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Member (Idle past 1434 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Religion or Science - How do they compare? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Tangle writes: Sure, but science should influence our theology. I see science as a natural theology.
Sheesh. Science and religion don't integrate. You'll never find the word 'god' in a scientific paper. You know, non-overlapping magisteria?Tangle writes: Science starts with belief and then you try and prove it empirically. Philosophy or theology start with belief but can't be examined or proven empirically but that does not on it's own make it wrong.
Science doesn't give a diarrhetic shit what you believe. Science is not belief. Science only cares about what you can demonstrate through test and observation. You can believe that the moon was given birth to by a chicken last Tuesday but if you work in science you'd better put that belief to one side and present your evidence for whatever it is you want to say. Tangle writes: ..and that is your belief.
There's no but. The brain *is* influenced by the environment. Period. It's a natural process. Tangle writes: I agree that they aren't at all synonyms, but you often treat it as such with your view that evolution explains everything about our existence. I see evolution as having been created.
So point one, why do you use the word creation when we're talking about evolution? No scientist uses that word. Are you now going to stop using the word when you're talking about evolution? Point two. Evolution and creation are not synonyms. I'm not interested in talking about religious ideas about creation - you can believe what you like, here we're talking about evolution. Tangle writes: Of course evolution is changed by random events. So what. That tells us nothing about why we have intelligent life with an understanding of morality.
You say you accept evolution. The evolutionary process is random and the course of evolution is changed by random events like meteors, ice ages, volcanic erruptions and just time and weather. You claim that god intervenes somehow in this process. If that is true then the process is not random and god is intervening all the time in every little beat of the butterfly's wing. But somehow this has been made to look like the process is indistiguihable from randomness. Any objective view is that it is what it looks like it is, no god necessary. Tangle writes: Sigh. You have belief, science has conclusions based on evidence. I do not 'believe' anything of the sort. Can you at least try to remember that. I'm not like you, stop imposing your mindset on me. If you can start to do that we might make some progress. Believers like you can't believe that others don't think the same way as they do. Apparently is I don't believe this, then I must believe that. That's not the case. If you can't think like me, please at least accept my assertion that I don't have beliefs about things, I either have knowledge of them or accept my ignorance. I don't insert a belief where I don't have an answer. I can say I don’t believe in unicorns or I could say that I don’t believe that unicorns exist. You don’t believe that any deity exists or you could say that you believe that no deity exists. It’s belief. You have observational evidence that culture affects our morality. What evidence do you have that God doesn’t also impact our morality. It isn't testable scientifically so it is a matter of belief.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Faith writes: I wonder if you heard the sermon by Bishop Curry at the Royal Wedding of Harry and Meghan last month. It was a very popular sermon and I'd guess one you would agree with. I only heard maybe a third of it though I did intend to hear more eventually. Basically he seemed to be saying something like "Love is nice, wouldn't it be nice if the world had more love in it."Then I started finding Christians who objected to it as not a truly Christian message, and wrote objections to it which I agree with. One Gavin Ashenden called it "Christianity Lite" and said this: It was a piece de resistance example of the vacuous variety of faith which Richard Niebuhr so forensically described as consisting ofA God without wrath who brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross. I think it fits your views. What do you think? Thank you so much for that reply. I hadn't heard the sermon by Bishop Curry and I am so glad that you caused me to go and listen to it. Yes, it was a brilliant sermon that nailed the message that Jesus had for us. It is all about the power of love to change the world. I know that you want a tough God that is going to really punish the wrong doers but Jesus brought a message of love of God, of neighbour and of our enemies. He brought this message to a people who were being brutally run by the Romans. He preached a message of the power of love and forgiveness as the way to defeat them The way they could be defeated was through the power of love. So yes I did very much approve of that sermon. I know it doesn't fit with an inerrant reading of the bible, but it does fit with the message that Jesus brought to the world. Of course, the message that Jesus brought doesn't agree with an inerrant reading of the Bible, so it makes sense.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Faith writes: Not really Faith. You have chosen to worship a deity based on a specific way of understanding of how God wants us to use the Bible. I have chosen a God based on the concept that God's nature, wisdom or Word was perfectly embodied by Jesus. As a result we have come to very different conclusions about the narure of God.
No, GDR, I do not WANT any such thing. You have chosen to create your idea of God according to what YOU want, but I haven't done that. I believe the portrait of God in the Bible is simply true and that's why I believe it. Certainly has nothing to do with my own likes and dislikes. I don't like God's severe judgments any more than you do, I simply believe they explain reality, that we are sinners and God's Moral Law must judge sinners harshly, that "the wages of sin is death."Faith writes: Yes, the message that Jesus brought is mostly in the OT but so is a lot of other stuff that He repudiated. So did the God of the Old Testament, who sent His Son to die for us to save us from His harsh justice. The only way that could be done was for God Himself to become man so that by having both natures, the God nature and the human nature He could die in our place and take our deserved punishment upon Himself so we don't have to endure it. Not to appreciate that fact is to trivialize the Jesus you think you admire. I recently read a 600 page book by Flemming Rutledge called simply "Crucifixion". Believe me I don't trivialize what Jesus did. I'd suggest that you trivialize Jesus when you give priority to ancient writings over and above what He said and did even when that which He said was not of God.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Tangle writes: Firstly science was started by theists and partly because they were theists they assumed that the universe was orderly and so could be discovered.
Science does influece theology; it regularly shows that it's wrong. Because of that it's been described as heresy for most of its early life and those practicing it were tortured and murdered. It has been influencial is softening most religious beliefs though and forcing them to drop their more rediculous claims. Tangle writes: And again, you confuse process with agency.
I can physically demonstrate that the brain can be changed by the environment, it's an observed fact. It's as natural as a wound healing. It's not belief, it's scientific knowledge. Tangle writes:
I have never said it was mindless. I have agreed that there is a great deal of randomness as part of the process.
You can see evolution as being created, but you can't see it as being controlled and guided to a specific end. Well you can, but then it wouldn't be evolution, because evolution, as you say, is random and mindless. You can't have it both ways, it's either on rails or it's a trillion rolls of the dice.Tangle writes:
Again, process and agency
Both intelligence and morality are evolved traits. We can see the development of both in related creatures. If you think empathy and intelligence are so special that they couldn't have evolved you have to show why. Tangle writes: What I don't believe is that all of the processes needed to bring about the world as we know could have occured from mindless origins. You, however believe that they could have. Look, if I have evidence - very hard, repeatable evidence - that culture affects our morality, why do I still need an invisible unnevidenced, untestable supreme being to do the same job?He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Faith writes: Hmm.. so you are persuaded by what a group of guys said about what a group guys wrote thousands of years earlier and are saying that it is straight from God. It is making a false idol out of the Bible, at the expense of what God has done in and through Jesus of Nazareth. was persuaded of the TRUTH of the traditional Protestant Reformation doctrines that are standard evangelical truth.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Faith writes: .. even when He rejects and/or corrects what is in the OT.
"...even when that which He said was not of God?????????" Are you talking about Jesus here? Jesus IS God, He can't say ANYTHING that is not of God. Faith writes: So the point is you are careful not to read a book by someone who disagrees with your views. I tried to find out what theological persuasion Fleming Rutledge represents and couldn't find a review from anybody I know. It's perhaps enough to know she's a pastor of an Episcopal Church, which is against Christian teaching.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
It sure does keep you from learning anything new though.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Faith writes:
There are a great number of Christians that view your understanding of the Scriptures and for that matter of God to be heretical. You adhere to an OT version of God in order to try and twist the Bible into a shape that isn't intended, distorting a great deal of what Jesus taught and died for, and what God resurrected Him for. I read a lot of heresies, cults, occultism, before going with what I recognized to be the truth. Heresies aren't new, they are very old. At some point, especially with bad eyes, the reasonable thing to do is stop wasting time on the devil's lies and grow in what you know to be true. Edited by GDR, : a to anHe has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
If you have a subscription to Christianity Today here is a link to an interview of Rutledge that would anser your questions. If you don't have a subscription you can subscribe to an outline subscription.
Flemming Rutledge InterviewHe has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
OK. This is from the interview in Christianity Today.
quote: He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Faith writes: I thing that struck me about Rutledge's book was not about correct doctrine at all. All Christians come to their own conclusions about the nature of God and what it means to our lives and how we should live them. Doctrine is interesting but what is primary is how we allow whatever doctrine we choose to shape our hearts and through that our lives. thanks. What she says doesn't completely do away with penal substitution and at least she acknowledges the importance of the atonement as substitutionary, which is better than I expected. I suspect there is some implicit waffling on the meaning of terms involved but for now I'll just take it at face value. What really struck me about the book was the answer to a question somebody asked recently at a study which was 'why does Paul go on about not being ashamed to preach a crucified messiah'. This book very much painted a picture of not only the horrendous suffering involved in dying in that manner, but the the humiliation and shame of it. One of the reasons for crucifixion was to absolutely shame and humiliate the person being crucified. A Roman citizen could not being crucified and it was only done to the lowest members of society. The individual would be stripped naked, nailed or hung on a cross, and would be subject to having both stones and taunts thrown at them. It was designed to dehumanize people. The idea of a crucified messiah was absolutely scandalous to Jews and ridiculous to Gentiles. In spite of this Paul goes on at great personal cost to himself preaching a crucified messiah. It obviously took something very powerful to convince the early Christians, (even before they were called that), that there was a reason to claim that Jesus really was the Messiah even though He had been thoroughly discredited by the fact that He had been crucified. Their claim was that the reason was the resurrection, and from what I read that is the only sensible explanation for the rise of the Christian faith. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
GDR writes: why does Paul go on about not being ashamed to preach a crucified messiaTangle writes:
Firstly that wasn't the point of my statement. The idea that a crucified would be dreamed up by any Jew at the time, let alone Paul, is ridiculous. It was so shameful that Paul has to address the issue by starting off saying that he wasn't ashamed to preach a crucified messiah. The obvious answer is because he failed. He wasn't the messia. That why the Jews are still waiting. It's why the ressurection story had to be invented and why it's now so important for Christians. The simple facts are that a man was killed, stayed killed and the claims he made about a second coming didn't happen. The whole thing failed. Hence Paul's shame - he was flat out wrong but had to carry on with the claim. He's was just doing what Faith does now believing something despite the evidence and spinning stories to make it fit the belief. You will no doubt argue against this but there are so many things in the NT that it makes no sense for us now to believe that the writers didn't believe the accounts to be true. No Jew would concoct a story about a crucified messiah. In addition to that we have people sacrificing their lives for this belief right from the beginning. Paul himself spent the bulk of the rest of his life suffering long stretches of imprisonment, numerous beatings and eventually death to support his beliefs. You can say that they were somehow mistaken as to what happened but it is nonsense to contend that they just made the whole thing up. Sure there are inconsistencies in the story and no doubt there are embellishments and biases influencing their accounts but obviously they believed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
ringo writes: That wasn't my point. My point was that they believed it to be true which does not make it true. Whether it is actually true or not is a different discussion. You can't assume that nobody "would" make up such a thing so it must be true. You might as well say that nobody "would" climb Mount Everest or go to the ISS if he/she was afraid of heights. You don't have the data to back up that assumption.ringo writes: .. and obviously they also believed in what they died for. So did the Mormons.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
ringo writes: Of course it's relevant.If they didn't believe it and they knew it to be fiction then there is no reason to pay any attention to it. If they believe it then we can come to our own conclusions about whether it is true or not.
Whether or not they believed it was true is irrelevant.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Tangle writes: There were numerous messianic movements over roughly a 200 year period. In virtually all, if not all, cases the messianic leaders were put to death and that was the end of the movement. In many of the cases the messianic figures actually had varying degrees of success in that they actually held some degree of power. If you take the view that someone called Jesus was indeed crucified it's not ridiculous at all to report it. He'd have to report it because those around at the time would know. But having reported that the messia was dead, he then had to make it all ok again by inventing the whole cock-and-bull story about a subsequent resurrection. THAT's the ridiculous part. One example is the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 AD. They even has three where they minted coinswith the years 1,2 and3 on them. A very prominent Rabbi at the time Rabbi Akiva claimed that Bar Kokhba was the messiah. After they were put to deat, as was usual, the movement ended and as usual Bar Kokhba was simply considered another failed messiah. Here was a messianic figure who achieved nothing of what was expected of a messiah and was put to death in the most shameful way possible, with his followers all bailing out and yet they come back and dedicate their lives to following him. Something happened to cause this turn around and they have given an account of what that something was.
Tangle writes: Sure, but there was something that caused him to leave his life persecuting the early Christians to being one their foremost leaders. We draw our own conclusions. So what? He believed his own story. There are people blowing themselves for their mistaken beliefs every day. It's a common place.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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