ISIS

Daryl wrote:Every time someone says "The bible says" to justify their argument they have lost credibility with me. Why is the bible any more authoritive than any other religious book? Or for that matter literature like Lord of The Rings or Hubbard's nonsense?

When people quote a holy book, they tend to only quote part of it and usually only the parts that they agree with.
The problem is that many holy scriptures were written to be fair for the age they were written in. Things change. Understanding grows and with it, civilization advances. Things that were once seen as fair become unfair and outdated. Things that were seen as impossible/ungodly become everyday occurrences. Technology changes the underlying foundations of society, transforming and elevating peoples lives, reducing drudgery and bringing forth the potential for equality.
Naturally, those who cling most tightly to what their grandparents taught tend to see only the bad side and often voice a desire to return to the "good old ways".

Quite a few of the extremist Islamists who have traveled into the lands claimed by ISIS have discovered that their promised golden-age-where-men-were-studly-men-and-women-were-virtually-mindless-yet-incredibly-eager-sex-slaves-for-their-pleasure paradise is no such thing. Bereft of the conveniences that let people devote so much time to the things they wanted (reading, playing computer games, contributing to forums etc), they find themselves caught in a world where they cannot date or look at pictures of the opposite gender, but instead are assigned "spouses" that they have never met before the "wedding" and often have nothing at all in common with, obeying a tyrannical regime that forces them to fight and brutally kills those who try to leave.
Plus, there's apparently no Nutella there.
Seriously. Quite a few of the more recent intercepted recruiting messages include requests for the new arrivals to bring Nutella and other (decadently western) foodstuffs.


So, to reiterate. As societal experience increases, new paradigms form. New things are discovered that old religions did not foresee. Religions either change or become outdated. They either examine themselves or resort to trying to smash society back down to a state that the writings can once again apply to (cough ISIS cough).

IMHO, religion is like money. It generally makes good people better and bad people worse, although it can sometimes redeem the bad and corrupt the good.
And it hates those who ask questions when it is not in a self-examining state.

Michael Everett wrote:

Daryl wrote:So, to reiterate. As societal experience increases, new paradigms form. New things are discovered that old religions did not foresee. Religions either change or become outdated. They either examine themselves or resort to trying to smash society back down to a state that the writings can once again apply to (cough ISIS cough).

Also if you recall history correctly there was a 1000 year history where the cough Catholic church destroyed any science cough.

Michael Everett wrote:And it hates those who ask questions when it is not in a self-examining state.

IIRC an Egyptian scholar was arrested, tried, and convicted in 1995. He did a scholarly study on the source documents of Islam.

ISIS is destroying many historical sites. Islam says Jonah was a prophet, but ISIS destroyed the tomb of Jonah.

Also if you recall history correctly there was a 1000 year history where the cough Catholic church destroyed any science cough.

IIRC, the scholastics thought they were defending science by upholding Aristotle, etc. against the horrible idea of actually testing things. Real science is based on using theory to understand the patterns of facts, but changing the paradigm as further facts disagree with the accepted theory. It isn't easy - Isaac Asimov wrote a column about the change from the phlogiston theory of combustion to the oxygen theory, pointing out that the majority of the scientists whose experiments upheld the O theory never accepted it. Possibly because Lavoisseur gave them no attribution for their experiments, but made it read as if it was all his own work. As IA said at the end, even chemists can do a slow burn

IIRC, the basic ideas leading to the acceptance of experiment and observation as being valid were put forth in the 1200s, (the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon; another Franciscan, William of Occam, etc.) It was another century or two before the ideas started being effectively used.

The two things I see as allowing adequate testing are: The Judical/Historical method for non-repeating facts; and the experimental/observational method for repeating facts. We also test for logical contradictions.

Remember how long Euclidian geometry was thought to be perfect, based on its logic? Then someone tried modifying the fifth axion (parallel lines) and produced a pair of equally logical curved geometries. Euclidian is that of straight only, the other two are closed (spheres and higher dimension equivalents) and open. At present, it looks as though we are probably in an expanding (open) universe, although local conditions (black holes?) can be curved the other way.

Relax wrote:Off hand I would say you are a walking talking definition of every Aethist cliche.

Except of course for the tiny little snag that i´m not an atheist.

PeterZ wrote:When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they disobeyed God and learned that they were free to disobey if they so chose.

And you actually believe that is what literally happened...

PeterZ wrote:By disobeying they separated themselves from God and all the benefits of living in proximity both moral and physical to God. As a consequence they doomed all their descendants to also live a life separated from God. That's all original sin means as it applies to us, their descendants.

Perhaps you should try investigating what DNA tracing has found in regards to human ancestry?

Hint, there´s neither a single man nor a woman as far as can be traced. And that is MUCH longer back in time than the bible talks about.

But that is par for the course in regards to biblical reliability. There isn´t any.

And by starting to drag in biblical quotes and/or church teachings(far from always the same) you killed your own credibility by believing in such a morass of logical fallacies needed to actually think a biblical argument is worth anything at all.


Hey, why don´t you start educating yourself by thinking of how Krishna is the primary Hindu deity, part of the Trimurti, or in words you might understand, the Great Trinity...

Oh, and how those writings just happens to predate any parts of the bible by a few thousand years.

PeterZ wrote:Humanity is capable of moral judgment even if they choose not to follow God and remain separated from Him. What they are not capable of is living their lives consistent with God's purpose for us as individuals and as the human race. For that we need to let him into our lives.

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

PeterZ wrote:Conclude what you wish, Daryl. However, your understanding of original sin is faulty. Original sin does not assert that people are born immoral, just separated from God. That is what sin is in essence, actions or thoughts that move us away from God.

And why exactly would that be a "sin"? Why would it be a bad thing?

And why would christian teachings talk about free will if we´re not supposed to be allowed any?

DDHvi wrote:Remember how long Euclidian geometry was thought to be perfect, based on its logic? Then someone tried modifying the fifth axion (parallel lines) and produced a pair of equally logical curved geometries. Euclidian is that of straight only, the other two are closed (spheres and higher dimension equivalents) and open.

You might want to bone up on the actual history of mathematics. There is a long history of mathematicians trying to prove the parallel postulate. In the early 19th century, Lobachevsky and Bolyi independently created a form of non-Euclidian geometry; Riemann then generalized it. See Wikipedia, which has a decent description of the history of attempts to either prove or disprove the fifth postulate.

viciokie wrote:
Also if you recall history correctly there was a 1000 year history where the cough Catholic church destroyed any science cough.

The notion that the Catholic Church was anti-science is a modern fable. The early history was a post-Constantine effort to destroy the early paganism of the Greco-Roman civilization. The latter part is based almost entirely on a flat-out lie about Bruno's trial for heresy (it was entirely on theological grounds - his statements about science played no part - see Wikipedia) and an equally false appreciation of Gallileo's later trial for heresy. In the Letter to Christina affair, Gallileo and Fr. Foscareni attempted to school the Church on how to interpret scripture. That did not end well. In the second, he insulted the Pope. That did not end well either. Neither of those had anything to do with science.

JohnRoth wrote:

viciokie wrote:
Also if you recall history correctly there was a 1000 year history where the cough Catholic church destroyed any science cough.

The notion that the Catholic Church was anti-science is a modern fable. The early history was a post-Constantine effort to destroy the early paganism of the Greco-Roman civilization. The latter part is based almost entirely on a flat-out lie about Bruno's trial for heresy (it was entirely on theological grounds - his statements about science played no part - see Wikipedia) and an equally false appreciation of Gallileo's later trial for heresy. In the Letter to Christina affair, Gallileo and Fr. Foscareni attempted to school the Church on how to interpret scripture. That did not end well. In the second, he insulted the Pope. That did not end well either. Neither of those had anything to do with science.

I disagree with your theory that the church did not try to destroy science when it is well documented they did usually by either burning at the stake or torturing to death or plain slaughtering thousands just to get at a few that was scientifically minded. Besides i was not talking about galileo or bruno but i do quibble with you over the reasons simply because science was the loser in that aspect.

viciokie wrote:
Also if you recall history correctly there was a 1000 year history where the cough Catholic church destroyed any science cough.

JohnRoth wrote:The notion that the Catholic Church was anti-science is a modern fable. The early history was a post-Constantine effort to destroy the early paganism of the Greco-Roman civilization. The latter part is based almost entirely on a flat-out lie about Bruno's trial for heresy (it was entirely on theological grounds - his statements about science played no part - see Wikipedia) and an equally false appreciation of Gallileo's later trial for heresy. In the Letter to Christina affair, Gallileo and Fr. Foscareni attempted to school the Church on how to interpret scripture. That did not end well. In the second, he insulted the Pope. That did not end well either. Neither of those had anything to do with science.

I disagree with your theory that the church did not try to destroy science when it is well documented they did usually by either burning at the stake or torturing to death or plain slaughtering thousands just to get at a few that was scientifically minded. Besides i was not talking about galileo or bruno but i do quibble with you over the reasons simply because science was the loser in that aspect.[/quote]

[quote="viciokie"]
You might try reading the Renaissance Mathematicus blog. You'll be surprised at how many things we know about the history of science are just flat out wrong. Thonyc is an actual historian, specializing in the Renaissance and Early Modern Era.

viciokie wrote:From personal experience i have found that ones who claim to be devout christians are more prone to break the rules of society. Mind you this is just my personal experience with christians. However as a atheist i do not consider that everything goes as it does from what some people believe. Each and every person has a personal responsibility towards their fellow man even if its to just be courteous and say hi.
I also do my utmost to always help when i can at the food bank or i donate to them plus i look out for people when i think a situation is dangerous. As i said each person has to develop theri own personal sense of responsibility, and if they cant do it on their own without the promises of a skydaddy then that is their gig.

Lincoln, in a discussion, asked "If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does it have?" Given the answer of five, he noted that calling it a tail doesn't make it one.

Now in Islam, they say that anyone who calls himself a muslim and recites the basic creed is one. And if they try to leave, the death penalty applies. But if this is true with the Bible, why do the prophets speak out strongly against those who say and don't do?

On this, Amos is well worth reading.

I read that North Korea's primary export is fake U$100 dollar bills. Not U$1.00 dollar bills. Should you check a person's actions, not what they say, to know whether they are scamming?