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christians (pg. 36)
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
I'm going to assume you're joking here. Pre-marital sex is punished in all sorts of ways in all sorts of places, from being thrown out of the house to being shunned to being forced to marry the person to being killed. |
The key words in my statement were "in practice." Sure, laws against pre-marital sex are quite common (especially in Islamic states), however, laws are not the will of the people. The will of the people is exhibited in their actions. People, the world over, despite the teachings of their faith, despite laws, still engage in pre-marital sex. I would suggest this is a sign that most people do not accept that it is wrong to do so.
Please to note, very few of the places that outright prohibt abortion have large christian communities. That said, I cannot state that the majority of people don't take issue with abortion... I simply do not know. If I had to guess I would suggest that much of the world is still opposed to it, however, this would greatly depend on how one phrased the question.
As you have noted, again, we cannot presume that prohabition = public opposition.
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Yeah. I certainly wouldn't suggest that church leaders are entirely cynical about "moving with the times" in order to gain converts and money. I think that a lot of them are probably very principled people who genuinely believe in what they say and think that bringing Europe back to Catholicism (rather than watering down Catholicism for the sake of regaining Europe) is the right to do. But there is always the "numbers game" to consider: the population of Africa is larger than that of Europe and growing much, much more quickly. |
I agree, the Vatican does have to reflect the interests of over a billion people, which is no small task to say the least. Walking the line between theology, politics (on the largest scale), and their apostolic mission must be very difficult indeed. This is likely why the church tends to rely more on theology then governance based on popular opinion. With so many followers it is impossible to acurately guage their will, this is compounded by the fact that on any issue there will be large groups of inconsistant wills. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
I think that the article is correct in a general sense; atheism and the more "polite" versions of religion abound in the upper classes, while the "rougher" versions of religion abound in the lower. |
The question I suppose this begs is: are the lower classes more fundamental and rigid because they use their faith as a rallying point against the elite or because they economic realities do not afford them the opportunity to gain anything more then a superficial understanding of the issues. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| I suspect that both have something to do with it. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
I suspect that both have something to do with it. |
Indeed, and probably more factors still. This is what makes this debate so diverse and impossible to win... there are so many positions with so many motivations, some well thought out and supported, some based on nothing more then belief in what one was told... this is true on both sides. |
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| Omega_M |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
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. |
How would you define a "soul" ? (in which you don't believe anyways)
I don't understand why people think of heaven and hell as real places for the "soul" to be after death. They are metaphors that imply something else. If you believe in life after death, then hell would be right here on earth and would imply a very poor quality of life filled with pain and suffering.
To me, life after death is a much simpler explanation to what happens after death, rather than thinking that you get only one life. I am waiting for a scientific proof of the existence of "consciousness". If indeed we can prove it's existence, then the problem of what happens to this property after death can be investigated. |
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| Slylee |
i believe in souls. our bodies are just a medium for them to exist:D
what about ghosts n stuff? you guys think all of that is just bull? i mean there's been documentation of those things. |
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| caddyshack |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
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. |
So in the mean time people of faith will believe whatever the theologists have interpereted at this point. Maybe it will change later on, but neverless by GOD its damn true today! |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by caddyshack
So in the mean time people of faith will believe whatever the theologists have interpereted at this point. Maybe it will change later on, but neverless by GOD its damn true today! |
Please to explain how this differs from science or any other theory, philosophy, or belief. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
It sort of irks me when people overuse the word "believe". Like, just because you believe in something doesn't make it true - sorry. The compromise however, is that just because you don't believe in something, it's existence isn't necessarily negated. You don't know everything - nobody does, not even humans' God, if you ask me. :p
We're just small little specks of monkey-matter at some ass-end of the universe - we've been around for such a small period of time, but we think that our logic and our understanding is at an end? That there is truly nothing more to understand about the universe except that there either is a God (according to some) or that there simply is not a God (according to others). Admittedly, it's certainly the religious side which most often states that God is absolute and His authority reigns as ration and logic, supreme - but I seem to see a fair amount of atheists who take the name of science in vain and state that there is no God because there has simply been no evidence of one yet. I don't like to think that either of these perspectives is a truly accurate representative of its doctrine; science knows that just because there has been no conclusive evidence proving or disproving yet the existence of God, it doesn't mean that there isn't one - it simply does not know.
As for ghosts and aliens and phantoms and specters? I sure do like to believe in those sorts of things. I've never experienced something truly weird like that before though - nothing that didn't make sense at some later point if I'd only suspend reasoning until I had more information. That's not to say that there aren't things out there that completely defy all human logic and understanding - that may just be the only thing that I truly believe in: the existence of things in our universe that are completely inexplicable and absurd and push the boundaries of existence as we know it.
Have people seen a whole lot of those sorts of things on Earth though? I'm quite skeptical of that. |
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| Slylee |
im fascinated by ghost stories and shows about "real life hauntings". i mean there's literally haunted houses and people who claim to have seen things. could they be lying? sure, but i dunno, i buy it. i think it's cool.
and nice post halcyon, im sort of with u. |
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| Omega_M |
| quote: | Originally posted by Slylee
i mean there's been documentation of those things. |
How credible are the sources ? |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
It sort of irks me when people overuse the word "believe". Like, just because you believe in something doesn't make it true - sorry. The compromise however, is that just because you don't believe in something, it's existence isn't necessarily negated. |
Is this not the entire point of using the word believe... to convey that you do not know for certain, however, you are acting as if it is true. |
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