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Author Topic:   Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win.
Dredge
Member
Posts: 2850
From: Australia
Joined: 09-06-2016


(1)
Message 496 of 2887 (824327)
11-27-2017 3:04 AM
Reply to: Message 492 by Dr Adequate
11-26-2017 1:19 PM


Your questions are like rocks hurled at my fragile, egg-shell mind.
Nevertheless, they are good questions ... for which I have no answers - although there is a theory about the fall of the angels (Satan and co.) causing the destruction of creation on earth.
But there are many mysteries which humans cannot answer without divine revelation.
Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 492 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-26-2017 1:19 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 501 by Phat, posted 11-27-2017 8:26 AM Dredge has not replied
 Message 509 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-29-2017 12:20 AM Dredge has replied

  
Dredge
Member
Posts: 2850
From: Australia
Joined: 09-06-2016


Message 497 of 2887 (824328)
11-27-2017 3:07 AM
Reply to: Message 494 by Coragyps
11-26-2017 6:19 PM


No yanking of chain here. This is my sincere belief and I have no idea why you think it presidentially absurd.
Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 494 by Coragyps, posted 11-26-2017 6:19 PM Coragyps has not replied

  
Dredge
Member
Posts: 2850
From: Australia
Joined: 09-06-2016


Message 498 of 2887 (824329)
11-27-2017 3:14 AM
Reply to: Message 495 by jar
11-26-2017 8:14 PM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
My theory is based on a literal reading of Scripture. The "heavens and the earth" in Genesis 1:1 were present before the six days of creation (Gen 1:3-31). The first of the six Days begins in verse 3 with "Let there be light".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 495 by jar, posted 11-26-2017 8:14 PM jar has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 499 of 2887 (824336)
11-27-2017 6:20 AM
Reply to: Message 498 by Dredge
11-27-2017 3:14 AM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
So, you have never had any science involved at all. Just scriptures.
You should have said that from the beginning.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 498 by Dredge, posted 11-27-2017 3:14 AM Dredge has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 500 of 2887 (824342)
11-27-2017 8:23 AM
Reply to: Message 495 by jar
11-26-2017 8:14 PM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
jar,to Dredge writes:
Or maybe you are like most Bible Christians that have simply never honestly read the Bible?
Not too many people read the Bible in order to critique it. They are searching for GOD....that character whom we all seek in order to receive a promise of a better tomorrow

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 502 by ringo, posted 11-27-2017 11:17 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied
 Message 503 by Coragyps, posted 11-27-2017 2:06 PM Phat has replied
 Message 505 by dwise1, posted 11-28-2017 12:50 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 501 of 2887 (824343)
11-27-2017 8:26 AM
Reply to: Message 496 by Dredge
11-27-2017 3:04 AM


Hope
Dredge writes:
But there are many mysteries which humans cannot answer without divine revelation.
And we hope that when we meet GOD He will give us answers and blessings rather than a list of more questions and chores to do.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 496 by Dredge, posted 11-27-2017 3:04 AM Dredge has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(2)
Message 502 of 2887 (824359)
11-27-2017 11:17 AM
Reply to: Message 500 by Phat
11-27-2017 8:23 AM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
Phat writes:
Not too many people read the Bible in order to critique it. They are searching for GOD....that character whom we all seek in order to receive a promise of a better tomorrow
quote:
LECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE
(Reader, if you seek his monument look around you.)
That's Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph, written on his tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral, which he designed.
To paraphrase, "If you seek God, look at His cathedral, not the brochure."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 500 by Phat, posted 11-27-2017 8:23 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 735 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 503 of 2887 (824367)
11-27-2017 2:06 PM
Reply to: Message 500 by Phat
11-27-2017 8:23 AM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
Whom we ALL seek?
Speak for yourself.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 500 by Phat, posted 11-27-2017 8:23 AM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 504 by Phat, posted 11-27-2017 4:40 PM Coragyps has not replied
 Message 506 by dwise1, posted 11-28-2017 12:54 AM Coragyps has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 504 of 2887 (824381)
11-27-2017 4:40 PM
Reply to: Message 503 by Coragyps
11-27-2017 2:06 PM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
ringo writes:
To paraphrase, "If you seek God, look at His cathedral, not the brochure."
Many would argue that we are the Cathedral...Living Stones as it were. Which would lend support to jars assertion that Christianity is about what one does rather than what one believes.
Coragyps writes:
Whom we ALL seek?
Speak for yourself.
Sorry...I forgot that we all dont seek it.
I am examining Biblical Christian beliefs over at my new topic.
R.C.Sprouls Teaching On Reformed Theology
Im going to focus my replies over there.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 503 by Coragyps, posted 11-27-2017 2:06 PM Coragyps has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 508 by ringo, posted 11-28-2017 11:01 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 505 of 2887 (824399)
11-28-2017 12:50 AM
Reply to: Message 500 by Phat
11-27-2017 8:23 AM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
They are searching for GOD...
You are actually onto something there, says the half-century-long confirmed atheist ("confirmed" since I became an atheist around the traditional age of confirmation, but also because the vast majority of encounters with creationists and "true Christians" confirm my choice way back then to have been the correct one).
A few days ago a friend posted a meme on Facebook (which I now transcribe -- it's all in caps, so pardon me if I'm not theologically correct here):
quote:
We worshipped Jesus instead of following him on his same path.
We made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey toward union with God and everything else.
This shift made us into a religion of "belonging and believing" instead of a religion of transformation.
Richard Rohr
From the Unitarian Time of Troubles with Boy Scouts of America, Inc, our congregation's president at the time of Paul Trout (1985; our own particular Time of Troubles came six years later when the same BSA leaders decided they could do whatever they wished with no fear of the consequences) quoted Augustine of Hippo:
quote:
God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. For if you understand, you have failed.
A religion that just tells you "believe this" and "belong to this group" is a very poor religion indeed. Mike Doonesbury put it well decades ago when his daughter asked why she still had to go to church: "Because you need to put in your pew time." Those people are just putting in their pew time and getting no spiritual growth out of it. I have a brochure that quotes a book co-written by a rabbi about the stupid ways to think about God. Part of the book's premise is that most adults' ideas about God are so childish because they formed those ideas in childhood as they were "putting in their pew time" and they never went back to update them.
The Unitarians were very active in the civil rights and anti-war movement of the 60's. Out of that time came a catch-phrase for questioning authority: "To answer is to question." However, I find deeper meaning there. Our minister had said that the important part of religion are not answers, but rather moving us to ask the right questions. To question is the answer.
When I'm asked whether God exists, I say yes, just as all the gods exist and all the heros and villains. Fundamentalist proselytizers try all kinds of deceptive rhetorical tricks in order to deceive people into converting. One such trick is to ask something like "Well, if you believe God doesn't exist, then why do you talk about Him as if He does?" Well, the same way that we can talk about Luke Skywalker and what he went through. Or Captain Ahab. Or Wotan or Siegfried. Or Tony Stark. We discuss them all and we know their stories because we created them and we wrote their stories.
Now, we know nothing about the supernatural, cannot observe it, cannot even detect whether it actually exists. All we know about the supernatural is what other people have thought and felt about it. We cannot even know whether the supernatural exists, let alone whether some supremely powerful supernatural entity exists, let alone what such an entity may think or want.
Such a supernatural entity would be outside of our ability to comprehend, to put it extremely simply. So what if someone were to experience Divine Revelation. Thomas Paine pointed out that Revelation is Revelation to that one person and to that one person only. As soon as he relates to a second person, it becomes heresay. And when that second person relates it to a third person, it becomes hearsay upon hearsay. And so on and so on as it becomes hearsay upon hearsay many times over. I would say that to that one person who had received that Revelation, the moment he tried to understand it is the moment it became hearsay. It would be beyond his fallible human ability to understand his own Revelation.
We created the gods. We created them in attempts to explain what we could not explain ourselves. In that same sense you have created God. He is very similar to the God that your teachers have created, but different according to how you had misunderstood your teachers. And how they had misunderstood their teachers, etc.
To put it simply, everybody creates his own theology and creates his own Image of God within that theology. Everybody is fallible, so every theology is mistaken in some or multiple ways.
So then everybody's idea of God is not only their own, but it is flawed. Maybe they got some things right, even a lot of things right, but they also inevitably got a lot of things wrong, especially in the details.
I have often seen the mistaken argument that since there are so many different religions, only one can be right and all the rest are wrong. I disagree. They are all wrong, because they all get it wrong somewhere, especially in the details. But they are also all right, because they all get something right (granted, there could be some exceptions to this, but just ride with it here). So it's not a matter of who's right and who's wrong, but rather how do we proceed from here to getting it more right?
To question is the answer. When you ask questions about your beliefs, you are not questioning God, but rather you are questioning your own understandings about God, your own misunderstandings. Because only by questioning your own ideas and beliefs could you ever discover flaws and have any chance of trying to correct them.
All our ideas about God are wrong in some way. So we must question our ideas and assumptions. If nothing else, it keeps us engaged and thinking about the questions. When we decide that we have the answers, then we stop thinking about the questions. We stop growing. We wither and die. If God is truly Infinite, then we can eternally ask the questions, the right questions, and ever grow spiritually and never wither and die.
I don't know whether this US Navy model would help. The Quartermaster (QM) assists the ship's navigator, maintains the navigational charts, and performs navigational duties. Dead reckoning is pure algebra: you hold this course at this speed and after this much time you should end up here. Basically, applying beliefs blindly. But there are other factors such as winds against the superstructure and ocean currents against the hull, factors that could change the results. So then a few times a day, the QM would step outside, shoot whatever astronomical bodies with the sextant, and calculate where they actually were (nowadays, it would normally be done by GPS, but we must keep our skills up, mustn't we?). In Air Force Tech School, a classmate was taking flight lessons. He was intensely engaged with the instruments in order to determine where he was when his instructor told him rather bluntly to pull his head out of his cockpit. You know full well where you should be, but you also need to know where you actually are.
Knowing means nothing, because when you think that you know then you don't.
Religion needs to be transformative. You need to continue to ask the right questions. You can never possibly know all the answers. But once you think you know all the answers, you start to wither and you die.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 500 by Phat, posted 11-27-2017 8:23 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 510 by Dredge, posted 11-29-2017 3:08 AM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 506 of 2887 (824400)
11-28-2017 12:54 AM
Reply to: Message 503 by Coragyps
11-27-2017 2:06 PM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
Whom we ALL seek?
Speak for yourself.
His God is not our "God".
It is the journey (AKA "the process"), not the destination.
We all personify, imagine, what we seek all in our own way.
We invent our gods. What we seek is far greater than mere gods.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 503 by Coragyps, posted 11-27-2017 2:06 PM Coragyps has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 507 of 2887 (824415)
11-28-2017 10:26 AM
Reply to: Message 505 by dwise1
11-28-2017 12:50 AM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
Thou art God.
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
In the name of diversity, college student demands to be kept in ignorance of the culture that made diversity a value--StultisTheFool
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1
"Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity.
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other points of view--William F. Buckley Jr.

This message is a reply to:
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ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 508 of 2887 (824419)
11-28-2017 11:01 AM
Reply to: Message 504 by Phat
11-27-2017 4:40 PM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
Phat writes:
Many would argue that we are the Cathedral...
We're only part of the cathedral.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 504 by Phat, posted 11-27-2017 4:40 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 509 of 2887 (824446)
11-29-2017 12:20 AM
Reply to: Message 496 by Dredge
11-27-2017 3:04 AM


Your questions are like rocks hurled at my fragile, egg-shell mind.
Nevertheless, they are good questions ... for which I have no answers - although there is a theory about the fall of the angels (Satan and co.) causing the destruction of creation on earth.
Also, how often do you envisage this process of destruction and creation taking place? If you look at the fossil record, there's pretty much always something new popping up or going extinct. Geologists distinguish between 99 official geological ages, and these are themselves capable of subdivision.
But there are many mysteries which humans cannot answer without divine revelation.
If we accept that God may be dicking with us by producing false appearances, then every truth, no matter how apparent, acquires an air of mystery. You can appeal to God's mysterious ways to suppose that instead of seeing evidence for evolution, we are seeing hundreds of vast and pointless miracles producing the appearance of evolution. But why stop there? We could equally look at a cow and wonder if it's a cow, or if God is exercising his miraculous powers to make the mere appearance of a cow, for reasons beyond our mortal ken.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 496 by Dredge, posted 11-27-2017 3:04 AM Dredge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 511 by Dredge, posted 11-29-2017 3:34 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dredge
Member
Posts: 2850
From: Australia
Joined: 09-06-2016


Message 510 of 2887 (824450)
11-29-2017 3:08 AM
Reply to: Message 505 by dwise1
11-28-2017 12:50 AM


Re: what a pathetic God Dredge markets
dwise1 writes:
The Unitarians were very active in the civil rights and anti-war movement of the 60's.
The Unitarians are cultural Marxists masquerading as Christians, in other words. The same Loony Left spirit infected mainstream Catholicism in the 60's (thanks mainly to influence of the Jesuits, I suspect)) and has remained stuck in that demented state ever since. But it can't last forever - all infantile utopian fantasies eventually crumble under the weight of reality.
Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 505 by dwise1, posted 11-28-2017 12:50 AM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 516 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-30-2017 12:42 AM Dredge has replied
 Message 517 by dwise1, posted 11-30-2017 2:15 AM Dredge has replied

  
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