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BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration?
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Riginslinger Date: 25 Feb 09 - 07:07 PM Oh yeah! Shades of "Deliverance:" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Bill D Date: 25 Feb 09 - 06:54 PM I think there are captive breeding populations held in various spots in Kansas and Alabama..perhaps other places. They will always be with us. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Riginslinger Date: 25 Feb 09 - 06:15 PM Will evolution eventually weed out those irrational believers? Tune in next week for... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Bill D Date: 25 Feb 09 - 05:17 PM I studied Lamarck and Spencer on evolution 50 years ago. Even then those 'theories' were shown to be inadequate and/or flawed. During this time, Darwin's basic principles have been shown over & over to lay out how things work...even though Darwin did not have the tools to fill in all the details. When Amos says Little Hawk is "splitting hairs", it is as close as necessary to be a 'theory' of why there is still confusion and doubt about the difference between 'fact' & 'theory'. It essentially says that a fact is a theory with so much corroborating evidence and knowledge about the details that we can CALL it a fact...like saying that water flows downhill. You could call that 'only' a theory, I guess...but it's a silly and almost useless linguistic way to talk, unless there is some special point to be made. Today, we SEE examples of evolution at work in various systems that change on a much faster time scale than apes to humans...etc. It is as close to a fact as to make no difference. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 25 Feb 09 - 05:02 PM Right, like the theory of gravity or of plate tectonics, all fully accepted facts. Why O why does Evolution get singled out? Plate tectonics contradicts the Bible too... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 25 Feb 09 - 11:28 AM I think it was Little Hawk who said: Evolution is not a fact, Mrzzy, it is a scientific theory supported by various facts and different forms of gathered evidence since Darwin first expounded it. Wrong. You're using the word "evolution" when you mean "Darwin's theory of evolution". Darwin was far from the first to observe the fact of evolution, and even far from the first to propose a theory of how evolution works. Darwin's is merely the one that explains the observed facts better than the others. "Theory" means an attempt to provide a systematic explanation of how a given process works. Thus, we have the theory of the law of torts, Darwin's (or Lamarck's, or whoever's) theory of evolution, and theories in many other fields. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 24 Feb 09 - 09:30 PM Sorry, Little Hawk, it IS a fact. Scientists use the word theory differently than English speakers. It is a theory the way gravity is a theory: it has ways of being thought about, not that it isn't factual. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Amos Date: 24 Feb 09 - 06:15 PM Little HAwk, you are splitting hairs; there are enough instances in the collected data, at molecular and macro levels, and enough alignment between known biological processes and other evidence, as to give evolution in general the weight of fact. To argue it is not yet a fact because th emechanism is not fully known is like disputing the 9.8 m/sec^2 rate of acceleration of gravity because the Higgs boson has not been confirmed. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 24 Feb 09 - 06:03 PM Evolution is not a fact, Mrzzy, it is a scientific theory supported by various facts and different forms of gathered evidence since Darwin first expounded it. Whether it is an entirely correct theory...or a complete explanation of the development of life on this planet...is not known at this time. We can have opinions about whether Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a complete and accurate explanation of how and why all life developed as it did on this planet...but our opinions are only that. Opinions. You regard evolution to be "fact" for one simple reason. You have faith in that theory, you have faith in the authority figures who have put that theory in front of you since the time you were a child in school, and you have faith in the books you've read about it. (That's where most religious people get their faith from too...only a different set of authority figures and books.) You don't have any actual experience, I assume? Ever been on a dig with Professor Leakey? Spent any time in the lab examining ancient skulls? Gone to the Galagos and studied the turtles? No? Well, if not...then you are simply doing what the religious people mostly do...you're demonstrating an unshakable faith in the orthodoxy of your choice, handed down by the venerable authority figures you have decided are "in the know". My guess is, they're all partly wrong. What I mean is: the religious authority figures....and the scientific ones...All partly wrong. Wait a century or two, and I bet I'll be proven correct in that guess, but you won't be there to see it, will you? If you were, you would no doubt believe in some other prevailing orthodoxy of the time...and I would still be eyeing it with some degree of skepticism, and figuring it was probably partly wrong. (which it probably will be) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Wesley S Date: 24 Feb 09 - 04:25 PM It might be too late. Here's the message I found at the website: Thank You For Your Participation! We have stopped routinely accepting new plaintiffs. If you wish to submit a declaration, we will consider it if staffing and time allow, but no promises. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 24 Feb 09 - 02:22 PM Teaching intelligent design in a philosophy class would be fine with me... So, anyway, besides Riginslinger and me, who's sent in their affidavit? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Bill D Date: 23 Feb 09 - 09:28 PM "Exactly how evolution works may not be known down to the molecular level,..." Even that is getting closer. DNA techniques are beginning to be able to trace the details. I guess no one can force "true believers" to see even the most obvious, well proven scientific truths. There are still a few in the Flat Earth Society. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 23 Feb 09 - 06:17 PM Hmm - again, my answer has disappeared... What I said was, sure, thinking people will understand that evolution is a fact. I don't object to anyone thinking. What I mind is when dogma prevents that thinking, or is used as an excuse not to think. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 23 Feb 09 - 04:10 PM There are some thinking people that believe in both evolution AND God. It happens y'know. There should be no problem with that, Rig. Why shouldn't God have a method of doing whatever he does (if he is and does)? In that way of thinking, evolution, even as described by Darwin, could be his method. Where's the problem? I don't happen to buy that whole scenario, but if one is a God-believer, why not? Only if one's dogma insists on a single, static creation is that ruled out, it seems to me. Certainly if one wants to say that a god is everywhere, in and of everything, then evolution (even as described by Darwin) would be part of that "everything", and would be the god's way of doing things. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Feb 09 - 03:38 PM Yes, Rig, you should try to overcome this tendency you have to insult other people by apparently assuming they are drooling idiots if they think differently about anything than you do. It lends no weight to your own credibility whatsoever. It's the kind of attitude that in 3-D life would get a person punched in the nose. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Wesley S Date: 23 Feb 09 - 02:39 PM And I've never suggested teaching intellegent design in schools. I'm opposed to that. So what's your point? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Riginslinger Date: 23 Feb 09 - 02:25 PM Yes, well, that's kind of like the argument we hear from folks who want to teach Intelligent Design in biology classes: "Shouldn't the children be exposed to another point of view?" Of course, it's not science, but... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Wesley S Date: 23 Feb 09 - 02:07 PM Rig - Don't insult. Can't you have a discussion about a difference of ideas without being rude? I'm willing to accept that you don't believe in a higher power. That's fine with me. So why can't you believe that there are thinking people out there who have considered the alternatives and have decided that they do believe in some sort of higher power? So please be polite. It gives your arguments more weight. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Riginslinger Date: 23 Feb 09 - 02:00 PM Thinking people? Really? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Wesley S Date: 23 Feb 09 - 01:57 PM There are some thinking people that believe in both evolution AND God. It happens y'know. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 23 Feb 09 - 01:49 PM There is no question, among anybody who knows *anything* about biology, chemistry and/or physics, that evolution is a fact. That humans evolved from older forms of apes. Exactly how evolution works may not be known down to the molecular level, but there is no question that it not only happens, but explains a whole lot about things, and than people absolutely certainly evolved from old world apes. No question at all. Unless you are religious and it contradicts your dogma. Even the completely ignorant of science, if they didn't have creation myths to fall back on, would understand the fact of evolution being how people got here. It is the dogma that is so hard to overcome. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 23 Feb 09 - 01:40 PM Mrzzy said, in part: What about "There is no evolution because I believe in the Bible" - when evolution has been thoroughly demonstrated to be true? Two comments: First, people (perhaps including some here) confuse "evolution" with "Darwin's theory of evolution". That there has been change in flora and fauna over time by (gradual or sporadic) change is pretty well demonstrable. I'll deal with this again later. Darwin's theory of evolution is another matter. The theory as he posited it is not completely adopted today by those who purport to be Darwinians, and it's certainly not the only theory around. I believe Darwin's approach to be close to what actually happens, but there were other theories before Darwin came along, and I believe some afterward, some of which depended on a god's intervention, some depended upon the will of the species to change, and so on. While Darwin's theory is the most systematic and believable (I believe), there are still those who buy the others, so "evolution" or "the theory of evolution" are not to be equated with "Darwin's theory of evolution". The fundamentalists (or at least some of them) even deny my first paragraph, that there has been evolution. They do it in a way that I pejoratively characterize as "making God a trickster", who planted false clues in what we would read as the geological record or the paleontological record. Thus some of them determinedly cling to the idea of a creation once and for all, unchanging down to today. I think it's important to remember the difference in language and preconceived concepts when talking about such things, to avoid talking past each other. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Feb 09 - 01:28 PM If the person has just made an assumption without looking at the evidence (a common thing for people to do), then, yes, they are being extremely foolish. Some people, however, have looked at the evidence regarding evolution and are not fully convinced that it is a correct theory. They might think it's partially correct. (which would be where I stand on it) They might think it's entirely incorrect. What they think about it, in any case, would not be on the basis of contradicting any kind of demonstrable reality that they have seen, but on the basis of interpreting demonstrable realities in a different manner. As for the person who simply goes to the Bible (or, more likely, to his pastor) to make a decision about evolution, and who never looks any further at all is not contradicting any demonstrable reality in so doing...he's just not bothering to even investigate it, that's all. He figures he doesn't need to. He is happy to remain ignorant regarding "demostrable reality" when it comes to evolution. He's not experiencing a contradiction, he's experiencing a mind that is already so made up that it doesn't need to even LOOK! That's kind of like the mind of the average atheist regarding spiritual matters... ;-) You can't tell him anything about that, because he already KNOWS it "isn't real" and he doesn't want to hear about it! ;-) That's why I say there is extreme prejudice and chauvinism at both ends of the scale on this, and I don't support it in either case. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 23 Feb 09 - 01:00 PM But, Mrzzy, no one who believes something also believes demonstrable reality to be false. excuse me? What about "There is no evolution because I believe in the Bible" - when evolution has been thoroughly demonstrated to be true? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Feb 09 - 12:52 PM When I question gross prejudice and chauvinism at one end of any scale, Mrzzy, I am not thereby defending gross prejudice and chauvinism at the other end of that scale. Let's keep that clear, okay? ;-) You said, "Find me someone who thinks their beliefs, which contradict demonstrable reality, are nonetheless true and that therefore believes demonstrable reality to be false because of the contradiction, and I'll show you an American Christian." Hmmm. But, Mrzzy, no one who believes something also believes demonstrable reality to be false. We all believe demonstrable reality to be true, we just do...it comes naturally...but we have different interpretations of it, and those interpretations usually arise directly out of our beliefs. Even the Flat Earth people, for example...and there are only a tiny few of them around...have come up with "evidence" taken straight from what to them is "demonstrable reality" to "prove" their theory...and they have marvelously logical-sounding explanations to prove why the Earth isn't round. Go visit them and find out. It's really quite amusing. The human mind is capable of interpreting "demonstrable reality" any damn way it has decided it wants to, and this has always been the case. The only thing the human mind wants is to be "right" and for others to be "wrong". It gains a sense of superiority from that presumption, and that makes it feel great. Now, give me some specific examples of things religious people believe that fit your sentence: "Find me someone who thinks their beliefs, which contradict demonstrable reality, are nonetheless true and that therefore believes demonstrable reality to be false because of the contradiction, and I'll show you an American Christian." And we'll take it from there... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 23 Feb 09 - 11:13 AM Or, actually, any monotheistic fundamentalist, The pagans don't have that problem, at least. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 23 Feb 09 - 10:16 AM Mrzzy - Find me someone who doesn't think that his or her own beliefs are reality. ;-) Find me someone who thinks their beliefs, which contradict demonstrable reality, are nonetheless true and that therefore believes demonstrable reality to be false because of the contradiction, and I'll show you an American Christian. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Riginslinger Date: 23 Feb 09 - 07:02 AM Of course there are many different branches. The disaster that developed under Stalin in the Soviet Union was more like a monarchy than any concept of communal living. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 22 Feb 09 - 11:59 PM Well...I wouldn't necessarily object if you were. It's one among many conceivabe choices in politics, and it can have its own merits, depending on circumstances. I just assumed you that were not, that's all. ;-) People are always making assumptions like that, you know... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Riginslinger Date: 22 Feb 09 - 11:32 PM "WHY are you not a Communist, Rig? ;-)" Why would you think that I'm not? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 22 Feb 09 - 07:59 PM Oh YES you would have a military-industrial complex without religion, Rig. With ease. Stalin and Mao both had a military-industrial complex without religion. Stalin's Russia fielded more tanks in WWII than any other power in the world, and they were better ones on average too. They overwhelmed the Germans with a flood of men and highly effective equipment. That was a military-industrial complex par excellence! (Now...I think Communism really IS a political religion all of its own type...but it isn't a belief system that includes God, life after death, an immortal soul, angels, heaven, prayer, or any of the stuff that you and Mrzzy find delusional and "unreal". Communism is based entirely on the practical material considerations of this Earthly existence, and how best to manage them, according to Communist theory.) WHY are you not a Communist, Rig? ;-) They seem to think as you do. And Pol Pot? Well, he had a military...but he didn't really have what one could call a military-industrial complex at his disposal yet. Good thing! He still managed to kill a quarter of the people in his own country, using quite primitive methods to do it. I told you...government is the most dangerous thing around. Governments without religion have sometimes proven even more dangerous than those with it, but there's no guarantee either way. Pol Pot managed to kill a higher proportion of his own population in 4 years than any other despot has done in recorded history. He did all of that under the proud banner of atheism. Mrzzy - Find me someone who doesn't think that his or her own beliefs are reality. ;-) What you must have meant to say was, "Yes, but also, just people who prefer their beliefs to my version of reality." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Riginslinger Date: 22 Feb 09 - 06:17 PM And you wouldn't have a military-industrial complex without religion. You might have a personality complex, but not a military-industrial complex. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 22 Feb 09 - 04:05 PM Yes, but also, just people who prefer their beliefs to reality. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 22 Feb 09 - 01:54 PM Well, that may be so. ;-) I'm not necessarily speaking of you, just of humanity in general. My impression is that most people worship a considerable variety of things (money, fame, good looks, popularity, class, material wealth, their own ego...). Again, many of the people who outwardly claim to worship God do not actually submit as fully to God as one might think. When things don't go the way they wanted, for example, they'll get angry at God over it! ;-) Or when some wandering desire hits them, they are inclined to forget all about God for awhile... I don't call that submission, I call it dabbling in something when it suits you to, and putting it aside when it doesn't. But who, I ask you...who ever puts aside their respect for the power of $100,000 dollars placed in their hand? Nobody. Therefore, I say that they have submitted to the power of money, not to the power of God. There's only the odd true religious zealot of believer who will go all the way for (their idea of) God...such as a Mother Teresa...or a suicide bomber. Those people are few and far between. There are also, I think, relatively few ordinary people who will kill a complete stranger if you offer them $100,000 to do it...so evidently money also has its limits with most people. I'm glad that is the case. Surprisingly, though, almost any young man or woman in a uniform will kill complete strangers on a battlefield if their government tells them to! This tells you how much faith most people have in their government. More than they do in God, yessir! They just assume that their government knows perfectly well what it is doing when it sends them out to kill foreigners. I think the average person has submitted to the government far more than they have submitted to God. That's my opinion. You may counter by saying that the government is real, and God isn't. Well, that's one way of looking at it...but being "real" doesn't also mean being right, does it? I regard governments as FAR more dangerous than religions. When governments use religion to push their agenda, however, then it gets even nastier....and I think that is what is concerning you, isn't it? That I can understand. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 22 Feb 09 - 01:19 PM No, not with religion, but with submission. There is nothing that I admire to *that* extent. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 22 Feb 09 - 12:36 PM I feel the same way about the military-industrial complex. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Riginslinger Date: 22 Feb 09 - 09:36 AM Actually, it's the endless destruction casued by religion that bothers me. The word "worship" is just a signal to the rational thinkers that they intend to go on doing it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Feb 09 - 04:48 PM So the word "worship" troubles you? Well, that's a matter of semantics. You associate that word only with religion, I assume? I've been observing people worshipping a great number of things all my life. If they ultimately accord it greater importance than anything else in their life...if their attention is fixed upon it...if their decisions depend upon it...if they perhaps give it more importance then it actually merits...if they have more faith in it than they really do in anything else at all... Then they worship it. Many people claim to worship God. But in actual practice I find that most of them worship money. It's the number one thing they have an unshakable faith in, and you can determine that easily by how they react when you offer them a VERY large amount of it. ;-) And by the extraordinary things they will do to get it. Therefore I think it is ironically absolutely perfect for American money to have "In God We Trust" written on it, because the ruling god of this society IS money. It couldn't be a more perfect motto to express what is really going on...the pursuit of the Allmighty Dollar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Mrrzy Date: 21 Feb 09 - 04:00 PM It is not true that you have to worship something. I don't worship anything. Admire, love, am amazed by, am awed by, sure. But not worship. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Feb 09 - 03:49 PM Oh, I'm not suggesting appeasing anyone. I'm just suggesting not getting too emtionally addicted to one's pet peeves, that's all... If you know what I mean. ;-) And I hope you do. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Stringsinger Date: 21 Feb 09 - 02:18 PM Little Hawk, the only way to keep Americans from slumbering is to keep the issue alive. Sweeping it under the carpet has become the American Way and doesn't serve our country. Of course the battle will continue to rage as long as atheists and agnostics are denied their rights. If there are reactionary forces who become upset at this issue, then so be it. It doesn't serve anyone to keep quiet. Historically, that has never resolved anything. Antagonism and anger will be engendered but it doesn't have to be coming from the non-believers side. All they need to do is stick to the facts and reason. Appeasing the religious opposition does nothing constructive. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Feb 09 - 02:09 AM Fine, Bill, but I'm not talking about any other-worldly stuff here, such as spiritual realms, gods, trolls, or anything else like that. I'm talking about ideals. I am saying that all the world's religions have arisen mainly out of man's desire to have a guiding set of ideals to live by...and that those ideals in themselves are entirely valid concepts, regardless of whether or not there are gods, trolls, Angels, ghosts, Satan or anything else otherworldly out there. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Bill D Date: 21 Feb 09 - 12:16 AM "And we all know what the word "perfection" means, don't we?" Well, we sort of do....but we do that by making the idea relative to the circumstances. A 'perfect' tuna sandwich has a different sense than a 'prefect world'....but we can't define either one..except subjectively. Plato's entire system was about the 'ideal' and discovering how closely a 'real' item participated in it ideal form. The problem is, we create words to try to explain, grasp, encompass, grok, etc., things we can't measure or poke or This idea that we really KNOW what we mean by some words is kinda slippery. One of the best examples of this IS that we keep, as you put it, "talking past each other". Even better is the way kids use limited, like, slang to sort of communicate in short, vague bursts of buzz words. They convey some sort of awareness of each other's 'space', but there is often so little substance....like, yaknowhatimean? No? Poets & philosophers theologians and scientists all try to, on different levels, express some sort of 'truth'. The question is, does subject matter, as in theology, raise the ... ummmm... 'truthiness' of a concept away from just poetry and into some higher realm? This is where *I* begin to doubt. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Sawzaw Date: 21 Feb 09 - 12:07 AM It must be that "giant sucking sound" Ross Perrot predicted all those years ago. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:04 PM Bill, I don't see anything in what you said in that last post that particularly bothers me. I simpy didn't use a word that suits you when I said "deny". I should have said "doubt". I think I understand your position on it. But as usual, I think we're talking straight past each other and both not really getting what the other is driving at, probably because we are aiming at rather different objectives. In short, we have different concerns. My concern was merely to point out that all people naturally have in them a strong desire for perfection, and that most civilizations (if not all of them) have brought forth various religious concepts as a way of symbolizing the ideal of perfection and the search to realize it. Okay? And what I was saying was, in essence, you, BillD, can doubt the existence of "God" (as you, BillD, interpret that word "God")...but I don't think you can rationally doubt the existence of the ideal of perfection itself...since it clearly exists where all ideals do: in the human mind. And we all know what the word "perfection" means, don't we? An ideal is a set of ideas, aimed at some kind of perfection. An idea is a real thing that happens on the level of consciousness. We all know that from our own direct experience. It's not physically real. It's not quantifiably measurable or observable as an outward phenomenon (unless you want to observe neurons firing in the brain), but it is a real ocurrence on a mental level whenever it enters a human mind, and it profoudly affects human behaviour. That's what religions and philosophies are about to me. They're not about rituals. They're not about power structures or formalities. They're not about hierarchies or rules. They're about ideals...ideals being the result of thinking that is directed toward some concept of perfection. To me, that's what life is really about. It is about the search for meaning and perfection. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: GUEST,Slag Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:03 PM Thanks for the kind words and recognition of my poetic side. Poetry recognizes the limitation of words, housed in their dictionary meanings. The metaphor reveals the truth (OK, the poet's truth) by painting a picture with plashes and blobs of color an a blank canvas. It's just oil and clays and other pigments mixed in but stroke after stroke, a picture emerges. Ultimately you are the judge of just what the picture reveals and what it means to you. Your God, Bill D, is easy to discern. It is the same one where most worship. It is the same one Satan offered Adam and Eve in the garden. "And the serpent said unto the woman, 'Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Your faith resides in your own self and your ability to understand all things. There is no room in your mind or heart for God because YOU are the judge of all things. That is the hardest and most humiliating thing to do for a man OR a woman, to lay aside that aspect of your being and accept God's point of view on faith. Few there are who who can do that. Understand that this is not my judgement of you or anyone else and I do not hold myself as superior to anyone. I stumble and fall all over myself on a depressingly regular basis. I can't escape me. I am trapped inside this fleshy and perishing body with all its carnality and human world view. I find peace and a way only as I surrender to my Father through the priestly office of Christ. My God is a God of love and grace who has forgiven me all my short-comings. He has forgiven all the world for all time, the same. Well, I've left poetry and now I am preaching. If that offends you or anyone else, I apologize for monologuing in a discussion forum. I will ask for a little charity on your part and conclude herewith. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Bill D Date: 20 Feb 09 - 08:39 PM And Slag, I do agree with you that "Religion comes of being a conscious entity. When ever Man gasped "Why?" religion was born because he realized "existence" and has been trying to nail it down ever since." That is not much of an issue. It makes perfect sense that a being, as it gains the ability to ask "why?" at all, and is VERY terrified by the world and its dangers, soon patches together some sort of 'explanation'. The early religions were about fear, death, danger, survival....and hoping that some 'behavior' could affect how they survived & prospered. Some of those ideas were pretty weird...to us... and some were more complex and coherent, (at least internally). Those prospered and became MORE complex and 'interesting'....etc. (It is an interesting fact that Mithra/Ahura Mazda, as descendants of Zoroastrian beliefs, was an early, dominant religion in Rome, and was popular until one emperor was converted to early Christianity.) Just a matter of luck....(yes, I can hear the wheels turning as Christians assert that God intervened and 'helped' the transition) *shrug* But after that nice, obvious beginning, you veer into poetry and slogans. I don't 'think' I 'worship' or have "an object of devotion", unless you try to stretch the meaning of the idea to the scientific method or logic.. ☺.. and I will argue about that warping of the words. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Bill D Date: 20 Feb 09 - 08:12 PM "You can deny "God", Bill, because you happen to be offended by organized religion... ;-) " Go back up there and read my posts, LH... I'll wait................. so...did you find any place where I 'denied' God? You can do a search in ALL my posts for 10 years or so, but I won't wait. It is important ... for me... to walk that fine line between atheism and agnosticism. It is also important, to the extent I can manage, to have others understand that I DO walk that line. I do not 'deny' a supreme being.... I doubt that the concept is viable. It is just not something that I can wrap my head around. *IF* there is such a being...or more than one... 'it'/'they' do not communicate with me, and I see a lot of flaws in the stories of those who claim to HAVE evidence & communication. If there were a way to place a bet, I'd bet against it...but there's no way to collect. I 'could' lose...if a voice from the sky came down in flashes of thunder and TOLD me, "**YOU LOSE!**". It's very much like reincarnation...if I'm right, I don't get to say "I told you so." I simply object to, no, make that regret, that so much of our cultural energy is invested in what 'feels' like just superstition. The reason I do not 'object' or totally condemn religion, is that I think some of our populace is just wired to need some sort of 'ultimate answer'. I actually would be frightened if there were some sort of ruling against religion. There is no good reason to tell folks they CAN'T believe in some sort of god. There is, however, a good reason to tell them they can't impose belief, or the structure of artificial belief, on others. ...and just to be clear, I also didn't make any claims about when "In God We Trust" appeared on coins. All I said was that it hadn't always been there, just as God had not always been in the Pledge. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Peter K (Fionn) Date: 20 Feb 09 - 07:58 PM Wesley S, re the prospect of an atheist president, I have seen it claimed in the UK that every member of both Houses in the US must claim to be a Christian in order to get elected. Can that be true? Is there really not a single exception? OK, not an atheist, but a Jew maybe? Have a look at this. The sixth paragraph in particular. For me, it beggars belief. For DougR it will be welcome confirmation that all is well in the world. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Want to get God out of US Inauguration? From: Little Hawk Date: 20 Feb 09 - 07:57 PM Right on, Slag. ;-) I personally think that worship of money is the dominant religion out there right now. |
