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Author | Topic: My Beliefs- GDR | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I imagine Blackstone's Commentary on English law as based on the Bible ... You remember how this turned out to be something you'd made up?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
This is well known. And untrue.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
You know I've forgotten this incident in which you are accusing me of lying because I don't take your stuff seriously, so again you are playing your little childish game of cryptic communication for the purpose of obfuscation and namecalling. Grow up and tell me what you are talking about. Blackstone uses the word "Bible" twice in the whole book. Once is where he says the King has the exclusive right to print it. The other, if I remember rightly, is where he's explaining the archaic procedure of trial by single combat. To say that his Commentaries are based on the Bible is therefore something of an overstatement.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, that is, there is no forgiveness. And the Letter to the Hebrews makes it clear that only the sacrifice of the Son of God can purge sin, that the animal sacrifices were meant to foreshadow His once-for-all sacrifice. But this is not what the OT says, e.g. Leviticus 1:4: "And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him." Leviticus 4:19-20: "He shall remove all the fat from it and burn it on the altar, and do with this bull just as he did with the bull for the sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for the community, and they will be forgiven." Leviticus 16: "The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to make atonement, must be taken outside the camp; their hides, flesh and intestines are to be burned up [...] on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins." Leviticus 19:21-22: "The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the tent of meeting for a guilt offering to the Lord. With the ram of the guilt offering the priest is to make atonement for him before the Lord for the sin he has committed, and his sin will be forgiven." It is clear, then, that the author of Leviticus thought that animal sacrifice actually worked and were perfectly capable of purging sin. I, of course, think that this is all so much tosh --- but do you agree with me?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Yes, well it DID work for them, because all things in the OT looked forward to the Messiah who was to be their fulfillment. The sacrifices foreshadowed the one perfect sacrifice of Christ. The fundamental faith of the OT saints was faith in the promise given by God of the Messiah who would save them from their sins. The sacrifices of animals provided a picture of the costliness of atoning for sin, and done in faith, done with trust in God's promises, they also saved them. OK. So it's not true, then, that "only the sacrifice of the Son of God can purge sin". Apparently killing goats also works. So, remind me what the Atonement was for again? Did Jesus die to save us from our sins, or just to save us money that we'd otherwise have spent on goats? I mean, it's jolly decent of him either way.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Now, I suspect that you would categorize that as wishful thinking and maybe you’re right. However, the fact that we know deep down that there should be some justice is in some way an indication that ultimately there will be. How is it an indication of that? Is wanting money an indication that ultimately I'll be rich, or being hungry a guarantee that one will eventually eat rather than starve? The other question that comes to mind is --- who are "we" and what is "justice"? There are, for example, a billion-and-a-half Muslims who think that there should be some justice, such as all infidels burning in hell. Is this "in some way an indication" that they actually will? Remarkable though it would be if there was any intrinsic justice in the universe, it would be more remarkable still if it answered to my concept of justice, or yours. But if it doesn't, then of what are our wishes indicative?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
There are still numerous processes whether inevitable or not. (Of course you're making assumptions about what science is going to discover which is a "science of the gaps" argument.) Think about how a god-of-the-gaps argument works. The gotg-er says: "We don't have an explanation for this ... but if we invoke god to fill in the gaps, that would be an explanation ... therefore god exists." Now when people such as NosyNed suggest that instead there's a natural explanation, this is not intended as an argument in support of the existence of natural things, since we already know that those exist. So what you're describing as a "science of the gaps" argument is simply not the naturalistic mirror image of the "god of the gaps" argument. For one thing, it's legitimate.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Out of curiosity what role does DNA play in promoting a higher moral standing in people as opposed to cultural memes? Well, this may be a false dichotomy. You would have a hard time transmitting these cultural memes to a lobster or a watermelon. The reason for this is clearly genetic.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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I disagree. I’ll try again. We see a rock rolling down a hill. We can see that it is just naturally rolling around by natural gravitational forces. The good Dr. A looks up and says see, it is all natural forces and there is nothing more at work here. What is being denied is that we have no idea evidence of whether or not someone at the top of the hill gave the rock a shove or if there was natural erosion that caused the rock to break free. But we would rightly prefer any of those explanations to saying that it was dislodged by a unicorn, because in our experience nothing is ever caused by unicorns.
