, that
the reporter of a miracle tells a lie." (From "The Age of Reason,"
chapter 17, recommended to anyone who finds this thread
to be of interest.)
> Again, you seem to have a picture of the thought processes of believers
> that I don't recognize. Have you ever asked any what their reasons were
> (for accepting their religion, I mean, not for any specific doctrine
> within it)? The only people I know whose faith is so brittle that it
> can't stand honest questioning (and even vigorous tire-kicking) are
> Jehovah's Witnesses.
I would respectfully suggest, then, that you need to check into
a few more of the...shall we say, more conservative?...
branches of the Christian faith.
> But that stuff is characteristic of cults, not real religions. Myself,
> I'm an adult convert to orthodox Christianity--I was a garden-variety
> atheist and rationalist until I was about 32, so I know the territory, I
> think. I, and people I talk to, debate doctrine vigorously--it's as much
> fun as designing circuits together, which is saying a lot.
Oh, agreed 100%, although I my own "conversion" was in
the opposite direction (and not nearly as far - I would not
claim the title "atheist," but rather - were I to be required to
claim any - "agnostic," in the proper sense of that word).
>> Similarity of CONTENT is not the requirement here - it is
>> similarity of attitude, of the beliefs of that group TOWARD
>> THEIR OWN DOCTRINE (that it is infallible, inerrant, and
>> not open to question)
>
> Ah. Why is it upsetting that people believe differently? Unless they're
> trying to force you to agree. Has anyone done that to you lately?
Why do you assume that I am at all upset by this? I am
simply providing an analysis of a given situation as I see it.
That people believe differently is quite evident, and not at
all upsetting. Only a fool is "upset" by a mere statement
of fact.
> But the content of revelation (at least in the Bible) is precisely things
> that science does not concern itself with--things like what life is for;
> whether there is justice in the world and if so, how does it work; how
> people can be free of what binds them; and how to have a real relationship
> with the God who is really there. None of that affects science even
> slightly. Does it?
To the extent that a given set of "religious" beliefs were to be
seen as applying solely to those topics, clearly "science" is
not affected. On the other hand - on what grounds do we
assert that these same questions are not subject to investigation
using at least some form of the scientific method? To rule them
"out of bounds" to science seems remarkably arbitrary, especially
in the case of those religions/believers who do this "ruling out"
while simultaneously attempting to inject their religious beliefs
into fields within which science quite clearly IS applicable - the
development of life on Earth, to name a current example, or
matters of astronomy if we look back to the time of Galileo and
Copernicus.
> It seems to me that the usual atheist's objection to religion is not so
> much rational or scientific, although it's often coloured that way, but
> rather moral. We differ on things like whether it's okay to kill unborn
> children, or conduct scientific experiments on their body parts, what
> constitutes human life, what that life is worth, and whether we have to
> answer to anyone for what we do. That's the sort of place where we
> actually get in each other's way.
Perhaps in some cases; on the other hand, to equate "atheism"
per se with immorality is equally incorrect and unjust; there are
obviously atheists who behave in a manner which would be seen
as quite "moral" by the vast majority of people. It is simply that
their morality does not have a supernatural basis. Do you mean
to argue that those whose religious beliefs differ from your own
(or even from the "typical" religious beliefs within a given
society) have no place in discussions of moral issues?
> I didn't mean to offend you. But atheism, at least as practiced by people
> like Dawkins and Carl Sagan, does involve the irrational assertion that
> God certainly does not exist--which being a negative assertion, is a good
> deal harder to prove even than God's existence.
I would have to question at this point how familiar you really are
with Sagan's positions on the subject. Have you read the book by
Sagan that I mentioned earlier? Dawkins - definitely, Dawkins is
an very outspoken and assertive atheist. On the other hand, both
men have put forward a goodly number of rational argument with
respect to their positions, and it does little good in terms of advancing
the overall discussion to simply point to them and shout "Irrational!"
without actually dealing with them.
> And you're simply mistaken when you say that "everyone is an atheist"
> about something. That just denies the plain meaning of the word.
Well, forgive me if I continue to disagree. But what I meant is -
a devout Hindu, let's say, could reasonably be considered an
"atheist" with respect to the Christian model of "God," and vice-
versa. To exclude all "believers" (in any and all forms of "religious"
belief) again stretches the meaning of the word "God" to the
point where it becomes sufficiently vague so as to be virtually
useless. If "God" is taken that broadly - to the point where "theism"
simply equates to "belief in a higher power" - then you are
very close to the point where a belief in the basic laws of
physics would qualify one as a "theist."
> Well, if you don't believe anything on authority, it's pretty hard to be a
> scientist, actually. I can't imagine having to repeat every experiment
> underlying the things I do all day. Way over 90% of everything we know,
> we know on authority. Isn't that so?
In practical terms, yes - but "scientific" knowledge is by
definition that which COULD be tested by experiment should
one choose to do so. I too do not independently verify, say,
the correctness of Maxwell's equations before using them -
but I do have reason to believe that they are correct (the use
of them gives consistent and predictable results) and (possibly
more importantly) I could test them if I so chose. (In fact, such
tests are routinely conducted, under the guise of demonstrations
to students around the world, each and every day.) Such
knowledge clearly IS of a different nature than the assertion
"there is a God, and these are His characteristics" where
such descriptions not only are NOT routinely tested, but
do not contain within them any clear means whereby they might
BE tested such that we would expect unambiguous results.
Classically, we would say that "religious beliefs" fail Popper's
requirement that science be "falsifiable."
> Aren't the fat cat pundits like Dawkins expecting us to believe them, not
> just on authority, but really solely on their prestige?
Read what Dawkins, etc., say. Where a rational argument
is presented, show the flaws in it or the underlying assumptions
and/or evidence. In the absence of such discussion, the above
statement starts to veer dangerously close to being an
ad-hominem argument.
>
> And apart from that, what exactly does Buddha have to say there that's so
> earth-shaking? He doesn't seem to have been talking about natural inquiry
> anyway, but rather moral inquiry--what is there to 'live up to' about the
> theory of relativity or Mendelian genetics? Just telling us to do our
> best to live a good life isn't the sort of thing that makes headlines.
Is it required that one makes headlines to be speaking a
spiritual, moral, or even practical truth?
> Okay, fine. There are nutcases everywhere, it's true. But maybe you
> ought to tone down your rhetoric--you appeared to be attacking all
> religions (except yours) as anti-science.
Hopefully, it is abundantly clear at this point that I am not
doing that at all. Are you perhaps also making an unwarranted
assumption that I was?
Bob M.
Jamie
DNA?
I have my theories on that one...
Signed:
A man from Maine where every one is related!
--
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5
Jamie
With the way oil prices and sources is going, the dark ages may
return!
Rich Grise
> That's true anywhere. Communism was profoundly anti-scientific, more
> than most religions ever were.
So, I guess Al Gore and the warmingists are communists? Global Warmingism
is unquestionably anti-scientific. ;-)
Cheers!
Rich
AZ Nomad
>On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:43:23 -0700, "Bob Myers"
><nospam...@address.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:474BEB63...@hotmail.com...
>>> Islam is broadly 'anti-free-thinking' and anti-knowledge. Not exactly a
>>> winner
>>> for scientific advancement.
>>
>>But that's hardly exclusive to Islam. ANY religion, when
>>you're faced with the "fundamentalist" flavor of it, must be
>>"anti-free-thinking" by the very nature of the thing.
>Absurd.
Then you should have no problem naming a single counter example.
Please name a single fundamentalist religion that has no dogma.
Most are insane enough to believe the likes of noah's flood or that
a human-god hybrid had to die in order for the rest of their god to
quit being pissed off at his followers.
Rich Grise
> It isn't clear to me. Could you explain, for instance, why believing in
> the Virgin Birth means you can't be a good biologist?
Because people don't bud? ;-)
The mythologists made her a virgin because nobody was capable of
comtemplating what God's penis might have looked like. >;->
Cheers!
Rich
TheM
>>Hmm. Would you explain exactly how modern knowledge has disproved
>>religion? (As opposed to calling it names and trying to make it
>>unfashionable?) Inquiring minds want to know. ;)
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>Phil Hobbs
>
>
> Until science can absolutely explain the origin of the universe, the
> origin of life, and the nature of consciousness, there's a lot of room
> for speculation.
>
> Hell, they don't even understand DNA.
>
> John
Sure, but do you propose that there is a white-bearded man up there who
gets upset when you miss the Sunday sermon? Or gives a damn whether
we earthlings eat pork, use contraception, use technical apartus on sunday,
practice gay/lesbian love etc etc?
I'd say church as an institution is BS. There might be something out there,
though. Who knows. It is indeed arogant to claim anything when faced with
the incredible findings of quantum mechanics. But to follow all the crazy
rules religions have created in order to reach afterlife/heaven is bizzare.
M
RTP
> "Phil Hobbs" <pc...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net> wrote in message
>> That isn't a specifically religious thing, it just means that we both
>> actually possess views. If you're maintaining that there is no
>> possibility of divine revelation, that seems to me to involve the
>> assertion that there is no God--because if there is one, revelation
>> would appear not only possible, but likely, would it not? (A God who
>> made us but then lost interest and went away would be a curious kind of
>> eternal being.)
