Quote from smilingsynic: ...it is rather easy to refute your notion that I am not a cantaloupe. No cantaloupes can write. I write; Therefore, I am not a cantaloupe. An EAE-2 syllogism. Not that it matters, since logic is not your strength. Tip your head and let the hot sand run to the other side. I am well versed in logic, dummkopf. You can refute an example obviously intended to show the stupidity of your example. But you cannot grasp that saying your clueless example is science until others refute it displays how utterly a nonscientist you are. As in you glossed over that part of my post: ....Theorem 1: In true science, the one making the supposition bears the responsibility ...Theorem 2: Anyone making such a supposition and expecting others take it at face value is no science. If you find a cantaloupe that does, please PM me. I just did. He wrote your post. Also, if you find irrefutable evidence of a miracle--amputees growing their legs back, Lou Gehrig coming back from the dead, etc--you can PM me that as well. Great. A sponge (smilingsync) managed to write a post. That is miraculous enough...
Why is it that some (many but not all) religious apologists feel they must resort to misinformation to support their argument? Why can they not attempt to do so with intellectual honesty? http://www.anotherperspective.org/advoc550.html http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa070202a.htm http://www.chicora.org/founding_fathers_and_religion.htm http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?id=6177
I described reality using symbols (ie. words, actions). All symbols are unreal. Yet I used them to maximum efficiency, leaving the world with a perfect message. I handed it off like a solved *Rubrics Cube*, and as each interpreter handled it, it became more and more mixed up. Thus, the New Testament is a mixed up message, equating *our Father* with the Hebrew "YHWH". It does not describe what salvation really is or what it is for. The interpreters did not know. Why do you presume I am the author? I was a catalyst. How hearers heard, or how seers see is up to each interpreter. If an interpreter forces his own *judgement* on my message, he will perhaps *sound* holy, but he will not be saved. He may say, "Lord, Lord...", but does he even have a clue who is the Lord? If not, the word is meaningless, and does him no service toward salvation. Salvation is coming to an awareness in which you have the choice between truth or illusion. That is, you must know what the choice really is before you can invest the power of decision in reality. The choice is between spirit and flesh...oneness or pseudo-individuality. *Vision* [patent pending ] shows you the difference, so that, by making a comparison, you can actually make a choice. The world, and hence the bible, does not really offer you a choice because it does not really offer a clear comparison. The closest it comes is perhaps the *parable of the prodigal son* which is misinterpreted by the average reader. It also quotes me well when it says, "the Kingdom of God is within you". Yet that too is misinterpreted. How can the Kingdom of God be within you unless you are the Kingdom of God? And if you are the Kingdom of God, what in God's name are you doing appearing in the flesh? How is it that you seem to have lost all power except to compare yourself with other appearances? If you are the Lord, how is it that you appear as a slave to circumstances? This is the riddle that salvation seeks to solve. Solve it and you may exercise the power of choice. That is all a Savior offers you - choice - that "thy will be done". What do you want? Truth or illusions? Heaven or hell? Illusions entrap your will, and render it inaccesible to you. The bible, for the most part, continues a long tradition of entrapment which begins before the appearance of time and space. The Genesis account is misleading and will *kill* any who believe in it as is. It is in need of interpretation or else round filed. Jesus
Polkinghorne is one of the most readable authors on this subject because he knows what he is talking about on both sides of the subject matters. Here is a selection: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=polkinghorne&x=0&y=0 But now, I must unsubscribe, lest I be bombarded with emails. nitro PS, Science and God are incompatible in that they deal with orthogonal questions and only appear to intersect, but not science and GOD. Imo people make categorical mistakes when they talk about science and the biblical God (lower case God). Both are needed, but for different reasons. But religion must always give way to science, once the ethics and morals of the science have been duly analyzed. Can we know morals and ethics strictly through philosophy? Are morals and ethics a branch of religion or philosophy? How would you teach a sentient robot morals? Are morals and ethics an emergent property of emotion and mirror neurons? See the problems?
....maybe because sometimes it's that or a lie which is all there is to hold a faith, which allows belief of what they know can't be true. with apologies to something Mark Twain once dun spoke
Don't agree. As I have said above, the belief in science is way overrated. It is simply a method of quantifying knowledge, and it needs constant work to overcome its stupendous collection of partial knowledges. Science and religion are orthogonal, period. Our knowledge is rudimentary, fragmentary, and needs decades to centuries of work to answer just some of the basics of cosmology and theology. Neither is well enough understood to trump the other.
Agreed. A vast and ever increasing accumulation of knowledge and understanding from systematic study and organized scientific principles, cannot be compared with pretence and enactments of fictitious story telling and happenings told through theological imaginations.
On occasion we get a post like this without all the political bias. Quite refreshing to know there are still people out there with a little bit of common sense.
sorry Captain but "The opinion of your mail carrier is as valid as that of Einstein." is not at all an Obvious fit into the category of common sense.
What science studies is: fictitious story telling in the mind of Christ. Consciousness, energy, quarks...these are all quirky hypothetical constructs. They never happened. They are not happening. What they seem to produce did not happen...is not happening. They are believed. Belief is their only reality. While you believe in them, true choice is an alien concept. This world offers you the illusion of choice. But all of it's choices lead around the illusion...not from the illusion. Science measures the height, heaviness and hotness of hell. And by so doing, by so naming, is hell made real. You have no choice but to remain in hell as long as reality is but a mere pretence, or some sort of fictitious story-telling. Salvation merely restores choice to your awareness that you may re-access the power of will. Jesus