When someone claims that things that we see happen naturally is evidence or even proof that there is nothing else is filling in science or materialism of a gap for which we have no knowledge. But we do have some knowedge -- we know what usually fills gaps. The god-of-the-gapsist is like someone who says: "You can't explain how that happened. If a unicorn dislodged the rock, that would explain it. Therefore, it was dislodged by a unicorn." That would be a unicorn-of-the-gaps argument. If I reply: "Since in our experience nothing is ever caused by unicorns, it was likely not a unicorn", then it would be misleading to call this a "non-unicorn of the gaps" argument, because we're not at all doing the same thing. The pro-unicorn argument is a fallacy, the anti-unicorn argument is empiricism.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
No. The analogy works. It isn’t the point that it was a man that pushed it, it was the point that it was done intentionally. We see a rock rolling down the hill and we don’t know whether there was intent involved or if it was from non-intentional causes such as erosion. We have considerable experience of things that are caused intentionally. So now, as far as the rock is concerned we have to make the choice as to whether or not the rock was pushed intentionally without any objective evidence. We have observed evolution and life rolling along and we come to our own conclusions without objective evidence, as to whether or not it was all caused intentionally or not. But we do have evidence as to whether it happened naturally.
But you aren’t filling it with a non-Tom of the gaps argument, you are filling it with a natural causes as yet undiscovered gap argument. I don't see what distinction you're trying to draw here.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
No we don't. Do do do. Nyah.
We can observe natural selection at work in the evolutionary process just as we can observe a stone naturally rolling down a hill. We do not have any evidence as to whether or not evolution or the movement of the stone began with or without intent by an intelligent agent. I didn't discuss whether it was intelligent, but whether it was natural.
Even if science can reproduce the chemical causes that began life it still does not resolve the issue. It would be suggestive though, would it not? "It is vain to do with more what can be done with less."
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Are natural processes intelligent then? Speaking as a natural process, yeah, some of us are.
All it would show is that it took intelligence to make it happen this time. That is not in fact all it would show.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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No doubt. What did you have in mind? Well since the laws of chemistry don't care how the chemicals got into the beaker, it would show that those chemicals would produce life whether or not they were mixed together by intelligent scientists. And the fact that the scientists were intelligent would have no more bearing on the question of whether the origin of life required intelligence than the fact that they were (for example) all Chinese would have bearing on the question of whether it required Chinese people.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Part of the issue from my perspective is that you guys take materialistic theories and call it science. I think you mean hypotheses. What you're trying to object to is that we think that the explanation for things we can't yet explain is "materialistic". But that is an empirical conclusion --- every time we can actually find out what causes something, it is "materialistic".
Just because it is possible that one day science may actually confirm these theories, does not make them scientific at this point. But yes it does. It doesn't confirm them as true beyond all possible doubt, but it does make them scientific.
Possibly one day science will confirm the existence of Tom. Who knows where science will go in the future. Quite, but you could say that about anything. "Possibly one day science will confirm the existence of werewolves. Who knows where science will go in the future." But for now, if someone asks me if werewolves exist, I would say "no". If pressed, I would admit the impossibility of proving a negative, but that's where we are at this point.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually think that way. If there is a plan then there is an ultimate meaning to our existence. If there is no plan then ultimately all will be gone with no memory of what once was. But I find this talk of a "plan" by theists rather disingenuous. It isn't merely a plan that you want. Suppose, for example, that our universe was created by a bunch of super-powerful pan-dimensional beings so that they could place bets on how many times in your life you will masturbate. They didn't make you immortal, because why would they? Well in that case your life now has a plan, and indeed the whole of our universe was created for you. Do you feel good now, or would you feel stupid and embarrassed and despairing? Would you not rather have a situation where there is no plan, but you get the eternal bliss anyway? There could be a plan and it's awful, or there could be no plan but things work out just fine. Surely what you actually want is not a plan as such, but for things to work out well for you. Having joined the Christian tradition, you associate the two, but there is no logical reason to do so, is there?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Science only looks for naturalistic or empirical conclusions so what do you expect? Again, science can’t prove that my wife loves me. That's a "naturalistic or empirical conclusion", and yes it can. The phenomena are such as to be consistent with the theory, so yes she does.
I believe that someday science may very well find that passing through a worm hole will find other dimensions/universes, and that in those dimensions/universes there is an intelligence that is in some way interlocking with our own 4 dimensional universe. Now my theistic views are scientific theories and can be considered science. No, not really. The addition of science-y sounding words doesn't make something "scientific". If I say "I believe that some day science may very well find that there are organisms capable of spontaneously altering their phenotype from that of Homo sapiens to that of Canis lupus" then despite my use of scientific terms I haven't made my belief in werewolves scientific just by my gratuitous use of polysyllables.
You are making some assumptions there. Well, no. My point is that you were making assumptions when you talked about a "plan", as though that would be a good thing. What you want is your particular plan where you get to live forever and god gives you cake or something --- it is not a plan as such that you thirst for. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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