>
> At what point did you get the impression that I was asserting no
> possibility of "divine revelation"? Even if I did, such an assertion
> would NOT be the same as asserting that there is no God, but rather
> would be an assertion that if there IS a God, said God is of such a
> nature that He/She/It is either disinclined or incapable of
> "revelation."
>
> The likelihood of "revelation," assuming that there is a God in the
> first place, is strongly dependent on the nature of that God, no?
>
> On the other hand - if we assume that there both IS a God and that
> He/She/It IS of the sort both inclined to reveal His/Her/Its existence
> (dealing with Divine Gender is NOT something that English is well suited
> to...:-)), and we further assume that said God is either omnipotent or
> at least capable enough to have created the universe - would it not also
> be likely that said revelation would be in clear and unambiguous form?
Well, somebody here claims to have all of those answers:
http://www.godchannel.com
Cheers!
Rich
Don Bowey
474C6D50...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net, "Phil Hobbs"
<pc...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net> wrote:
Well frankly, being rational all the time isn't all that much fun. And
that's the truth.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Phil Hobbs
Phil Hobbs
Sounds like a quotation from the Gospel according to Edith Ann. ;)
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
"My name is Edith Ann, and I'm five years old. I told a hundred fibs
today, And that's the truth, pthththth." (Lily Tomlin, for whippersnappers)
Phil Hobbs
> "John Larkin" <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:hhjok3lpd7l9fc9ta...@4ax.com...
>> Hell, they don't even understand DNA.
>>
>> John
>
> Sure, but do you propose that there is a white-bearded man up there who
> gets upset when you miss the Sunday sermon? Or gives a damn whether
> we earthlings eat pork, use contraception, use technical apartus on sunday,
> practice gay/lesbian love etc etc?
>
> I'd say church as an institution is BS. There might be something out there,
> though. Who knows. It is indeed arogant to claim anything when faced with
> the incredible findings of quantum mechanics. But to follow all the crazy
> rules religions have created in order to reach afterlife/heaven is bizzare.
A preacher of about 50 years ago, Harry Emerson Fosdick, used to ask
people who said they didn't believe in God, "Tell me about this god you
don't believe in." Almost invariably, when they were done, he was able
to say, "I don't believe in that god either. Let me tell you about the
God I do believe in."
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
John Larkin
I met The Rev. William Sloan Coffin once, at Tulane. He said "I don't
know if I believe in God, but Jesus was my kind of guy."
Well, that's my only good preacher story.
John
Phil Hobbs
> "Phil Hobbs" <pc...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net> wrote in message
> news:474C8D1F...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net...
>> Hmm. Do you or do you not possess views you are prepared to defend? It
>> seems you do. Don't you regard those as being true? If not, why defend
>> them? And when you defend them, don't you maintain that views
>> contradicting yours are false?
>
> I'm not at all sure how any of that relates to the topic
> at hand, but - certainly I have views that I am prepared to
> defend.
<snip>
> If a view that contradicts mine does not come in
> with sufficient evidence and/or reason to cause me to
> change my views, then of course I will personally label
> that view as "false" and will not accept it.
Hmm again. When you say "I will personally label that view as false",
do you mean to say that it might be false for you and true for them? Or
that you think it's false, period? We're talking about matters external
to ourselves--e.g. did God actually speak to Man, or not?--it's either
true or false for everyone. The historical claims of Christianity are
in that class.
> What others
> do with respect to that "other view" is not my concern,
> although if they ask for my opinion of it and the reasons
> behind that opinion, I will certainly give both.
>
I'd love to hear them, but so far all I've heard is name-calling and
irrelevancies, such as misrepresenting Buddha, or calling the views of
some small and eccentric group Christianity. Just saying that something
is absurd is not an argument. I asked whether you thought it was
illegitimate for religious people to think their view was true, as you
think yours is. You certainly don't seem to give them equal respect.
>> That isn't a specifically religious thing, it just means that we both
>> actually possess views. If you're maintaining that there is no
>> possibility of divine revelation, that seems to me to involve the
>> assertion that there is no God--because if there is one, revelation would
>> appear not only possible, but likely, would it not? (A God who made us
>> but then lost interest and went away would be a curious kind of eternal
>> being.)
>
> At what point did you get the impression that I was asserting no
> possibility of "divine revelation"? Even if I did, such an assertion
> would NOT be the same as asserting that there is no God, but
> rather would be an assertion that if there IS a God, said God is
> of such a nature that He/She/It is either disinclined or incapable
> of "revelation."
Well, minus the scare quotes, you did seem to be implying that people
who believed that God had given a revelation to Man were idiots, whose
view didn't merit serious consideration, whereas yours did. Isn't that
what you meant to imply? The only way I know of to rule out divine
revelation is to rule out a divinity. You don't appear to know any
other way either.
Just what weight do you expect your notion that God is uninterested to
hold? What rational basis do you have for that assertion? (I don't
mean that it's impossible that it might be true--Jefferson thought more
or less the same--but you seem to be very sure about it, on no evidence
that I've seen.)
> The likelihood of "revelation," assuming that there is a God in
> the first place, is strongly dependent on the nature of that God,
> no?
Of course. But we're not talking about random spirits that might be
hanging around someone's seance, we're talking about a Creator. Arguing
that a being interested enough to create everything has such a short
attention span as to lose interest thereafter seems odd. Certainly it's
non-obvious, so you'd need a bit more to base a theology (or an
a-theology)on.
>
> On the other hand - if we assume that there both IS a God and
> that He/She/It IS of the sort both inclined to reveal His/Her/Its
> existence (dealing with Divine Gender is NOT something
> that English is well suited to...:-)), and we further assume that
> said God is either omnipotent or at least capable enough to have
> created the universe - would it not also be likely that said
> revelation would be in clear and unambiguous form? What
> does this God have to gain by being mysterious? Why would
> the revelation NOT be in the form of, say, 10-mile-high letters
> of eternal flame, written across the face of the Moon, saying
> clearly so that all can see "I am God, and I am real!"?
Well, St Paul would have said that the existence of the Moon in the sky
is a pretty good indication in itself, and the moral law written on our
hearts is another. Christians believe that God has revealed to us
certain quite unalterable facts about his own nature. Why would you
expect the God who made the universe to be easily captured in human
categories? Surely a god like that would be more likely to be a
made-up one? We can know a few things about God by natural reason, but
a very great deal, e.g. His triune nature, we could never have found out
on our own steam. (People can make things up, of course, but I mean
that the Trinity couldn't be established as true without revelation.)
The Bible is not a rule-book. Rules and principles make up only a tiny
fraction, even if you count the Levitical laws that are no longer in
force. It's primarily a book about God's long love affair with His
people--you and me and everyone else--and of the depth of His love for
us, and how He has loved us enough to die in our place to save us. The
few rules there are are of the "don't-touch-the-stove-it's-hot"
variety--intended to prevent harm to us and to others. The Gospel is a
Gospel of freedom, not of bondage. The bonds we make for ourselves.
> You
> seem to be arguing that the existence of a God implies that
> said God will participate in some form of "revelation," but
> that there must also be constraints such that these "revelations"
> are pretty much always extraordinarily subtle in nature, at least
> in terms of revealing any details about this God. Were this not
> so, we should not have so many conflicting (mutually contradictory,
> in fact) descriptions of God across the world.
No, it's just that not all of them are entirely accurate. The nature of
God is a central concern of all mankind, and people have to do their
best with what they have available. God honours that, and so should we.
It's not a reason to stick to an inferior picture in the face of a
superior one--but everyone has to make up his own mind about that.
>
>
>> It isn't clear to me. Could you explain, for instance, why believing in
>> the Virgin Birth means you can't be a good biologist?
>
> No one said it did. You are giving an irrelevant specific example in
> response to my speaking about the general tendencies of a *sub-set*
> of religious believers. Which is not to say that there are NOT
> specific examples pertaining to that sub-set and their beliefs -
> for instance, it very likely IS difficult to be both a "good biologist"
> and a strict believer in young-Earth, seven-day Creationism.
Sure, but we were excluding nutcases, I thought. If you were brought up
in Creation Science circles, I quite understand your feelings. Those
guys are fighting the wrong battle, and bringing the Gospel into
disrepute. No argument there--but that isn't Christianity, it's one
particular Christian group's way of protecting its identity. Christians
can be very silly sometimes, it's true.
>> There have been quite a lot of apparently good biologists who have
>> believed that. You seem to have an idea of the mental processes of
>> believers that I don't recognize. We all know that miracles are an
>> exception--that's why they get written down and talked about. People in
>> the first century knew perfectly well how every other woman in history has
>> gotten pregnant. That's why that one was news. The New Testament is full
>> of people who didn't believe in the Resurrection until they had actually
>> encountered the Risen Christ. Checking before buying is a good thing.
>
> Or in the words of Thomas Paine:
>
> "If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely
> out of the course of what is called nature, that she must go
> out of that course to accomplish it, and we see an account
> given of such a miracle by the person who said he saw it,
> it raises a question in the mind very easily decided, which is,
> --Is it more probable that nature should go out of her
> course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never
> seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have
> good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told
> in the same time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one, that
> the reporter of a miracle tells a lie." (From "The Age of Reason,"
> chapter 17, recommended to anyone who finds this thread
> to be of interest.)
A famous name, but a truly silly and circular argument. Of course if
you assume there's no God, there are no miracles, and since historically
attested miracles--specifically Christ's miracles--are the basic
evidence for Christianity, you wind up concluding that there's no God.
You dispose of the evidence by saying that all the witnesses are liars.
That's the standard modernist approach too.
Nobody ever said that nature "must go out of her course to accomplish
it". It's God who accomplishes it, and if we suppose that God created
nature, what's irrational about miracles? Paine has to assume without
proof that there is no God before his argument has any weight.
And then, against the almost universal witness of mankind, he has the
temerity to call anyone who tells him something he can't accept a liar,
without any effort at examining the evidence. There's a closed-minded
character for you.
>
>> Again, you seem to have a picture of the thought processes of believers
>> that I don't recognize. Have you ever asked any what their reasons were
>> (for accepting their religion, I mean, not for any specific doctrine
>> within it)? The only people I know whose faith is so brittle that it
>> can't stand honest questioning (and even vigorous tire-kicking) are
>> Jehovah's Witnesses.
>
> I would respectfully suggest, then, that you need to check into
> a few more of the...shall we say, more conservative?...
> branches of the Christian faith.
I'm sorry if you've had a bad experience with some of those folks. I've
talked with many of them, as well as lots of JWs and a few Mormons.
Their peculiarities are really an American phenomenon rather than a
Christian one. They may be conservative politically, but I wouldn't
call them conservative theologically. A lot of their theology is way
out on a limb, in fact--some of those groups think that Christianity
forbids alcohol, and dancing, and are very invested in their own
particular view of the end times, which has no basis in the tradition
and is not particularly biblical either. I'm a three-streams Anglican
myself.
>> But that stuff is characteristic of cults, not real religions. Myself,
>> I'm an adult convert to orthodox Christianity--I was a garden-variety
>> atheist and rationalist until I was about 32, so I know the territory, I
>> think. I, and people I talk to, debate doctrine vigorously--it's as much
>> fun as designing circuits together, which is saying a lot.
>
> Oh, agreed 100%, although I my own "conversion" was in
> the opposite direction (and not nearly as far - I would not
> claim the title "atheist," but rather - were I to be required to
> claim any - "agnostic," in the proper sense of that word).
>>> Similarity of CONTENT is not the requirement here - it is
>>> similarity of attitude, of the beliefs of that group TOWARD
>>> THEIR OWN DOCTRINE (that it is infallible, inerrant, and
>>> not open to question)
>> Ah. Why is it upsetting that people believe differently? Unless they're
>> trying to force you to agree. Has anyone done that to you lately?
>
> Why do you assume that I am at all upset by this? I am
> simply providing an analysis of a given situation as I see it.
> That people believe differently is quite evident, and not at
> all upsetting. Only a fool is "upset" by a mere statement
> of fact.
It was the capital letters. They're usually considered the Usenet
equivalent of shouting.
>
>
>> But the content of revelation (at least in the Bible) is precisely things
>> that science does not concern itself with--things like what life is for;
>> whether there is justice in the world and if so, how does it work; how
>> people can be free of what binds them; and how to have a real relationship
>> with the God who is really there. None of that affects science even
>> slightly. Does it?
>
> To the extent that a given set of "religious" beliefs were to be
> seen as applying solely to those topics, clearly "science" is
> not affected. On the other hand - on what grounds do we
> assert that these same questions are not subject to investigation
> using at least some form of the scientific method? To rule them
> "out of bounds" to science seems remarkably arbitrary, especially
> in the case of those religions/believers who do this "ruling out"
> while simultaneously attempting to inject their religious beliefs
> into fields within which science quite clearly IS applicable - the
> development of life on Earth, to name a current example, or
> matters of astronomy if we look back to the time of Galileo and
> Copernicus.
Have a look at my blog post,
http://firstaidtheology.net/2007/11/21/does-science-disprove-religion.aspx.
Not all questions are scientific, just as you earlier said that whether
chocolate is good-tasting or not is not a true-false question.
>
>> It seems to me that the usual atheist's objection to religion is not so
>> much rational or scientific, although it's often coloured that way, but
>> rather moral. We differ on things like whether it's okay to kill unborn
>> children, or conduct scientific experiments on their body parts, what
>> constitutes human life, what that life is worth, and whether we have to
>> answer to anyone for what we do. That's the sort of place where we
>> actually get in each other's way.
>
> Perhaps in some cases; on the other hand, to equate "atheism"
> per se with immorality is equally incorrect and unjust; there are
> obviously atheists who behave in a manner which would be seen
> as quite "moral" by the vast majority of people. It is simply that
> their morality does not have a supernatural basis. Do you mean
> to argue that those whose religious beliefs differ from your own
> (or even from the "typical" religious beliefs within a given
> society) have no place in discussions of moral issues?
I never equated atheism with immorality. Where did you get that from?
I just said that it was moral issues and not scientific issues where
theists and atheists got in each other's way. Isn't that true?
>> I didn't mean to offend you. But atheism, at least as practiced by people
>> like Dawkins and Carl Sagan, does involve the irrational assertion that
>> God certainly does not exist--which being a negative assertion, is a good
>> deal harder to prove even than God's existence.
>
> I would have to question at this point how familiar you really are
> with Sagan's positions on the subject. Have you read the book by
> Sagan that I mentioned earlier? Dawkins - definitely, Dawkins is
> an very outspoken and assertive atheist. On the other hand, both
> men have put forward a goodly number of rational argument with
> respect to their positions, and it does little good in terms of advancing
> the overall discussion to simply point to them and shout "Irrational!"
> without actually dealing with them.
I don't think I was the one shouting. I've read several books by Sagan,
but none that addresses the central fact that materialism logically
excludes the possibility of logical thought, which is the nub of the
whole thing. Have a look at the blog post again.
>
>> And you're simply mistaken when you say that "everyone is an atheist"
>> about something. That just denies the plain meaning of the word.
>
> Well, forgive me if I continue to disagree. But what I meant is -
> a devout Hindu, let's say, could reasonably be considered an
> "atheist" with respect to the Christian model of "God," and vice-
> versa. To exclude all "believers" (in any and all forms of "religious"
> belief) again stretches the meaning of the word "God" to the
> point where it becomes sufficiently vague so as to be virtually
> useless. If "God" is taken that broadly - to the point where "theism"
> simply equates to "belief in a higher power" - then you are
> very close to the point where a belief in the basic laws of
> physics would qualify one as a "theist."
You're just blowing smoke. Nobody but you uses the word that way.
>
>
>> Well, if you don't believe anything on authority, it's pretty hard to be a
>> scientist, actually. I can't imagine having to repeat every experiment
>> underlying the things I do all day. Way over 90% of everything we know,
>> we know on authority. Isn't that so?
>
> In practical terms, yes - but "scientific" knowledge is by
> definition that which COULD be tested by experiment should
> one choose to do so. I too do not independently verify, say,
> the correctness of Maxwell's equations before using them -
> but I do have reason to believe that they are correct (the use
> of them gives consistent and predictable results) and (possibly
> more importantly) I could test them if I so chose. (In fact, such
> tests are routinely conducted, under the guise of demonstrations
> to students around the world, each and every day.) Such
> knowledge clearly IS of a different nature than the assertion
> "there is a God, and these are His characteristics" where
> such descriptions not only are NOT routinely tested, but
> do not contain within them any clear means whereby they might
> BE tested such that we would expect unambiguous results.
> Classically, we would say that "religious beliefs" fail Popper's
> requirement that science be "falsifiable."
It isn't true that all religious beliefs fail Popper's criterion, except
in the sense that all historical sciences fail it too. Nobody now alive
has ever met a cave man, or watched the Battle of Trafalgar. And do you
really believe that scientific questions are the only important kind?
How about when your daughter says, "Do you love me, Daddy?"
And in the part you're objecting to, I was just saying that your Buddha
quotation was (a) not about science, but rather about morality, because
you don't have to 'live up to' a scientific theory, and (b) understood
to be about morality, it really didn't amount to much more than "try to
live a good life." You were trying to turn it into something it wasn't.
>
>> Aren't the fat cat pundits like Dawkins expecting us to believe them, not
>> just on authority, but really solely on their prestige?
>
> Read what Dawkins, etc., say. Where a rational argument
> is presented, show the flaws in it or the underlying assumptions
> and/or evidence. In the absence of such discussion, the above
> statement starts to veer dangerously close to being an
> ad-hominem argument.
Strict rationalism is self-contradictory, as in the post referenced
above. I didn't make up that argument, it's an old philosophical
commonplace. Did you think that rationalism was a modern phenomenon?
It's older than Christianity, and so is the refutation. Half of the
history of philosophy has concerned the mind-body question.
My remark about Dawkins was about his religious fervour, not about his
arguments, which I never purported to examine. Show me where I said
something about him that wasn't true. Ad hominem, humph. Can't you do
better than name-calling?
>> And apart from that, what exactly does Buddha have to say there that's so
>> earth-shaking? He doesn't seem to have been talking about natural inquiry
>> anyway, but rather moral inquiry--what is there to 'live up to' about the
>> theory of relativity or Mendelian genetics? Just telling us to do our
>> best to live a good life isn't the sort of thing that makes headlines.
>
> Is it required that one makes headlines to be speaking a
> spiritual, moral, or even practical truth?
You seemed to be trying to make the point that the Buddha was especially
science-friendly by misusing a moral maxim as though it were a blueprint
for independent scientific investigation. Don't get me wrong, I hold to
a lot of platitudes myself, but that one won't bear the weight you were
putting on it.
>
>> Okay, fine. There are nutcases everywhere, it's true. But maybe you
>> ought to tone down your rhetoric--you appeared to be attacking all
>> religions (except yours) as anti-science.
>
> Hopefully, it is abundantly clear at this point that I am not
> doing that at all. Are you perhaps also making an unwarranted
> assumption that I was?
>
Well, I'm not at all persuaded, but others can go back to your earlier
posts and make up their own minds, I suppose. We've about beaten this
dead horse into oblivion.
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
krw
ri...@example.net says...
Not that the logic is worth anything, but the conclusion is right on
the mark.
--
Keith
Robert Latest
> People in the first century knew
> perfectly well how every other woman in history has gotten pregnant.
> That's why that one was news.
People always liked good stories, and stories tend to get better when they
get re-told and passed on many times over.
> The New Testament is full of people who didn't believe in the
> Resurrection until they had actually encountered
> the Risen Christ. Checking before buying is a good thing.
The New Testament (or actually, the whole Bible) is full of good stories.
And good stories are all the more enjoyable if you actually believe them.
> But the content of revelation (at least in the Bible) is precisely
> things that science does not concern itself with--things like what life
> is for; whether there is justice in the world and if so, how does it
> work; how people can be free of what binds them; and how to have a real
> relationship with the God who is really there. None of that affects
> science even slightly. Does it?
No.
> It seems to me that the usual atheist's objection to religion is not so
> much rational or scientific, although it's often coloured that way, but
> rather moral.
No. The atheist's (or at least, mine) objection to religion is the claim of
truth that many religions (or believers) have. I never believed in God,
virgin birth or any other such hocus-pocus, but that was all right with the
Lutherans among whom I grew up. What turned me actively anti-religion was a
year-long stay in the Bible belt and some sobering services in Catholic
churches.
> We differ on things like whether it's okay to kill unborn
> children, or conduct scientific experiments on their body parts, what
> constitutes human life, what that life is worth, and whether we have to
> answer to anyone for what we do. That's the sort of place where we
> actually get in each other's way.
Depends entirely on the particular flavor of religion-- or the individual
believer-- you're dealing with.
> I didn't mean to offend you. But atheism, at least as practiced by
> people like Dawkins and Carl Sagan, does involve the irrational
> assertion that God certainly does not exist
At least Dawkins doesn't make that assertion. About Sagan I don't know.
robert
Phil Hobbs
> Phil Hobbs wrote:
>
>> People in the first century knew
>> perfectly well how every other woman in history has gotten pregnant.
>> That's why that one was news.
>
> People always liked good stories, and stories tend to get better when they
> get re-told and passed on many times over.
Is that just a remark, or an assertion like Paine's that all the
witnesses were liars? The historical evidence is very good, far better
than for any other event until the 17th century or thereabouts. Tossing
it out unexamined rather implies a prior commitment to atheism, or
perhaps a prior commitment to keeping the waters muddy enough so as not
to interfere with our freedom of action.
The New Testament books were in wide circulation within the lifetime of
the Apostles. Even the Gospel of John, one of the later books, is known
to have been in wide use before AD 80. This was a very amusing result
of biblical archeology--for 100 years, the modernists had been laying
down the law that John was an imaginative mid-second century retelling.
Then part of a manuscript of John was discovered in the wrappings of a
mummified Egyptian sacred crocodile, dated very accurately to AD 80. So
within living memory of the events recounted, John's gospel had been
around long enough to have travelled from the Aegean islands to Egypt,
and for the Egyptian manuscript to have completely worn out. The
response of the modernists? ... (crickets chirping) ....
Remember that all but one of those same Apostles, as well as a great
many of their close associates, were tortured and murdered one by one
for proclaiming the Gospel. That's widely attested in pagan sources and
(iirc) in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus too. Odd thing,
letting yourself get murdered over a bedtime story, no?
>> The New Testament is full of people who didn't believe in the
>> Resurrection until they had actually encountered
>> the Risen Christ. Checking before buying is a good thing.
>
> The New Testament (or actually, the whole Bible) is full of good stories.
> And good stories are all the more enjoyable if you actually believe them.
>
>> But the content of revelation (at least in the Bible) is precisely
>> things that science does not concern itself with--things like what life
>> is for; whether there is justice in the world and if so, how does it
>> work; how people can be free of what binds them; and how to have a real
>> relationship with the God who is really there. None of that affects
>> science even slightly. Does it?
>
> No.
>
>> It seems to me that the usual atheist's objection to religion is not so
>> much rational or scientific, although it's often coloured that way, but
>> rather moral.
>
> No. The atheist's (or at least, mine) objection to religion is the claim of
> truth that many religions (or believers) have.
Well, once again, it would be pointless to just go through the motions.
We're all going to die an alarmingly real death one of these days, and
a faith that can't stand up to that isn't worth much. If it won't stand
up to rational examination, it sure won't stand up to leukemia, or
paralysis, or the death of a child.
When you say that you object to the truth claims of believers, do you
merely mean that you disagree, or that it bothers you that some people
believe in God, or that some people who believe in God disapprove of
some of the things you do? There are perfectly respectable arguments
against the existence of God, and against Christianity specifically, but
we haven't heard any of them in this discussion.
BTW we disapprove of lots of the things we do, too--it's called 'being a
sinner'. We're all in the same club there. In fact, the further on we
go, the more conscious of our own sin we become, so it becomes easier
not to judge others. If that's not happening in a believer's life,
there's something holding him back. The moral claim is not that all
Christians are good people, nor even that all Christians are better
people than all non-Christians. It's merely that a Christian is a
better person than he would be if he weren't a Christian.
The sense we have that we know what's right, but don't always do it, is
part of the basic data that goes into the religious view, but it's not a
specifically religious observation. It's common to anyone who really
examines his life--philosophers, sages, and ordinary people. The
difference is that unbelievers don't have the hope that we have, nor the
forgiveness. It isn't necessary to 'live a life of quiet despair',
because our hope is in Someone who is really there, and who has
conquered sin and death on our behalf.
In fact, it's often the seemingly worst people who come to Christ,
because they come up against their failures in a way that's harder to
rationalize away. Waking up in the gutter is harder to ignore than
cheating on your income tax.
> I never believed in God,
> virgin birth or any other such hocus-pocus, but that was all right with the
> Lutherans among whom I grew up. What turned me actively anti-religion was a
> year-long stay in the Bible belt and some sobering services in Catholic
> churches.
Well, if you're sitting in church and you get disturbed by people who
actually believe in God, you're certainly in danger of being disturbed
in most churches--though as you've found, there are unfortunate
exceptions. I've never understood why those folks don't just sleep in
on Sunday AM the way I used to. A friend of mine calls that
"worshipping at the Church of the Inner Spring." :)
>> I didn't mean to offend you. But atheism, at least as practiced by
>> people like Dawkins and Carl Sagan, does involve the irrational
>> assertion that God certainly does not exist
>
> At least Dawkins doesn't make that assertion. About Sagan I don't know.
So you don't think calling a book "The God Delusion" sort of suggests
Dawkins thinks believing in God is _A_Bad_Thing_? What's he going on
about, then?
Sagan famously said, "The cosmos is all there is, and all there ever can
be." It would be hard to be much clearer on that point.
Both of those guys have misused their scientific prestige to pontificate
on religious topics that have nothing to do with their specialties, and
in which they have no special expertise. That damages science, which
upsets me, because the alternative to science and reason is quackery,
folk remedies, and irrational fashions. We have *way* too much
influence on the planet and on each other for that to be a safe trade.
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
>
> John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
>
> >And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
> >produce so very few scientists and engineers?
>
> Because science and religion don't mix well.
Perhaps its fundamentalism and science that don't mix well.
> Despite this, Islamic
> science did quite well prior to the 14th century:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_scholars>
> Afterwards, Islamic science took a big dive. See:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_science#Decline>
> for an explanation.
Give Islam a chance. They are about 600 years behind Christianity, which
puts them on schedule for their own Renaissance in the near future.
Meanwhile, the greatest growth in Christianity is among cults who
believe in a 6000 year old world and the coexistence of dinosaurs and
homo sapiens.
Science and math education is suffering in his country while nut case
parents jerk their kids out of classes at the mere mention of Darwin. We
elect a nut case for a president that thinks he hears God's voice
(probably just Dick Cheney on the Whitehouse intercom).
--
Paul Hovnanian pa...@hovnanian.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Procrastinators: The leaders for tomorrow.
