Human Programming

And that is not precluded by a religious based education.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Certainly, as exceptions beyond explanation by science. We "believe" miracles happened.About Chat, Trixie cannot get in either. She lives on your side of the Pond as well.Usually it is a combination of three things, first having a new version of Java (1.50_09 or higher), second, your browser set to use that Java and to run javascripts and third having a fast enough connection so the applet initiates before timing out.Edited by jar, : No reason given.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

also clear all your cookies, close and restart the browser.Ah, I miss my big pipes, I used to have a few nice T-3s.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

jar said ... to which Kader replied:

quote:

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what observation ? this could be very interresting.

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Wow, that is way more than I could cover in just this one thread. It is not just one observation but rather a whole host of observations and incidents accumulated over a lifetime. You might start, if you really want, with a couple topics on that subject that can be found in the Columnists Corner at EvC. Parts of a religious belief are testable, but much is not. For example, in the Bible there is the tale of the Flood. Now the fact of a world-wide flood lasting about a year and happening about 3-4000 years ago is certainly testable. It has been tested and it is false. That is not in doubt.The truth and validity of the moral and purpose of the story though is another issue. While the facts of the story may be fiction, the moral of the story may be true. But common knowledge does not mean either true or correct. Christianity please.As I said above, the question you ask is far more than I can answer in one message. I have posted something over 10,000 messages just here at EvC dealing with the subject. I think asking which map is best is pretty much an exercise in futility. All maps will be a combination of accurate data and data that is either inaccurate or out of date. No map is "the Right Map™".

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Really? What is the mathematical test of a soul? Of redemption? Of resurrection? Of life after death? Of sin? Of honor? of Love? Of beauty? Of Faith? Of GOD? While you might well believe that, what evidence do you have to support such a belief?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Do we? For example I know there was no world-wide flood in at least the last 600,000 years.I also know that there was no magic bean that grew overnight to reach a world in the sky inhabited by a Giant with a goose that laid golden eggs.However the morals and worth of both myths is not in the actuality of the events, but in the lessons folk may learn from the stories.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I will try to respond to both of your recent posts in this one. And where have I ever said otherwise. There are many such things that can be tested. We know with a high degree of confidence that creation did not happen as described in either of the creation myths, that the conquest of Canaan or the Exodus or Flood or tale of Jonah never happened as described in the Bible, but what does that have to do with belief in the lessons? I happen to believe Jesus is a real story, but I have also said here at EvC many times that even if it is all but stories told around the campfire, the message and lessons still are of value.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well, it is personal, and very subjective.What I don't do is pretend that it is more than a belief that cannot ever be established as fact.Assume for a second that we did find absolutely uncontroversial proof of Jesus existence, say verifiable documents from a variety of sources that attest to his every move from birth to death as well as autographed photos of each of the twelve apostles.What would that show? Would it add any weight to my belief in Jesus divinity? If it were not for science what reason would their be to not believe in a flood? Is my belief rational? Well, I think so.Is it logical? Well, I think so.Is it programming? Again, obviously I do not think so.But please remember that I do not assert Jesus life or divinity as fact, but simply belief.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Of course. I have never said otherwise. I'm sorry to hear that. It is quite easy to "perform miracles" and in fact magicians do so daily. Particularly given the state of knowledge at the time such a record would have been compiled, accepting it as fact would seem to me to be silly. What does that have to do with any position I have presented?Why do you keep creating these strawman objections? I believe in Jesus (and particularly Jesus' divinity) because I believe that if there really is a GOD, something like the life Jesus lived would be a powerful lesson and message from that GOD.And again, you totally misrepresent my "belief" in the Bible.The Bible is an anthology of anthologies, a collection of tales written by a wide variety of people and meant to serve a variety of purposes. Parts are genealogy, others histories (true or fictional) of a peoples and an era, still others Just So Stories meant to explain the world as seen by the peoples of that time and there are sections that simply list the laws of the peoples at a given point in their history.The issue is one of how I believe in the Bible? Let me try another example.Jesus told many parables. One is about your ass falling in a crack on the Sabbath, another about building a couple houses on different foundations.Does it matter whether or not some ass really was in a crack on the Sabbath, or whether or not there really were two houses built, one on sand, another on bedrock?I don't think so.Regardless of whether the two tales were factually correct, the morals are still the same.Is it reasonable and logical to look at writings and to learn from them?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I wonder if you even read what I write?How many times have I said "The Map is not the Territory"?I believe in Jesus because I am a Christian. If I were a Muslim I would not believe in Jesus as the Son of God.What is your point?How many times must I repeat that all Maps must be tested against the Territory, that all Maps will have errors as well as places where they do correspond to the Territory. You do keep repeating that. Is it that you think repetitions increase validity? Is love rational? Is it rational to prefer chocolate to vanilla? A strawman is a fallacious argument setup so that it can be easily refuted. What you seem to be doing is creating a version of my beliefs that exists only in your imagination so that you can then refute it instead of actually addressing what I have said.I have some personal beliefs. I have never presented them as fact and try to be very careful about what can be supported by evidence and what can only be accepted on faith. I have never suggested anyone else should adopt my beliefs. I have never claimed that my Faith is based on anything other than personal experiences.I am a Christian. By definition there are a few, very few things which help define that membership. If I held a different set of beliefs I would a member of some other grouping.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I said that I believed in Jesus because I am a Christian.I said that if I were a Muslim I would not believe that Jesus is the Son of GOD.Neither of those statements address conditioning but rather only the tenets of the two Maps.If you wish to address conditioning, then the conditioning I was subjected to was to Question, to Question everything and to continue Questioning, particularly to question ones own beliefs even more than the beliefs of others.I was not conditioned that Christianity was right while others were wrong. I began studying the Qur'an and Tao Te Ching and writings of Mencius and Confucius and Buddha and the Norse and German and Greek and Roman and Egyptian mythologies about 50 some years ago.I have had the opportunity to study many religions and have found much of value in all of them, particularly the Eastern Religions. My identification of a Personal Christianity is NOT simply a matter of conditioning.Throughout this thread you have taken the position that everyones Faith and in particular, any religious beliefs are simply the result of programming and conditioning.I believe that is overly simplistic and nothing but a strawman. There are many people who struggle over defining their Faith, that hold positions that run counter to their "Conditioning", that hold belief systems that are far more complex, changing and evolutionary than simple programming would suggest.It is, perhaps, as comforting for some to simply dismiss the fact that some peoples faith might not be just programming, as it is for the Fundies to dismissed Evolution as "simply folk who wish to be free from God's restraints".Both positions though are just strawman arguments, caricatures instead of actual representations.People hold beliefs for a variety of reasons. Some may well be simple conditioning and for those I have pity, whether the belief is theistic or atheistic.But other belief systems are held based on examination of other alternatives, independently derived, and held tentatively, constantly questioned, upheld or revised.For those who hold such belief systems I have nothing but the highest admiration.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Yet my point is that I do not agree with your assumptions. You have made that assertion over and over again.You also conflate the word Faith as and act instead of the designation of a particular set of beliefs.You said: but the term conditioning and programming are both quite different than Educated.You seem to be assuming that the only reason someone believes in something is due to outside influences. You say that you do not believe in religion; am I to assume that you did not arrive at that position through critical thought, analysis, education and reason?Is it not possible that someone might also arrive at a position of Faith through critical thought, analysis, education and reason?I have addressed the rest of your post here several times. I have also pointed you towards other sites which also address the questions you ask. Once again, are you not simply making irrelevant assertions? There are many descriptions of GOD in both the Qur'an and in the Bible. There are other sacred scriptures as well.All of them have one thing in common.They were written by men, men of a particular era, culture and milieu. How exactly is my saying that they are just Maps, and imperfect, not a fact? Did you not, in the message that I am replying to, point out areas where they were in error?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The Bible is NOT more of a Map than Greek Mythology. How many times must I say this. All religions are but Maps, none are the actual Territory.All Maps will have areas of greater correspondence with the Territory, and areas where there is lesser or even total disagreement with the Territory.I brought up Jack and the Beanstalk way back in this thread as a perfect example. Other good examples are the Pied Piper or the parables of Jesus.While none of these are factually correct, they are also all true from the point of view of teaching lessons.The Bible is the same. There are many parts of the Bible that are simply not factually true. The flood certainly has not happened in at least the last 600,000 years, the Exodus and Conquest of Canaan certainly never happened as described in the Bible, there was never a confusion of languages that stopped the building of a tower, the descriptions of Creation found in Genesis are incorrect.Those things have nothing to do with the validity of the message of the Bible.As to other myths, they too are but Maps. And in places they can be tested against a Territory. Where the Maps do not correspond to the Territory, it is the Map that is wrong.You continue to claim conditioning.If my Christian beliefs were solely the result of conditioning, why would I be testing the Map against the Territory?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Just where do you get the idea that I think that?I have said, and I repeat, that all religions are but Maps.Imagine you are visiting some new country. There are all kinds of maps you can get, from ones hand drawn on the back of an envelope to ones produced by restaurants in the area that show only their locations to atlases that show the general outlines or political boundaries. Some will be more current than others, some more detailed, some oriented to a particular area of interest. I call myself a Christian because that happens to be the Map I am currently using. No where have I ever said that all religious beliefs are equal. In fact, I have said that many religious beliefs are quite wrong. Well, if you test the myth of Zeus Thunderbolt against what we now know to be facts, we find that many of the features of the Map Greek Mythology are simply incorrect. Thunder and lightning are not caused by an angered God, there is no domain and residency of Gods on Mount Olympus.Deciding between the Map called Greek Mythology and the Map called Christianity is simply based on comparing the relative accuracy of those parts of the Map that can be tested. There are limits to what can be tested. For example, the absolute existence of GOD cannot be tested. As I have pointed out many times at EvC:If GOD exists, She exists regardless of any evidence She does not exist.If GOD does not exist, It does not exist regardless of any evidence that GOD does exist.What can be tested varies. Some things like a home of the Gods on Mount Olympus or the actuality of a Flood can be tested.Tenets of Faith can be tested. Is the lesson "Love others as you love yourself" a valid one?Other things remain untestable. Is there life after death? Will we be judged? Will the judgment be based on how we have lived our lives or on some arbitrary thing such as acknowledgment of some deity or individual?No one knows the answers to such questions. We can though base our beliefs about such questions on reason or logic and I have explained some of my reasoning about such questions many times here at EvC.The point is that a persons beliefs can be based on reason. Granted, many folk may well be programmed or conditioned, but that is not universal. Take some time to look at the writings of Bishop Spong or Richard Holloway.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well that simply shows that you have a very limited knowledge of Christianity. The story of Adam and Eve is simply fable, poetic, and certainly not to be taken literally. Original Sin is a fairly recent concept, mostly post reformation. There are quite a few of us Christians that consider all of the stories in Genesis as allegory and poetic. While many of us believe we know the answer and a few might even claim to actually know the answers, they are simply lying to themselves. None of us can really know such answers until after we die. You are of course, welcome to hold any such beliefs you want. Worry not, you are not the first person to make such assertions. Fortunately, your opinion of whether or not I am a Christian is of no worth or importance.But is it possible that your definition of a Christian is what is limited? Actually, I think quite a few Maps are as accurate overall as Christianity. I imagine overall Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and many other Maps work well.Remember that the Map is only one part. The reader must also be able to read and interpret the Map. Some folk just plain can't read a map no how.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion