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christians (pg. 34)
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by inconspicuous
Government & public are not one in the same, and that's where they get off track with regards to religion. I'll go through & find some representative examples when I'm really bored some time.
It's Chomsky. I'm not even going to waste the 5 minutes.
They put more obviously insane Christians on the air. Both sides do the inflammatory thing when it comes to speakers, but those are people who are intelligent & well-spoken enough to sound reasonable, regardless of what they're saying. I'm referring to their coverage of more 'regular' (well, in one sense) people. Rallies, protests, etc. |
Chomsky is one of the smartest people living in this country. |
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
Chomsky is one of the smartest people living in this country. |
I mean we may as well drop the debate now. :p |
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| inconspicuous |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
Chomsky is one of the smartest people living in this country. |
he's so off his rocker, it's ludicrous. he may be smart, but that doesn't mean that everything that comes out of his mouth is anything other than absolute bull.
but you're probably right. :p |
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| Lilith |
| Yes but he's at least a lot more relevant to your current existence than the writings of a bunch of bronze age, tent dwellers with delusions of grandeur about being the word/children of god... they where not exactly the most 'sane' of people either! |
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| inconspicuous |
| He's not relevant to anything but a discussion about the most popular texts of the 20th century without any semblance of accuracy. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Omega_M
Why do you think that only humans possess a soul ? Every living being possesses a soul because of the fact that it is "living" and not inert. There is no need for the soul to "evolve". It is the fundamental component of every organism. I don't see how it doesn't fit into the theory of evolution. If one were to rely on wiki for definitions, |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Exactly. There is no such thing as a "soul" by its very lack of a concrete, a priori definition. The concept can be broadened to include microbial life or narrowed to exclude everything but an as of yet undiscovered alien species that possesses a fundamental unique trait that we lack. And this subjectiviy can perpetuate ad infinitum depending upon relativity. |
hehe, id like to make clear i dont believe in souls at all!! i am merely confining the discussion regarding souls to my understanding of how contemporary religions (specifically chrisitanity) treat them, in order to ask moral hazard to explain his (what i believed might be) conflicting opinions regarding the science of evolution and the teachings of the church. it only occured to me the other day so i wanted to ask moral about it :)
as far as i am aware, christianity only gives souls to human beings, not plants or animals. indeed, if we are to believe in concepts such as heaven and hell, and how our behaviour dictates where we end up, those organisms that don't have "choice" in the same way humans do, are, in my understanding, soul-less. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by caddyshack
That is a nice reasonable response. However what you believe you simply made up, or used intuition to come up with what you believe, its baseless assumption. all the respect tho |
Not at all. My beliefs are the logical deduction from all the study I have done regarding various belief systems, philosophy and science. It is based on a great many sources and the greatest gift given to humans; reason. Moreover, it is entirely in keeping with both the abrahamic and vedic religions (unless one takes a strict literal read of their texts). |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by wotyzoid
Well the bible never mentions anything about a hope for all followers of jesus going to heaven but it promisses eternal life here on earth. |
metaphore |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by caddyshack
This is the core problem with religion, everything is assumed to be true. Call it faith but it still doesn't make it valid. |
Incorrect. Schollars from the main religious families constantly study and scrutinize their beliefs and practices. The Vatican employes hundreds of theologists for the express purpose of reviewing old texts, challenging their practices, reasoning through their beliefs, and refining their faith. One good example of this would be the concept of Pergatory. For much of the Catholic church's existance they spoke of time spent in pergatory. The belief was that various passages in the bible eluded to the dead who were not pure spending time in an inbetween state to be cleansed of the sins they were not absolved of at the time of their death. As our understanding of the entire concept of time changed, Vatican scholars deduced that there can be no such thing as time in pergatory. The thinking here is that since time is a function of motion and there is no matter on a spiritual plain of existance then there can be no motion thus no time. This is why you will never hear Priests speak of time in Pergatory. Clearly, they did not assume their belief was true, they reasoned through it, and abandoned it when they found it did not stand up to logical scrutany. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
because theists that deliberately misunderstand things like evolution are painfully annoying to deal with. if they came to the table with a more honest/researched opinion (ala moral hazard) then things would be fine. the fact is they dont, ergo i will view them as intellectually inferior, NOT because they disagree, but because of their "selectful" view of particular pieces of evidence.
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I agree with you, it is unfortunate that many people follow a faith with very little understanding of it and, subsequently, become uncomfortable when they are challenged and do not have the ability to defend their beliefs by any arguments that do not presuppose that their beliefs are true. Trying to prove the existance of God and the supremecy of any religion using only the texts of that religion is pure folly. If one is debating with someone that does not believe in god then how can one seek to influance the other using the word of a god their opponent does not believe in as evidence. It is truly a shame that many do not take the time to understand both their religion and the competing philosophies, if they did they would likely learn that the differences are not as great as they believe and the perceived competators are actually complimentary. What is even more unfortunate is that it's usually those that don't really understand their faith that seem to speak the loudest and most often. |
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| trewqy |
In spite of whatever u say regarding the vatican doing research on whatever..I will never ever take them seriously. Come on, who am I gonna trust?
Those guys from MIT or some old shmuck in a robe reading old scriptures? |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by trewqy
In spite of whatever u say regarding the vatican doing research on whatever..I will never ever take them seriously. Come on, who am I gonna trust?
Those guys from MIT or some old shmuck in a robe reading old scriptures? |
The "old shmuck in a robe" often applies the knowledge from the "guys from MIT" to his beliefs. If you were to take the time to learn and understand the theology/philosophy as well as the science you would soon discover that the two are not incongruant. Furthermore, if you were to actually read the missives of the "old shmuck in a robe" you would know that he regards what is learned by the "guys from MIT" as being equally valid to what was espoused by prior "old shmuck(s) in robe(s)." |
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