Jeff Liebermann
>Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>>
>> John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
>>
>> >And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
>> >produce so very few scientists and engineers?
>>
>> Because science and religion don't mix well.
>Perhaps its fundamentalism and science that don't mix well.
I beg to differ. Methinks the fundamentals (reading, righting, and
rithmatic) are very important for a proper understanding of science.
We've done quite well at skipping those, and going directly to
consumerism, game skills, and spending one's life in front of a
computah. Fundamentalism will help people understand science better,
but there doesn't seem to be much need for teaching them to use the
products of science.
>> Despite this, Islamic
>> science did quite well prior to the 14th century:
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_scholars>
>> Afterwards, Islamic science took a big dive. See:
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_science#Decline>
>> for an explanation.
>Give Islam a chance. They are about 600 years behind Christianity, which
>puts them on schedule for their own Renaissance in the near future.
At the present speed of enlightenment in the middle east, it may take
another 600 years to reach that point. It would probably help if we
arranged for the ISO or one of the standards organizations to write
specifications and quality guidelines for religious practices. If we
must have religion, at least it should be standardized to avoid market
fragmentation and compatibility wars.
>Meanwhile, the greatest growth in Christianity is among cults who
>believe in a 6000 year old world and the coexistence of dinosaurs and
>homo sapiens.
Well, that's what happens when we cultivate our kids imagination and
teach them to think for themselves. Any fool can dig through the
archeology, geology, and history text books and regurgitate what is
considered to be standard scientific dogma. That's far too easy for
someone with a well developed imagination. It takes real skill to
fabricate a defense for scientific creationism and biblical scripture.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science>
I often find myself wondering if modern society is run by science or
divine direction. The growing supply of miraculous products, medical
quackery, and dubious government programs, suggest that divinity is
winning.
>Science and math education is suffering in his country while nut case
>parents jerk their kids out of classes at the mere mention of Darwin. We
>elect a nut case for a president that thinks he hears God's voice
>(probably just Dick Cheney on the Whitehouse intercom).
I've been told that one of the sure signs of how wonderful we are, is
that the US has been able to survive in grand style despite religious
intolerance and governmental ineptitude. In any lesser country, there
would be rioting in the streets and a fast change of government.
--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
John Larkin
<azno...@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:
>On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:17:28 -0800, John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:43:23 -0700, "Bob Myers"
>><nospam...@address.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>
>>>"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>>news:474BEB63...@hotmail.com...
>>>> Islam is broadly 'anti-free-thinking' and anti-knowledge. Not exactly a
>>>> winner
>>>> for scientific advancement.
>>>
>>>But that's hardly exclusive to Islam. ANY religion, when
>>>you're faced with the "fundamentalist" flavor of it, must be
>>>"anti-free-thinking" by the very nature of the thing.
>
>>Absurd.
>
>Then you should have no problem naming a single counter example.
>
>Please name a single fundamentalist religion that has no dogma.
All religions, and all sciences, and all sports, and all knitting
societies, have dogma. But that doesn't make them
"anti-free-thinking", it just means that they believe that some things
are accepted as understood. Science couldn't work without 99.99%
accepting relativity and conservation of energy and quantum mechanics;
it's not impossible that they might be refuted, but the burden of
proof would be large. So it's dogma.
I know some fundamentalist Mormons who are sweet, friendly, generous,
and very tolerant people. But they absolutely won't smoke or drink.
John
Bob Myers
>
> Hmm again. When you say "I will personally label that view as false", do
> you mean to say that it might be false for you and true for them? Or that
> you think it's false, period? We're talking about matters external to
> ourselves--e.g. did God actually speak to Man, or not?--it's either true
> or false for everyone. The historical claims of Christianity are in that
> class.
Without getting into a complete discussion of the nature
of "truth" - something that would require several inconveniently
large books to even begin to address, so it's not really very
readily dealt with here - what I meant (and what I thought was
clear, but perhaps not) was that I would consider the proposition
in question to be "false." Obviously someone else might consider
it to be true, and if you accept the notion of a single objective
reality in which there IS such a thing as "absolute" truth, it becomes
pretty clear that both of us can't be right. That clearly will not stop
people from having different beliefs, but I of course can only
state what I myself believe to be true, and why.
The question "did God actually speak to Man" presupposes the
existence of God, which appears to be one of the questions we're
dealing with here. Given that I seriously doubt the existence of
God (at least the God as described by traditional Christianity or,
for that matter, most major religions of which I am aware), I would
have to say "no" to the question about speaking, as well.
> I'd love to hear them, but so far all I've heard is name-calling and
> irrelevancies, such as misrepresenting Buddha, or calling the views of
> some small and eccentric group Christianity. Just saying that something
> is absurd is not an argument. I asked whether you thought it was
> illegitimate for religious people to think their view was true, as you
> think yours is. You certainly don't seem to give them equal respect.
I seriously doubt that you can find an example of "name-calling"
in anything I've written in this thread; perhaps we disagree on
just what might constitute "name-calling," though, so I would
welcome your posting the example(s) you had in mind. I also
believe that is should be quite clear that I DO expect there to be
people who will express views which differ from my own, and
quite clearly they either believe those views to be "true" (or else
they are misrepresenting their own beliefs). I don't see how anything
I've said could be construed as saying that it was "illegitimate" for
such views to be expressed - again, perhaps your citing a specific
example would be helpful. Finally, I don't see how a direct quotation
of the writings of the Buddha can in any way be said to be
"misepresenting" Buddhism, so again you probably should explain
further just what you mean by that.
>> At what point did you get the impression that I was asserting no
>> possibility of "divine revelation"? Even if I did, such an assertion
>> would NOT be the same as asserting that there is no God, but
>> rather would be an assertion that if there IS a God, said God is
>> of such a nature that He/She/It is either disinclined or incapable
>> of "revelation."
>
> Well, minus the scare quotes, you did seem to be implying that people who
> believed that God had given a revelation to Man were idiots, whose view
> didn't merit serious consideration, whereas yours did. Isn't that what
> you meant to imply? The only way I know of to rule out divine revelation
> is to rule out a divinity. You don't appear to know any other way either.
"Scare quotes"?
And what is so difficult to understand about the proposition that
a God could exist, but be disinclined to engage in what you're
calling "revelation"? The rest of the above is your own inference,
although what precisely you are using for the basis of that
inference puzzles me.
> Just what weight do you expect your notion that God is uninterested to
> hold? What rational basis do you have for that assertion? (I don't mean
> that it's impossible that it might be true--Jefferson thought more or less
> the same--but you seem to be very sure about it, on no evidence that I've
> seen.)
I made no such assertion. I simply pointed it out as another
possible explanation. It is up to you, in fact, to show why this
explanation cannot be correct before you make the claim that
you just again did above - that "the only way I know of the rule
out divine revelation is to rule out a divinity." (For that matter,
we should probably also note that simply because you don't
KNOW of any possibilities is, by itself, certainly no reason to
conclude that such alternatives do not exist. Unless you're
claiming omniscience, of course...was that your intent?)
> Of course. But we're not talking about random spirits that might be
> hanging around someone's seance, we're talking about a Creator. Arguing
> that a being interested enough to create everything has such a short
> attention span as to lose interest thereafter seems odd. Certainly it's
> non-obvious, so you'd need a bit more to base a theology (or an
> a-theology)on.
So are we talking specifically about the Creator that is described
by the Bible (and by extension, the writings that comprise traditional
Christian theology), or one of the many other existing descriptions
of a Creator?
>
> Well, St Paul would have said that the existence of the Moon in the sky is
> a pretty good indication in itself, and the moral law written on our
> hearts is another.
St. Paul apparently, then, wasn't much on rational argument, if
those statements represent the sum total of his reasoning.
> The Bible is not a rule-book. Rules and principles make up only a tiny
> fraction, even if you count the Levitical laws that are no longer in
> force. It's primarily a book about God's long love affair with His
> people--you and me and everyone else--and of the depth of His love for us,
> and how He has loved us enough to die in our place to save us. The few
> rules there are are of the "don't-touch-the-stove-it's-hot"
> variety--intended to prevent harm to us and to others. The Gospel is a
> Gospel of freedom, not of bondage. The bonds we make for ourselves.
The question is not the contents of the Bible, though - the
question is its origin, and whether specific claims it makes
(completely independently of the others) are, in fact, true.
> Sure, but we were excluding nutcases, I thought. If you were brought up
> in Creation Science circles, I quite understand your feelings. Those guys
> are fighting the wrong battle, and bringing the Gospel into disrepute. No
> argument there--but that isn't Christianity, it's one particular Christian
> group's way of protecting its identity. Christians can be very silly
> sometimes, it's true.
And that, basically, is all I have said all along.
> A famous name, but a truly silly and circular argument. Of course if you
> assume there's no God, there are no miracles, and since historically
> attested miracles--specifically Christ's miracles--are the basic evidence
> for Christianity, you wind up concluding that there's no God. You dispose
> of the evidence by saying that all the witnesses are liars. That's the
> standard modernist approach too.
You badly misrepresent what Paine wrote here. His conclusion
was not that all witnesses maybe summarily dismissed, but rather
that the odds are quite long against them. Put into more modern
language, by Sagan, this is simply the "rule" that "extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence."
Bob M.
Bob Myers
First, sorry for the abbreviated previous response; real work
intruded, as it unfortunately does so often...:-) Anyway, back
to the fun:
>
> Well, St Paul would have said that the existence of the Moon in the sky is
> a pretty good indication in itself, and the moral law written on our
> hearts is another. Christians believe that God has revealed to us certain
> quite unalterable facts about his own nature. Why would you expect the
> God who made the universe to be easily captured in human categories?
> Surely a god like that would be more likely to be a made-up one?
I'm sorry, but you've lost me there. Clearly, a God who made
the universe could NOT be fully captured/described in human
terms. But the flip side of that is that any human description
of a God (including that given by the Bible) is necessarily
incomplete, and likely therefore flawed (at least if we make the
assumption, explicitly or not, that it IS complete). But since that
description in the Bible IS one which is expressed in very human
terms, something that humans can understand, it also must be
a description which COULD have been a "made-up one."
Please note that I am not saying that it IS a "made-up one,"
simply that there is nothing that has been said so far which rules
that possibility out.
> We can know a few things about God by natural reason, but a very great
> deal, e.g. His triune nature, we could never have found out on our own
> steam. (People can make things up, of course, but I mean that the Trinity
> couldn't be established as true without revelation.)
This, though, presupposes that the Trinity IS true, and I know of
no way to unambiguously determine that it is through independent
means. The Bible makes the claim (at least if it is interpreted as
is now the norm in Christian theology), but that by itself does not
establish "truth" unless you already accept that the Bible itself is
true and inerrant.
> No, it's just that not all of them are entirely accurate. The nature of
> God is a central concern of all mankind, and people have to do their best
> with what they have available. God honours that, and so should we. It's
> not a reason to stick to an inferior picture in the face of a superior
> one--but everyone has to make up his own mind about that.
Of course. And a very large part of the problem is that it is
so difficult to decide which pictures are "inferior" and which are
"superior," at least in the absence of external objective evidence
and reasoning. Which then brings up back around to the
applicability of the scientific method to these sorts of questions...
> Nobody ever said that nature "must go out of her course to accomplish it".
> It's God who accomplishes it, and if we suppose that God created nature,
> what's irrational about miracles? Paine has to assume without proof that
> there is no God before his argument has any weight.
But conversely, the person arguing that miracles are "real" must
assume without proof that there IS a God; it is equally circular
either way. What saves Paine's argument, though, is again that he
was NOT making an absolute claim - he was merely stating the odds,
and in effect placing the burden of proving an extraordinary claim on
the one making the claim, and requiring "extraordinary evidence."
Paine is not claiming certainty - he's merely stating which way one
should "place there bets," IN THE ABSENCE OF any further evidence
or reason.
> And then, against the almost universal witness of mankind, he has the
> temerity to call anyone who tells him something he can't accept a liar,
> without any effort at examining the evidence. There's a closed-minded
> character for you.
Well, it would be if that's what he had actually done, but it isn't.
I dare say, in fact, that what Paine advised is precisely the way most
reasonable people actually conduct the business of deciding what to
believe. If a person accosts you on the street, and claims that a giant
herd of bright purple elephants is about to come around the corner and
trample everyone in sight to death, do YOU start screaming and looking
for a place to hide? If not, then why would you accept any other claim
concerning something at least equally unlikely without some additional
reason or evidence to support it?
> I'm sorry if you've had a bad experience with some of those folks. I've
> talked with many of them, as well as lots of JWs and a few Mormons. Their
> peculiarities are really an American phenomenon rather than a Christian
> one. They may be conservative politically, but I wouldn't call them
> conservative theologically. A lot of their theology is way out on a limb,
> in fact--some of those groups think that Christianity forbids alcohol, and
> dancing, and are very invested in their own particular view of the end
> times, which has no basis in the tradition and is not particularly
> biblical either. I'm a three-streams Anglican myself.
Agreed, and as I said earlier, it has not been my intention to paint
all of Christianity (or all of religion in general) with the same brush.
Where I began in all this was in taking exception to those particular
examples of - well, let's go ahead and say "loonydom" :-) - sticking
their noses into questions of what is and is not open to scientific
inquiry.
>> Why do you assume that I am at all upset by this? I am
>> simply providing an analysis of a given situation as I see it.
>> That people believe differently is quite evident, and not at
>> all upsetting. Only a fool is "upset" by a mere statement
>> of fact.
>
> It was the capital letters. They're usually considered the Usenet
> equivalent of shouting.
Sorry; the intent was emphasis, not "shouting" per se.
>> Perhaps in some cases; on the other hand, to equate "atheism"
>> per se with immorality is equally incorrect and unjust; there are
>> obviously atheists who behave in a manner which would be seen
>> as quite "moral" by the vast majority of people. It is simply that
>> their morality does not have a supernatural basis. Do you mean
>> to argue that those whose religious beliefs differ from your own
>> (or even from the "typical" religious beliefs within a given
>> society) have no place in discussions of moral issues?
>
> I never equated atheism with immorality. Where did you get that from? I
> just said that it was moral issues and not scientific issues where theists
> and atheists got in each other's way. Isn't that true?
OK, then please expand on what you mean by "theists and
atheists [getting] in each other's way." I don't think I've got a
good handle on your intent here.
> I don't think I was the one shouting. I've read several books by Sagan,
> but none that addresses the central fact that materialism logically
> excludes the possibility of logical thought, which is the nub of the whole
> thing. Have a look at the blog post again.
I will, but again - have you read the particular books I referenced?
I would be very interested in your opinion of them.
>
>>
>
> You're just blowing smoke. Nobody but you uses the word that way.
Actually, that's not at all true. That line of reasoning is not
one I can claim to have originated.
> It isn't true that all religious beliefs fail Popper's criterion, except
> in the sense that all historical sciences fail it too. Nobody now alive
> has ever met a cave man, or watched the Battle of Trafalgar. And do you
> really believe that scientific questions are the only important kind? How
> about when your daughter says, "Do you love me, Daddy?"
Where did you get the idea that I though "scientific questions are
the only important kind?"
The question I was trying to raise was one which is quite different -
on what basis do we rule that a certain class of questions MUST be
somehow "off-limits" to scientific investigation?
Bob M.
PeterD
<pa...@seanet.com> wrote:
>Meanwhile, the greatest growth in Christianity is among cults who
>believe in a 6000 year old world and the coexistence of dinosaurs and
>homo sapiens.
It's true, I saw it on the Flintsones. Fred was sooo cool at work.
default
<radio...@radiosrfun.com> wrote:
>"default" <def...@defaulter.net> wrote in message
>news:oqsok3dhh2dnh3db6...@4ax.com...
>> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:01:46 +0000, Eeyore
>> <rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>aassime abdellatif wrote:
>>>
>>>Why did Mohammed marry a 9 year old is what I'd like to know the answer
>>>to.
>>>
>>>Graham
>>
>>
>> That's easy; 9 year olds aren't allowed to copulate with camels so
>> they are nice and tight, and Mohammed wasn't much of a man.
>> --
>
>That was a good one! Actually though - non of those camel dung eaters - are
>much of a man. On the other hand - maybe HOMohummed couldn't find himself a
>boy - so was "forced" to take a girl. Most of them do look "queer".
>
I think it was Jay Leno that said something to the effect that
homosexuality was a capital crime in Iran - providing it was witnessed
by three men.
He didn't say which gender that rule applies to. In the case of two
men, does that mean three non participating witnesses?
Inquiring minds want to know.
--
---- Posted via Pronews.com - Premium Corporate Usenet News Provider ----
http://www.pronews.com offers corporate packages that have access to 100,000+ newsgroups
krw
> Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> >
> > John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
> >
> > >And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
> > >produce so very few scientists and engineers?
> >
> > Because science and religion don't mix well.
>
> Perhaps its fundamentalism and science that don't mix well.
>
> > Despite this, Islamic
> > science did quite well prior to the 14th century:
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_scholars>
> > Afterwards, Islamic science took a big dive. See:
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_science#Decline>
> > for an explanation.
>
> Give Islam a chance. They are about 600 years behind Christianity, which
> puts them on schedule for their own Renaissance in the near future.
That's all well and good if they go that way, before trying to end
the world!
> Meanwhile, the greatest growth in Christianity is among cults who
> believe in a 6000 year old world and the coexistence of dinosaurs and
> homo sapiens.
Absolute nonsense.
> Science and math education is suffering in his country while nut case
> parents jerk their kids out of classes at the mere mention of Darwin. We
> elect a nut case for a president that thinks he hears God's voice
> (probably just Dick Cheney on the Whitehouse intercom).
You think the state should tell parents what to believe and how to
teach their children? How open minded of you.
--
Keith
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
If the alternative is that the state will have to feed and house them,
or protect their domestic industries from higher quality foreign
products when they grow up with no marketable skills, then my answer is
'Yes'.
Mark Zenier
Phil Hobbs <pc...@SpamMeSenseless.pergamos.net> wrote:
>Comparing actual groups tarred with that brush, it's hard to find much
>similarity of content--though some people do seem to hate them all
>indifferently. What exactly is the detailed similarity between, say,
>Bob Jones University and Islamic Jihad?
Try Karen Armstrong's _The Battle for God_.
Her proposition is that the three fundamentalist movements are Modern,
that they share a legalistic literal interpetation of their sacred
texts. So the content is not similar, but the methods of thinking are.
Mark Zenier mze...@eskimo.com
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
>
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:21:57 GMT, AZ Nomad
> <azno...@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:17:28 -0800, John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:43:23 -0700, "Bob Myers"
> >><nospam...@address.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >>>
> >>>"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriend...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >>>news:474BEB63...@hotmail.com...
> >>>> Islam is broadly 'anti-free-thinking' and anti-knowledge. Not exactly a
> >>>> winner
> >>>> for scientific advancement.
> >>>
> >>>But that's hardly exclusive to Islam. ANY religion, when
> >>>you're faced with the "fundamentalist" flavor of it, must be
> >>>"anti-free-thinking" by the very nature of the thing.
> >
> >>Absurd.
> >
> >Then you should have no problem naming a single counter example.
> >
> >Please name a single fundamentalist religion that has no dogma.
>
> All religions, and all sciences, and all sports, and all knitting
> societies, have dogma. But that doesn't make them
> "anti-free-thinking", it just means that they believe that some things
> are accepted as understood. Science couldn't work without 99.99%
> accepting relativity and conservation of energy and quantum mechanics;
> it's not impossible that they might be refuted, but the burden of
> proof would be large. So it's dogma.
It depends on how these beliefs are held. Dogmas are unquestionable
beliefs handed down by some authoritative figure. There are none of
these in the various fields of science. One CAN question anything, if
they have the time (and funding).
> I know some fundamentalist Mormons who are sweet, friendly, generous,
> and very tolerant people. But they absolutely won't smoke or drink.
That's nice. But would they still be tolerant if they tried to deny
others the right to smoke and drink? Adhering to a set of personal
principles in the face of societal pressure to abandon them is a true
test of a strong moral sense. Demanding that society conform to them so
as to reduce the temptation to stray is weakness.
> John
John Larkin
<pa...@seanet.com> wrote:
>> I know some fundamentalist Mormons who are sweet, friendly, generous,
>> and very tolerant people. But they absolutely won't smoke or drink.
>
>That's nice. But would they still be tolerant if they tried to deny
>others the right to smoke and drink?
Of course not. And they don't.
If you are arguing that bad people are bad, I agree. If you are
arguing that all religious people are intolerant, I disagree.
John
Jeff Liebermann
>But conversely, the person arguing that miracles are "real" must
>assume without proof that there IS a God; it is equally circular
>either way.
I don't think there has to be a God in order for miracles to exist. My
worst customer just called and announced that my long delayed check
will be in the mail before the end of the tax year. Surely, such a
miraculous event does not require divine intervention. Perhaps it was
inspired by his accountant rather than his God. I'm not much of a
believer in God, but that certainly won't stop me from petitioning for
a miraculous rescue from my latest misadventure.
There's also a question of packaging. What is now ordinary mundane
physical phenomenon, basic physics, and scientific documentation, were
once considered miracles, magic, religious philosophical texts. For
example, I wrote this about 10 years ago, packaging Unix documentation
as scripture:
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.sco.misc/msg/ccef57b1a28ed0fd>
Change the wording and the style somewhat, and I can turn modern
technology into religious texts. I can also turn scripture into
modern English (as others have done with various "plain English"
translations of the Bible).
Bob Myers
"Jeff Liebermann" <je...@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:q52uk3ta1m4j3oat6...@4ax.com...
> "Bob Myers" <nospam...@address.invalid> hath wroth:
>
>>But conversely, the person arguing that miracles are "real" must
>>assume without proof that there IS a God; it is equally circular
>>either way.
>
> I don't think there has to be a God in order for miracles to exist. My
> worst customer just called and announced that my long delayed check
> will be in the mail before the end of the tax year. Surely, such a
> miraculous event does not require divine intervention. Perhaps it was
> inspired by his accountant rather than his God.
In some cases, I would have to ask if you can distinguish
his accountant from his God....;-)
Bob M.
Ken S. Tucker
> "Jeff Liebermann" <je...@cruzio.com> wrote in message
>
> news:q52uk3ta1m4j3oat6...@4ax.com...
>
>
> >>But conversely, the person arguing that miracles are "real" must
> >>assume without proof that there IS a God; it is equally circular
> >>either way.
>
> > I don't think there has to be a God in order for miracles to exist. My
> > worst customer just called and announced that my long delayed check
> > will be in the mail before the end of the tax year. Surely, such a
> > miraculous event does not require divine intervention. Perhaps it was
> > inspired by his accountant rather than his God.
>
> In some cases, I would have to ask if you can distinguish
> his accountant from his God....;-)
>
> Bob M.
I prefer religious tolerance, however a wiseman
once told me, shoot the muslime and then give
it a fair trial,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/sudan_british_teacher;_ylt=A0WTUdQqWk9HrCoBrwas0NUE
however that news article might be a plant.
Christian cock-suckers are no better as
history is depicted.
As an atheist who encourages faith, I must say
I do encourage those who intend to die for their
religion to accelerate the process.
Ken
Jeff Liebermann
<azno...@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:
>Please name a single fundamentalist religion that has no dogma.
Would you settle for those that claim to have no dogma? If so, there
are:
1. Linux advocates.
2. MacIntosh fanatics.
3. Manufacturer specific game console fanatics.
4. Others with a firm attachment to technical fashion statements.
There are also those that are involved in standards manufacture, who
will defend their written word to the death, call upon supporters to
crusade in defense of the proposed standard, and are not above
instigating a jihad in the trade press against competing proposals.
While not exactly a pure religion, these certainly have many of the
characteristics.
In the gray area are religions that claim to be philosophical. There
are no inflexible strictures and dogma, but instead a patchwork of
incomprehensible rules, which if followed, offer a higher probability
of success in the afterlife or resurrection.
>Most are insane enough to believe the likes of noah's flood or that
>a human-god hybrid had to die in order for the rest of their god to
>quit being pissed off at his followers.
Noah was functional for biblical events. These days, we have Al Gore
and the upcoming deluge from global warming. While Al Gore has not
yet received the word of God directly, he has received the Nobel
Prize, which is the contemporary endorsement.
Incidentally, we still kill off our false Gods. Just attend a
political rally, standards committee meeting, or user group
convention, to see how it's done.
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 je...@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
# http://802.11junk.com je...@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
John Larkin
<je...@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us> wrote:
>On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:21:57 GMT, AZ Nomad
><azno...@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:
>
>>Please name a single fundamentalist religion that has no dogma.
>
>Would you settle for those that claim to have no dogma? If so, there
>are:
>1. Linux advocates.
>2. MacIntosh fanatics.
>3. Manufacturer specific game console fanatics.
>4. Others with a firm attachment to technical fashion statements.
5. Signal integrity consultants.
John
krw
Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the leftist weenies.
--
Keith
donald
> Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the leftist weenies.
>
Don't you mean:
Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the religious weenies.
or
Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the right wing weenies.
or
Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the Stalinist weenies.
or
Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the Police State weenies.
Which is it ??
donald
Robert Latest
> I don't think there has to be a God in order for miracles to exist.
All the literal belief in actual divine magic is just the church's
interpretation of the bible in order to exert power over people.
The feeding of the 5000 is a good example of this. A miracle it was, no
question, but I believe it's even a bigger miracle because it didn't need
divine intervention.
robert
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
If you think my insisting that people get an education so as not to live
the rest of their lives on welfare or have the government intervene on
their behalf every time they fall n their little ignorant butts is
leftist or intolerant, that's fine by me.
krw
I think your logic sucks as badly as your politics.
--
Keith
krw
Don...@dontdoithere.com says...
> krw wrote:
>
> > Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the leftist weenies.
> >
>
> Don't you mean:
>
> Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the religious weenies.
Hardly. Leftist weenies are the worst.
> or
>
> Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the right wing weenies.
Hardly. Leftist weenies are control freaks.
> or
>
> Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the Stalinist weenies.
S/weenies/wannabees/
> or
>
> Yep, you're as "tolerant" as the rest of the Police State weenies.
Now you're getting closer. Leftist weenies like police states.
> Which is it ??
--
Keith
Richard Henry
> John Larkin <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
>
> >And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
> >produce so very few scientists and engineers?
>
> science did quite well prior to the 14th century:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_scholars>
> Afterwards, Islamic science took a big dive. See:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_science#Decline>
> for an explanation.
Well, sure, by comparison. That was when the Christians were burning
their scientists at the stake.
Richard Henry
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:47:02 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
> wrote:
>
> >John Larkin <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
>
> >>And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
> >>produce so very few scientists and engineers?
>
> >Because science and religion don't mix well.
>
> the Catholics. Irish monks "saved civilization" and the Jesuits have
> always been scientific. Many of the great minds of science, like
> Newton and Einstein, were believers.
>
Newton was a heretic, as evidenced by writings he kept secret during
his lifetime.
The fable that Einstein was "religious" has been pushed a lot by
evangelical Christians now that Dr. E. is no longer around to counter
the argument. However, when asked the question directly, he responded
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony
of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and
actions of human beings". If you think that makes him "religious" in
the modern American Christian sense, you need to read a little history
and/or philosophy.
Richard Henry
> So, I guess Al Gore and the warmingists are communists? Global Warmingism
> is unquestionably anti-scientific. ;-)
I generally agree with a lot of things that Rich posts. Then he goes
off on one of his peculiar rants like this one and makes me wonder if
I sometimes look like an idiot to everyone also.
Richard Henry
>
> You think the state should tell parents what to believe and how to
> teach their children? How open minded of you.
I think the state should not be instructing teachers to tell their
students lies.
krw
@d27g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, pome...@hotmail.com says...
We weren't discussing the state's teachers. OTOH, they're doing a
good job with AGW.
--
Keith
JosephKK
I am quite sure that i embarrass myself from time to time as well, i
even caught myself doing so lately.
Ken S. Tucker
> Richard Henry pomer...@hotmail.com posted to sci.electronics.design:
Straight-off, I'm an atheist, however I respect other's
*private* religions, however check out this a-hole,
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5haiQZR_YU8VrQObSZP1AJEJCR1awD8T86D280
If the worlds clergy would adopt moral ancedotes
along the lines of Aesop's fables to instill common
morality shared by all youth, (without divinity) then
much hatred generated by religious competition
would reduce, after all...
we're all born naked atheist's
the rest is fashion.
It's a private matter what religion you wear.
Ken
JosephKK
One of the more interesting books i have ever read is a demonstration
that the moral teachings of all of the worlds great religions and
almost all of the minor ones is basically the same.
Moreover, they are all preceded or echoed by non-religious belief and
moral systems.
People using any religion to produce hate are perverts, for worse than
any other kind.
John Larkin
<pome...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Nov 26, 9:06 pm, John Larkin
><jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:47:02 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >John Larkin <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> hath wroth:
>>
>> >>And why do Muslim countries, with a population ballpark 1.5 billion,
>> >>produce so very few scientists and engineers?
>>
>> >Because science and religion don't mix well.
>>
>> Judaism and Christianity have been fairly friendly to science, even
>> the Catholics. Irish monks "saved civilization" and the Jesuits have
>> always been scientific. Many of the great minds of science, like
>> Newton and Einstein, were believers.
>>
>Newton was a heretic, as evidenced by writings he kept secret during
>his lifetime.
He was a heretic, but he wasn't an atheist.
"Both Newton and the Socinians desired to recover the primitive truth
of Christianity."
>
>The fable that Einstein was "religious" has been pushed a lot by
>evangelical Christians now that Dr. E. is no longer around to counter
>the argument. However, when asked the question directly, he responded
>"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony
>of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and
>actions of human beings". If you think that makes him "religious" in
>the modern American Christian sense, you need to read a little history
>and/or philosophy.
Einstein never said "Christians are stupid and the enemies of science"
or "muslims should be shot" or any of the similar stuff that
"engineers" say here.
John
Ken S. Tucker
> Ken S. Tucker dynam...@vianet.on.ca posted to sci.electronics.design:
If you can, kindly provide the authors name.
> Moreover, they are all preceded or echoed by non-religious belief and
> moral systems.
> People using any religion to produce hate are perverts, for worse than
> any other kind.
Awhile back, I'm doing a Sunday morning shave
and the automatic radio has a preacher yakking,
no big deal, usually those guys have something
nice to say, but that SOB is telling his flock to
shun those who are not of his church, WTF, my
blood pressure went up 10db.
I started listening more carefully figuring I mis-
understood, nope, he went on about how
associating with "others" will import sin into their
lives. That's real bad.
Ken
RTDL
In the US, the "state" is _supposed to be_ forbidden to promote any
religion at all:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,..."
Unfortunately, the neocons seem to want to turn us into the Church of
Dick or something.
Thanks,
Rich
RTDL
> @d27g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, pome...@hotmail.com says...
>> On Nov 28, 5:37 pm, krw <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>> >
>> > You think the state should tell parents what to believe and how to
>> > teach their children? How open minded of you.
>>
>> I think the state should not be instructing teachers to tell their
>> students lies.
>
> We weren't discussing the state's teachers. OTOH, they're doing a
> good job with AGW.
Wait a minute. I understand "GW" is "Global Warming", the latest
shibboleth of the socialists, but what's the "A" stand for?
Thanks,
Rich
RTDL
Well, if you've fallen for the global warmingst line of propaganda, then
you are definitely, if not an idiot, assuredly a fool.
Have you ever heard of clouds' effect on albedo? The Solar Constant?
(which isn't, BTW) Orbital perturbations? Planetary interactions? How
did human activity make the average temperature of Mars change?
Thanks,
Rich
Jon Slaughter
"Ken S. Tucker" <dyna...@vianet.on.ca> wrote in message
news:56db92e6-3fa7-405c...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
I want to know his proof!!! I do not know of one instance where atheism has
had any significant negative impact on humanity but I an unable to count all
those that involve religion(mainly christianity).
What he is really saying is that atheism has drawn people away from
christianty and specifically catholicism. Like any business they a mad
because they are loosing customers and instead of improving the product they
go bone little boys in the ass.
Richard Henry
> >> On Nov 28, 5:37 pm, krw <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>
> >> > You think the state should tell parents what to believe and how to
> >> > teach their children? How open minded of you.
>
> >> I think the state should not be instructing teachers to tell their
> >> students lies.
>
> > We weren't discussing the state's teachers. OTOH, they're doing a
> > good job with AGW.
>
> Wait a minute. I understand "GW" is "Global Warming", the latest
> shibboleth of the socialists, but what's the "A" stand for?
Anthropogenic.
Richard Henry
Those are good rational, scientific arguments. They should be measured
agains the good, rational,scientific arguments that support AGW
theory,
I am not entirely convinced that the current global warming trend is
man-caused (and I am entirely convinced that man's efforts to control
it will be futile, man-caused or not) , but arguments based on
meaningless strawmen (such as "AGW is a fraud because Al Gore is a
hypocrite") or reducing the opposition to cult status (such as
"gloabal warmingism" or "anti-smokerism") indicate to me a paucity of
thought and/or analysis and I hear an alarm from my bogosity
detector. Sucn arguments go over much better in a one-way
conversation such as political talk radio where rational rebuttal is
impossible.
PeterD
Jon Slaughter
"Jon Slaughter" <Jon_Sl...@Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1uj4j.22431$4V6....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net...
I have to take that back about christianity. Even though there was a very
dark time for it and it has done a great deal to keep humanity in the dark
ages I suppose ultimately it pales in comparision to islam.
Jon Slaughter
"RTDL" <rt...@example.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2007.12.01....@example.net...
I think for the most part the earth tries to stabilize itself.
the question that needs to be answered very precisely is how much energy is
being absorbed by the earth from external sources(mainly the sun), how much
energy is created by the earth itself(not due to humans), and how much is
radiated away from the earth.
GW might be inevitable if the sun is dumping so much energy on the earth and
it cannot dissipate it fast enough.
I have to admit though that I do believe man has done more harm than good
and that there are a lot of unintended consequences. I do not know how much
damage we have done or if we can even do anything about it. What I do know
is that there are many clueless people that just want attention and pretend
to hide being issues that they don't really care about(gore the bore is one
of them).
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
Bad politics as in 'give in to the demands of the flat earthers or else
they'll vote for an incompetent moron'?
--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:Pa...@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Plaese porrf raed befre postng.
krw
rt...@example.net says...
> On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:07:53 -0800, Richard Henry wrote:
> > On Nov 28, 5:37 pm, krw <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
> >>
> >> You think the state should tell parents what to believe and how to
> >> teach their children? How open minded of you.
> >
> > I think the state should not be instructing teachers to tell their
> > students lies.
>
>
> In the US, the "state" is _supposed to be_ forbidden to promote any
> religion at all:
> "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,..."
That's not what that paragraph meant to those who wrote it, but what
it has come to mean to the people making pretzels out of the
COnstitution.
> Unfortunately, the neocons seem to want to turn us into the Church of
> Dick or something.
Wrong. The NeoLibs what to make the state religion Atheism,
Communist sect.
--
Keith
Ken S. Tucker
Thanks for that ref.
Ken
JosephKK
> On Nov 26, 9:06 pm, John Larkin
Just in case it somehow escaped your notice, A. Einstein was raised as
a Jew. Never was Christian, as opposed to what many evangelicals
would to claim.
JosephKK
> On Dec 1, 5:13 am, JosephKK <joseph_barr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Sam Harris is a substitute. Neither he nor my author is the
originator of these ideas. The book is called "The Abolition of Man"
by C. S. Lewis, a well known Christian apologist and Oxford don.
Richard Henry
> Richard Henry pomer...@hotmail.com posted to sci.electronics.design:
I have seen the claims that einstein was a Christian on another web
forum. Apparently some people believe anything they are told in
church.
As for Einstein being "raised as a Jew", here is another opinion: