God isn't going away

This is why I am not sure that Dawkins' statement that beleif in god is a mental illness is justified. The human mind may be programmed to think along both rational and irrational lines at the same time even believing two opposite or mutually contradictory things are true at the same time. Orwell's Doublethink. In other words, it believes both what it wants to believe and it believes what it has to believe. A scientist who concludes that eating a high fat diet increases his risk of a heart attack will still plow into a big bowl of premium ice cream with a mountain of whipped cream on top of it because he wants to. It takes a great deal of mental discipline for the rational mind to conquer the irrational mind, for the ego to overcome the id where our darkest fears and greatest hopes reside.

...or I suppose we could just say that to be an atheist is to go against nature.

Don't fight it guys, celebrate what you truly are.

;-)

Sure, Peter, yeah. Here, have a banana, and let me nibble on the ticks I pick from your hair.

:-)

Hello petermorrow,

"...or I suppose we could just say that to be an atheist is to go against nature.

Don't fight it guys, celebrate what you truly are."

Curious role reversal here. Going with nature isn't exactly always such a 'good' thing. Or do you like the law of the jungle as a basis for society? Should you not be preaching against the immoral, godless natural ways, peter? :D

But if I met your wife or daughter and found them physically attractive, I'll be sure to remember your encouragement not to fight what comes natural. And afterwards I'll tell them who put me up to the idea. :D That be ok with you?

greets,
Peter

Helio Peter

You both posted at exactly 10:10

Creepy, should I be worried?

Maybe you guys are two thirds of a trinity.

"godless natural ways", Peter?

Bananas for ticks? Sounds like a fair trade to me!

I have a daughter?

Hi Peterm,

"Maybe you guys are two thirds of a trinity."

Would that make Dylan_Dog the third part? I have a bit of trouble figuring out who would be the son part. I know them, I'm the youngest. But I don't look at either of them as a father to me. And they're both very earthly, rational types. I don't see either of them in the divine spook role either.

"I have a daughter?"

Maybe not. But a mother and perhaps still a grandmother? Either of them are cute, no?

"""godless natural ways", Peter?"

Yeah you know, the way animals are. Species without the moral compass that the FSM inspires in all us humans, who stand out so special from the rest of the living species on this planet. I guess you do know these things? Hopefully I'm not talking to another one them evil, immoral, unsaved atheists when I address a post to you? *shudder*

greets,
Peter

"...or I suppose we could just say that to be an atheist is to go against nature."

There may be an element of truth in that. Out of the mouths of babes. Thinking irrationally may be part of the way our mind deals with problems it can't solve or with answers it won't accept. Humans as far as we know are the only species that is aware of its own mortality. Perhaps inventing god is the only way many humans can avoid going insane with that knowledge. A defense mechanism. Perhaps that's also why they will fight to the death to defend their most cherished myth even from those with different variations of the same myth.

The first page of the Bible says that 'God created man in His own image' - has science finally come round to recognising the fact?

The spiritual side to our nature is warped by sin (see Genesis 3), but it is undeniably there.

It was Augustine who said: "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee."

He had a point.

pastorphillip, I'm not up to that part yet. I'm still at the beginning of Genesis. You're going way to fast for me. I hope you will answer my previous questions. While I'm at it, I've got another one about those first few lines in Genesis. The bible speaks of the deep and then the waters.

" 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters."

In our common understanding today, the deep refers to the bottom of the ocean. How is that distinct from the waters? And it says God's spirit was moving over the waters. Does that mean it was not moving over the land or the deep? I thought god was everywhere. If god is everywhere, how can God's spirit be moving? How is all this possible? This is all very confusing.

Pastorphillip, I see you posted on another thread without answering any of my questions. So I'll jump ahead to your quotation from the bible even though I'm not quite up to understanding what came before.

"The first page of the Bible says that 'God created man in His own image'"

What does that mean? Does god have arms, legs, a face, eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth, a head distinct from a body? Exactly what does that statement mean? If he looks like me or I like him, do his corresponding parts perform the same functions? Does god's mouth speak? Do his eyes see? Does he have a penis? What does he use that for?

Pastor Phillip
I note that any time you refer to God using he, him or his, you always use a capital 'H'. Yet when you refer to mere mortals like us, we are only deserving of a lower case 'h'.
I think this is a clear case of discrimination. If we are really created in "his" image, should we not all receive capital H's ? If "he" loves us so much and sent "his" only son to save us, dont you think "he" would want us to have capital H's just like "him"? If "he" is truly humble, why would "he" ever want a capital H when a lower case one would be more fitting?

My house has just been set on fire and destroyed by a lightening strike from the sky, my back garden has just been infested by a plague of luminous green frogs and my body has just broken out with hundreds of purple, supurating boils.
Everyone please note - If you are refering to God using He, Him or His,
PLEASE, PLEASE remember to use capital H's!!

romejellybean, you'd better set your pets free as well and allow them to cross the pond behind your house (which will part to let them through, don't follow them, you'll drown). Otherwise your first-born child will die and a locust plague will eat up all the food in your fridge, leaving you to starve.

romanjellybean, you'd better watch your step or you might just wind up in capital "H" :-)

If such a God does exist may he make my tongue cleave to the woof of my mouf.

RJB, please don't come out with any more of that - I have just splarted coffee all over my laptop.

Sorry - My laptop.

-H (capital, thankyou :-)

Amazing how we skipped over the front page article in the New Scientist "Darwin was wrong" in order to get to this one!!!

Let me read that again, the New Scientist saying "DARWIN WAS WRONG?"

What are those fundamentalists at the New Scientist playing at!

;-)


https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126923.000-editorial-uprooting-darwins-tree.html

OT

That article in the new scientist was interesting, but the title was a marketing ploy, and quite a silly one at that!

romejellybean

Stop experimenting. Stay out of the peanut butter until you've been trained and certified to handle it. Stick to jelly beans, gum drops, Mars bars, something safe. Ever give peanut butter to a dog?

One day I sat upon a stair
And saw a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
O god I wish he'd go away :-)

Who wrote that Mark? I'm impressed if you trying to read genesis thats pretty heavy going. to understand it from a Christian perspective i think it helps to look back on it after you get to the new testament, but saying that i still don't understand most of it...

all the best

Gonny, so many pies, not enough fingers!

I should apologise for my frivolity in post 2, seems few are taking anything seriously on this thread.

Let me try and play catch up.

Marcus, I see you're asking lots of questions. If I thought for one minute you were actually interested in the answers I might, just might, fire a few your way, for the most part your questions are pretty straight-forward, 'wee buns' as we say here! (Not saying of course that it's all easy)

As for the fellow you saw on the stairs, maybe it was your reflection in the glass of a door, or even a subdued one on the gloss paint, if said door was solid. But I suppose you can't be sure, and even if I were there as a witness, I'm not sure I'd be any help, I don't trust me much either! I'm the sort of person who puts a letter into an addressed envelop and then takes it out again half a dozen times just to make sure it's the same letter!

ROMEJELLYBEAN - that should be sufficient for you. I even put it in bold type, you should feel very important now.

Come to think of it that should have been WOMEWELLYBEAN.

Helio, I hope your laptop was a PC, if it was, spraying coffee over it was a useful thing to do. The best thing that can happen to a PC is for it to fail, then you have an excuse to buy a mac. Go on, buy a mac. I once heard of a man who happier about his conversion to mac than he was about giving up atheism.

Marcus, was the guy who wasn't there eating peanut butter by any chance. BTW tried one of your jolly old American traditions for the first time last summer. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Not bad, have you a particular recommendation for flavour (sorry flavor) of jelly?

Peter, Yes the role reversal was curious, wasn't it, but as I pointed out at the top of this comment it was only frivolity, levity, jocularity, fun... but then I'm not the one who is usually relying on explanations about 'nature' to determine for me what is good.

BTW Marcus. Did you see that little list of synonyms? That might go some way to sorting out that 'deep' 'waters' problem you have!

Now, after all that, do any of the scientists on here have any serious response to the article Will posted, cos your endless 'funnies' are making it look like you've nothing to say! :-)

Hey, Peter, spoken like a true, self-appointed regulator.

And Marcus, no I have never given peanut butter to a dog.
I have, however, thrown pearls in front of swine.

petermorrow;

"Marcus, I see you're asking lots of questions. If I thought for one minute you were actually interested in the answers I might, just might, fire a few your way,"

Nothing personal but I'm looking for answers from pastorphillip. People go to church and say these words, read these words all their lives many of them but do they have any idea what they mean or do they just gloss over them and invent their own meanings, fudge it, or just don't think about it? I don't know? The words are in plain enough English but when you put them together they don't all seem to make any sense to me. I'm not talking about believing them or disbelieving them, just trying to understand what they mean. Perhaps you have never questioned them yourself and aren't sure what they mean either, I don't know. The reason I want pastorphillip to answer is that I want a definitive answer from someone who was trained, a pro in the biz. Now if you were an ordained minister or priest that would be a different matter. So let's give pastorphillip a chance to respond and see what he has to say. I'm not looking for a "chart" of synonyms, I'm looking for an explanation in plain English I can understand.

Mgnbar, I don't know who wrote it. It was one of my father's little occasional sayings I picked up from him. He had lots of them. I had very interesting parents. They were very well educated, not in the professorial sense but very well read, inventive, and unique. Nobody who ever met them ever forgot them. My mother was a mathematician. Had a masters degree in math from Columbia University. Played the viola. And read at least ten thousand murder mysteries. She knew more about South American arrow poison than any other person I ever met....also knew how to commit the perfect murder....but never told me. My father was an engineer. Worked on many major projects, military, nuclear, and others. Among the many gifts they gave me was to let me think for myself, view the world for myself. Never tried to tell me what I should or shouldn't do with my life. I'm sure they were very unhappy about a lot of things I believed and said. BTW, both were moderately left wing politically by American standards. Me? Just a little to the right of Atilla the Hun.

Marcus

Fair enough, I'll hold my tongue... for now.


rOmEjElLyBeAn

Did they turn and tear you to pieces?

We could also do anagrams!

I am ben joy reel


BTW I'll also take that as a no! to any serious response to the content of this thread.

Okay, gloves off. God, especially the evangelical one, isnt going away and here's why.

It has very little to do with the human brain and its makeup.
Lets divide the Christian Faith into two categories. Fiducial Faith and Performative Faith. (There are three but two will do for my purposes here.)

Fiducial Faith is made up largely from Evangelical Churches. It displays great anamnesis. Christ suffered and died and went to heaven. Fiducial Faith identifies its own suffering and death here on this earth with that of Christ's. It shows a tremendous ability to endure pain, hardship and suffering, but doesnt really show any urgent concern about identifying what is the cause of the suffering and then doing something about it. This life is a mere transitory phase before eternal happiness with Christ in heaven where suffering will be no more. It will focus on personal sin. (Those who caused the suffering will get their come-uppance at this point.)

Performative Faith, on the other hand, will identify all kinds of evil, especially social evils such as oppression, injustice, inequality, prejudice, poverty etc.. Energised by faith, it will identify, name and set itself up against structural evils. It will display an urgent concern about the predicament human beings find themselves in and work to resolve pain and suffering in the here and now. The Kingdom is here, not in some far off distant ether. It has huge implications for social change, the redistribution of wealth and power.

One of the biggest exports from the United States in the last forty or fifty years has been, Fiducial Faith. Recent American foreign policy has been to fund and support Evangelcal Churches around the globe, but especially in Latin America. The CIA have long since recognised the power of organised religion and have actively supported the version of it which best suits its own ends, Fiducial Faith. This is a major reason why God 'aint' going away.

My problem with the Evangelical Church has never been its particular and often peculiar reading of the Bible. It has been its utter gullability, its blindness and its readiness to do absolutely nothing except..... argue about the Bible!

Peter, I hope, even if you disagree with the above that at least you'll appreciate my willpower on a Friday night to at least attempt to post something serious.

I hope it will also give you a clue as to why I also see it as a complete waste of time and why I much prefer to indulge in flippancy. Right I'm away for a pint. My head is buzzing.

"My problem with the Evangelical Church has never been its particular and often peculiar reading of the Bible. It has been its utter gullability, its blindness and its readiness to do absolutely nothing except..... argue about the Bible!"

I love it, a crusader. Guns for Christ. Go blow dem bad guys away. Praise the lord and pass de ammunition. BTW jellybean, which side of "the troubles" did you fight on? So will it be Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, or Ecuador where you will begin to help inflict god's vengeance against the CIA and its infidel capitalist stooges? Ever been in a jungle before? Nasty place.

Nope - Linux.

-H

Romejellybean

ref post 27

It does seem awfully straw man.

Sure there are church members like that but at the same time there are many Christians who do play active voluntary roles in their society.

Youth organisations, pensioners groups, fundraising for international poverty projects, supporting women with crisis pregancies, helping the homeless, playing an active role in politics on behalf of the weak and vulnerable....there are professing Christians in all may of political parties today.

Sorry to spoil such a nice argument RJB.

It does seem so facile to accuse so many Christians of being afraid to think.

Sure, I dont doubt that there is some truth to it, but the critics here seem oblivious to the fact that it obviously doesnt apply to the Christians who post here over the long term, who are on the whole more than equal to the debates in hand.....and.....a lot less "fundamentalist" in their attitude to said debates than the athiests!

;-)

I for one certainly didnt asquire my faith from my parents, as has been suggested is the normal for Christians here.

And I suspect that the long term Christian posters here have pursued the intellectual side of life and their faith in all sorts of directions that their parents never considered...

OT

The trouble with me is that I am completely mad. I have these strange delusions that life could possibly have some kind of meaning. Hard as I try I just cannot rid myself of this strange and bizarre feeling that "purpose" happens to be "real" and not simply a product of some evolutionary process.

I fantasise every day that there must be some intelligence behind the complexity of life, and there seems to be some "belief-in-blind-chaos-creating-complexity" chemical missing in my brain. I have really tried to understand how a spanking new BMW could self-assemble in a scrap yard - but, no, I just can't do it! Oh dear! Will I ever be healed of this irrationality that dogs my every step?

I am sure that there must be some treatment for my sad condition. If only I could bring myself to believe that all love, reason, moral values, sense of purpose, desire for permanence, concept of design is just the by-products of the struggle of naked apes to survive. But I just can't do it. My disordered brain is not up to it. But then again, since my disordered brain is the result of chaos (so my intellectual superiors tell me), perhaps this is only to be expected!

And then all these clever scientists tell me - with such assurance - that their highly speculative theory about where we came from is true!! Well, it must be true, if they say it is!!! How could I possibly question their wisdom? If they tell me that I really am just a randomly assembled bundle of atoms then it must be true, because no less a person than Richard Dawkins (gasp!) says it is true.

But then again, Prof. Dawkins' brain is also the product of randomly assembled atoms. So maybe he's mad as well....

And spot the grammatical mistake in my last post (should have got the monkey on the typewriter to compose it - after all, as a evolutionist told me at uni, monkeys on typewriters can produce Shakespeare plays!!)

Marcus,

If you really want to know more about God, may I suggest you study the life of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the four gospels.

You cannot fail to notice the claims He made about being sent from God - and millions of Christians have concluded that He was telling the truth.
Many of us have discovered that, when we know Him, other issues of lesser importance are more easily dealt with.

Paul wrote of Jesus as "God manifest in the flesh" - (not hard to spot the connection to Genesis 1!) - God has not left us in the dark about His character and message: both are revealed in Jesus Christ.

logica_sine_vanitate

post 32

If I was to be like so many who refuse to use their real name I would be 'supraman'.

If you too where a supraman you would not have such a problem.

David

Helio

Well Linux is one step closer to a computing solution, but I see you are no closer to providing an answer to the topic of this thread.

BTW what are bajoobies? I asked PK if he knew but he hasn't got back to me yet.

Marcus,
#25

"My mother... read at least ten thousand murder mysteries... She knew more about South American arrow poison than ANY OTHER PERSON I EVER MET...she also knew how to commit the perfect murder... but never told me."

"My father [God I cant wait], worked on many major projects, military, nuclear and others..."

"Among the many gifts they gave me was the ability to think for myself..."

"Me I'm just a little bit to the right of Attilla the Hun."



Just a little bit to the right of One flew over the cuckoos nest, more like.

#35 - "If I was to be like so many who refuse to use their real name..."

No, no, better not use my real name. I might be hunted down and committed to an institution for daring - yes, DARING - to believe that the sheer complexity of life (which scientists have still not fully fathomed) is not the result of nature left to its own chaotic devices. As a certain eminent molecular biologist wrote (NOT one of those nasty people who call themselves - dare I use a dirty word - "creationists"):

"Molecular biology has shown that even the simplest of all living systems on earth today, bacterial cells, are exceedingly complex objects. Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than
0.000000000001 gms, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." Michael Denton

But, of course, it's laughable to expect any sensible person to believe that a designer designed stuff like this. I mean isn't it obvious it's all the result of chaos? How could anyone be so irrational as to believe otherwise?

Trouble is, I am obviously irrational, since I believe that such complexity cannot arise from some conveniently sheltered primordial soup on a rock blindly hurtling through space.

So I don't want to be found out, thank you.

romejellybean

I hope you had a good night, I appreciate your answer.

I was sort of with it until you mentioned the CIA.

Maybe tomorrow I'll think about it again, that should really be later today.


Helio, here's the mac link. Not that I'm evangelising or anything!

https://www.holyobserver.com/detail.php?isu=v01i04&art=mac

pastorphillip,
We have a long way to go between us before I get to the new testament and the life of Jesus Christ. I'm still stuck on the difference between the waters and the deep and how it was possible for the light and the dark to be unseparated before "He" separated them. I keep getting new messages from you but I don't get any answers to the old questions. The reason I'm asking you is that I don't understand it when I read it myself and I don't trust these other amateur theologians to explain it correctly. You see my mind is too simple for me to grasp what the bible is trying to tell me. Now about the deep and the waters, what is the difference between them?

I hope you will explain the bible to me but if you won't, then tell me this. Did god create me? Is god perfect? If god created me and he is perfect am I also perfect? If I am perfect, am I also god? Is only god perfect? If I am perfect, why should I pray or worry about believing since in my perfection I will surely go to heaven when I die. But if I am not perfect, how was it possible for a perfect god to create an imperfect me?

BTW, I read the Gospel according to John end to end and there is a lot I don't understand about it so I will rely on you to explain that too when the time comes. But not yet. As I said, we have a long road to go before I get there. So let's take the first steps together.

#37, you call yourself jellybean and you say I'm nuts??? BTW, since that time my political views have changed a lot. I've moved much further to the right. At this point I'd call Atilla the Hun a Socialist or a Communist.

Peter, I can't even remember the point of this thread! Is it all about bajoobies still?

LSV, your posts about complexity are little short of retarded. Evolution is not "highly speculative", it is perhaps one of the best-evidenced fields of study in the whole of science. Your BMW/scrapyard gaffe lost you a lot of credibility there, as many of our Christian regulars would be only too happy to tell you. As for life "not having meaning", I regard my life as having a lot of meaning, thankyou very much, and like very many people (a rapidly increasing number, which is gratifying), I don't derive that meaning by prostituting myself to the whim of some notional pixie.

Much as I may disagree with Sparkie on lot of points, thinking for oneself is a virtue, while "faith" is a narcissistic indulgence. But then we humans love our narcissistic indulgences, and if we can cast them as Good Things, that just feeds our conceit.

Now, bajoobies, anyone?

Hi Peter,
I did have a good night, thanks.

It was even better when I got home and I looked up George Carlin on youtube (especially his piece on ' religion is b/s', 'you have no rights' and 'saving the planet.') His piece on worshipping the Sun and praying to Joe Pesce is priceless.

I wanted to go to bed with his words ringing in my ears rather than the twittery emanating from MA.

If you can, have a look at some of the stuff published by the Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR) after the freedom of information act was passed in the US. They got their hands on reports written by the CIA about their own involvement in places like Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras (not comparative holiday resorts at the time like Bolivia and Venezuela as MA mentions above.) It makes for shocking reading.

Given that we all know how powerfully controlling religion can be, why would the CIA not seek to be a coercive influence on it?

RJB

#41. - Helipolitan -

"LSV, your posts about complexity are little short of retarded."

This comment rather proves my point about the attitudes of those who regard belief in God as "mental illness".

"Evolution is not "highly speculative", it is perhaps one of the best-evidenced fields of study in the whole of science."

No, you are wrong about that. What you are talking is how the scientific data are interpreted. This leads us into the area of philosophical speculation and out of the realm of the scientific method. Shouting the loudest about a theory and suppressing all contrary views does not make a theory fact. Sorry, but a bit more thought is needed about the limits of science.

"Your BMW/scrapyard gaffe lost you a lot of credibility there, as many of our Christian regulars would be only too happy to tell you."

I am not interested in having credibility in the eyes of people who make a mockery of science and reason. OK, I admit my illustration was a cheap shot (partly because I am so angry at the utter nonsense we are being expected to believe in the name of "reason"), but as I wrote in another post, even the simplest life forms are more complex than any machine man has constructed. Because such systems are "life" does not mean that they can arise naturally from inorganic matter. This has never been proven scientifically, and even if it could be proven, it still does not prove that it actually happened that way. To believe that it did is to depart from the scientific method and to enter the realm of philosophical speculation, as I do not tire of reminding people.

There seems to be an amazing ability on the part of some people to fail to understand the difference between science and philosophy.

"notional pixie."

No more notional than your theory of the universe.

Marcus,

You'll never understand yourself until you get to Genesis 3....I advise you to push on a bit!

Delighted, however, that you are getting into the Bible (albeit slowly!) and that you have read John's Gospel. Perhaps you need to take a more thoughtful look at it.

I do worry that you seem to want to stop at every little detail - which may be very interesting, but would probably stop you getting to the issues that really matter. (A bit like asking the waiter about every single item on the menu, but never making an order! - I don't want you going away hungry!)

By the way...sorry for keeping you up so late!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Helio - How would I know if this thread is about bajoobies, no one will tell me what they are. And now poor old PK has had a comment removed from this thread, I wonder if he was trying to explain?

The point of the thread, as I remember it is that some kind of science has been done (you're familiar with science I believe, certainly more familiar with it than me) which suggests, yes let's say suggests, that, "belief in some form of life apart from that experienced in the body (is) the default setting of the human brain", it also said this," It seems that our minds are finely tuned to believe in gods." and this, "There's now a lot of evidence (I sure hope it wasn't testimonial evidence) that some of the foundations for our religious beliefs are hard-wired," you can read the rest of the paper if you click the nice link William has provided for us at the top. But here, seeing as you, and others seem so reluctant to comment, I'll start your argument for you; the title of the paper is "Born believers: How your brain creates God", maybe you could do something with the 'us creating' bit, come on, any response would be better than no response.

You could also join the debate about faith, there's been a few comments about that on the NI creationist thread, I see you are still using " " quote marks for it.


Romejellybean, I will check out the links and get back to you. - Thanks

"Delighted, however, that you are getting into the Bible (albeit slowly!) and that you have read John's Gospel."

pastorphillip, I read the gospel according to John over thirty years ago. I don't "flirt" with these kinds of ideas, they are a lifelong study. That I haven't gotten very far in my understanding is because I went back to square one to give it another chance. It's hard to see how you can understand the meat of a story if you don't first understand its basic premises stated in the beginning.

"I do worry that you seem to want to stop at every little detail"

I'm sure you've heard the saying "the devil is in the details." I had the same problem with science and engineering too. Do you know there were evenings studying in my dormatory when I was in college when despite my ability to read close to a thousand words a minute as the result of a speed reading class, I might not get through even one or two pages in a couple of hours trying to understand what was being said...and meant. Just try understanding some of those integro-differential equations sometimes. They can be a b....well you know.

pastorphillip, does the distinction between the deep and the waters trouble you too? Does it also seem hard for you to understand how the light and dark could be one before "He" separated them? If you don't know, please be frank about it. If there is one thing I cannot tolerate, it is dishonesty, pretending to know something by lying, fudging or ignoring it when you actually don't know. It loses all credibility for me. If you don't know, then just admit you don't know and we will go on from there. I don't expect you to know or understand what every word of the bible means. But if you can't be honest about it, I'm afraid I will have to look elsewhere for answers and that would be a disappointment for me.

petermorrow, perhaps bajoobies are like Jujubes. They are small hard candies among many we used to get in the candy stores as kids.

https://www.oldtimecandy.com/jujubes.htm

Hello petermorrow,

I'm 34, thank you very much.

My post that got pulled was in response to the imo rather poor post by LSV, no. 43. Part of my reply to him consisted of saying I expected that the tone of my post would be presented as argument against evolution, something like "Do you see how meeeeaaaan those evolutionists are to us? Do you want to be on board with that unpleasant lot? Surely, the loving christian ways are better!".

Seems I was expecting the right response (complain about the tone rather than present arguments) but underestimating the magnitude it would take. Pressing the complaint button, pfffrrrt.

#48 - PeterKlaver -

I just thought I would put it on record that I did not read your post, and did not, therefore, complain about it!

By the way... my posts on this thread may have been emotive, but perhaps if the opponents of religion would stop referring to those who disagree with them as having "irrational" beliefs - as seems to be the case in the scientific article William referred to in his comments to introduce the thread - and if we could actually discuss the concept of "reason" and "science" in an intellectually mature way, then these emotive responses would be avoided.

It does such people no good at all when they claim to be rational, and yet the moment someone questions their claim they resort to insults.

I myself cannot see anything "irrational" about the belief that there are limits to the scope of science, and that therefore certain aspects of life lie outside the remit of scientific empirical research. The scientific method itself cannot prove the epistemological claims of empiricism, since epistemology is a philosophical, not a scientific, subject.

And those who deride the supposed bigotry of religious people who think that their interpretation of the Bible is the only valid one, and not subject to argument, should look at their own interpretation of scientific data. They are treating their scientific "Bible" in a way that is no different than the fundies. Both positions are bigotry and contrary to the supposed "free thinking" ethos of the enlightenment!!

Hello LSV,

My apologies for wrongly assuming that you were the one who complained about my post addressed to you.

The discussion you propose is a bit wider than what I'm interested in. One of the things I had had a go at in my pulled post was the 'evolution interpretation' of the evidence. From your post 43 it seems we may agree on what the observations are. Discussion of the interpretation of those, and how you come to conclusions that fit the observations better than evolution might be interesting.

On a practical note, I should mention that on another long-running thread, I already keep others waiting for lengthy times now and then due to time restraints. The same would no doubt happen here.

greets,
Peter

ps: would anyone like to state if they were the one who complained? And for what part(s) specifically?

God isnt going away. Here's why (Part 2)

Uncle George lives in a big house in the country. Mum and dad take us to see him every Sunday. One Sunday we go to see him. We knock at the door and it screeches open. And there is uncle George, with his long beard and his short temper. He orders us to come in.

He seperates me and my sister from mum and dad and leads us down some winding stairs to the basement. As we descend, the temperature rises and we begin to hear unearthly screams. Uncle George slowly cranks the basement door open. We look in and are terrified at what we see. Furnaces everywhere, devils with pitchforks loading children onto the fires.

Uncle George turns to us and growls, "If you dont come and see me every Sunday, that's where you are going!!"

He closes the door and takes us back up to mum and dad who dont even question what Uncle George was doing with us in the basement.

On the way home, me and my sister cling to mum and dad, still petrified at what we had just witnessed.

Mum suddenly stops, looks down at us and says, "Dont you just love Uncle George with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind?" Me and my sister nod that we do.

We are infact liars. We detest Uncle George. He is a monster and an ogre.
At a very impressionable age, religious schizophrenia has already set in.

jellybean, I do not understand you. If you went to Disneyland and paid money for a trip, a hotel, meals, entrance into the park, stood on a long line and took the right ride, you'd see exactly the same thing you saw in Uncle George's basement and say you had a great time. Among Disney's genius discoveries is that many people like being frightened including children and will pay for the experience. Perhaps your parents put money in the plate. Maybe they'd enjoy a visit to the basement too. BTW, did he make it more real by adding the smell of burning sulfur? It's the small touches that add so much to the experience.

"Atheism will always be a hard sell."

The difference between believers and atheists, is that the latter don't proselytize. There is no selling involved. We just don't accept the notion that there is a god.

allmymarbles you say atheists dont proselytize ... where have you been for the past five years? Dawkins et al have been running a proselytization campaign

Marcus
I thought I shot you on another thread. So there is a resurrection!

Romejellybean

Does Uncle George work for the CIA?

Look, I've no idea what the religious CIA did to you, and I'm not asking, and I know that some of them did some dreadful things, and I'm not in any way excusing what was done, Christians do bad things.

What I will say however is this, while I recognise some of your descriptions in post 27, and share some of the concerns, post 51 is a bit of a caricature.

The trouble I'm having on this thread is that nobody seems to want to actually engage with the New Scientist article in any kind of meaningful way.

OT

I see you are dishonest and wilfully ignorant as ever(sigh!)

The article in question and the title were as MAII points out a marketing ploy.

You provided helpful links to the site and here is the money shot...

"None of this should give succour to creationists, whose blinkered universe is doubtless already buzzing with the news that "New Scientist has announced Darwin was wrong". Expect to find excerpts ripped out of context and presented as evidence that biologists are deserting the theory of evolution en masse. They are not."

Maybe you should read articles before printing the links then you would not look so silly.

Kindest regards

DD

"Would that make Dylan_Dog the third part? "

mmm that would make us the unholy trinity of course...

Romejellybean

luvving your work!

DD hello again, hope you are well.


"Romejellybean

luvving your work!"

It's a pity it's not related to the New Scientist article though!


Maybe you have some thoughts on it, indeed if you took on the role of second person of the H, PK and DD trinity you could reveal the thoughts of the other two!

Hi Peter

I am indeed well thankyou.

RJB made me have a titter hence the compliment-I am likin' your work too Peter! It is good to inject some light-heartedness now and again.

Will have a look at the article later.

DD

54. Augustine.

I can't imagine what there i to sell. We don't knock on strangers' doors badgering them with our dogma - there isn't any. We don't offer a glorious afterlife. Best of all - we never ask for money.

allmymarbles


You can't imagine what there is to sell?

https://www.atheistbus.org.uk/store/

https://www.humanism.org.uk/shop


You don't knock on strangers' doors badgering them with your dogma - there isn't any.

Perhaps you don't knock doors, but metaphorically speaking...

https://www.humanism.org.uk/humanism

https://www.humanism.org.uk/education


You don't offer a glorious afterlife - yes that's true, but then that's not the only thing us Christians are concerned with.

https://www.christianaid.org.uk/aboutus/who/what_we_stand_for/Life_before_death.aspx


And you don't ask for money?

https://www.humanism.org.uk/donate

https://www.justgiving.com/atheistbus

https://nireland.humanists.net/members.html


;-)

Here,

allmymarbles

just noticed this

https://www.blueapplemusic.co.uk/busdetails/busREF04.html

bumper stickers... now if that's not a rip off from Christianity, nothing is!

Oh come on petermorrow, if you want to give an example of atheists going door to door, there are better ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wOz5a6yns

Peter...

64/65...

check the time...

Petermorrow
stop trying to tie me down to answering on what YOU think the subject is. I'll decide.

Pastor Phil and Marcus
I met you two guys before.
Marcus, you were in a field on your hands and knees, frantically searching for something, but trying to give the impression that you werent looking for anything. Loads of passers-by saw you, but they just kept driving.

Then Pastor Phillip you happened to come along - in your Morris Minor. You stopped, walked into the field and, as always, asked if you could help.

Marcus told Pastor P that he had lost his car keys, so Pastor P got on his knees and began to search too. After half an hour, and no keys turned up, Pastor P asks Marcus if he's sure he lost the keys here. "No" says Marcus, "I lost them in the other field."

"Well why are you looking for them here?"

Marcus replies, "Coz the grass is too long over there."

Let's face it. Religion is just a worn-out superstition. Maybe people needed it when the plague was rampant, when half of all children died, when there was no relief from famine, and when there were no washing machines. And when the priests had you by the throat. Of course, now we have politicians to take their place. But god won't get rid of them.

Hi petermorrow,

Ah, so DD wasn't the third part of the unholy trinity, YOU are!

Do your friends and family know? I assume you kill your barbers after every haircut, so that they can't tell others about the two horns on your head? We mustn't be found out.

Damn! so that was what you were after PeterM?

romejellybean

I'm not trying to limit your answers, I said I recognised some of your concerns, I'm just trying, generally, it's not aimed specifically at you, to get some of the scientists who have an atheistic perspective on this blog to comment on the New Scientist article. However they don't appear to be willing.

Nothing personal.


Allmymarbles

Obviously you are right, how could I have missed it?

Bus t-shirt anyone?


PK

Yes you are right, we must keep it quiet. I do my best, and like Samson try to keep my hair long. I'd be a bit worried though if DD was also part of the trinity, even Christianity can't pull off a four person trinity miracle!


The other disturbing thing about this thread is that I have been doing more than the non-believers to promote atheism. Look at the list of web sites I linked to, look and the endless encouragement to put your godless point of view and the start of the argument I gave you.

PK maybe you are right after all, maybe I'm from the 'dark side'.

PeterM, sorry - I've been away from things for a bit, and my bajoobies are only just recovering. Where were we? Ah yes:
The point of the thread, as I remember it is that some kind of science has been done ... which suggests, yes let's say suggests, that, "belief in some form of life apart from that experienced in the body (is) the default setting of the human brain"

Indeed. I'm an atheist living in a country which contains quite a few theists. I used to be one myself. I can see the attractions of believing in gods, and can understand very well how easy it is to fall into that way of thinking. Indeed, I think I perhaps agree that religion is not going away.

None of this makes the claims of religion remotely credible - the reverse, in fact.

PastorPB, your use of the New Scientist front page marks you out as a twit. If you had actually READ the articles in question, you would find out that Darwin was *right*, but didn't have the whole story. This is boringly obvious to anyone who knows the slightest bit about biology (which you clearly don't). Darwin had no clue about how inheritance works - we know this now. He had no clue as to the origin of variation in populations - we know a LOT about this now. He had no idea about horizontal gene transfer - we know a LOT about this now.

Little hint - if you want to use an article to bolster your case, read the article, not the header. Duh!

-H

63, petermorrow.

Well I am sorry that some athiests are in it for the money. Most of us simply don't want to be controlled and legislated by the religious. It is their political aggressiveness that is troubling. As to personal lives, it doesn't matter at all what people believe.

Helio

First up, I'm glad your bajoobies are on the mend, this must rate as on of the funniest words ever posted on the blog.


"Indeed. I'm an atheist living in a country which contains quite a few theists." - I know - but maybe fewer than you think!

"I used to be one myself." - I know

"I can see the attractions of believing in gods," - yes there are some

"and can understand very well how easy it is to fall into that way of thinking." - You are right, it can be, it appears to be the norm for we humans. That's the bit we need to explain.

"Indeed, I think I perhaps agree that religion is not going away." - probably not, maybe because it appears God isn't going away, at least that what the guys at New Scientist are reporting.

"None of this makes the claims of religion remotely credible - the reverse, in fact." - OK, good, you're getting warmed up. Now all you have to do is explain why this is the case and why the human brain should have the default position called 'pixie mode'.

Well, Peter, interesting as it is, I don't have to explain WHY we default to Pixie Mode in order to simply point out that Pixie Mode bears no logical relation with actual Pixie Existence. I'm sure you agree with that.

Gee Helio, that's kinda lucky. But Will has already pointed that out at the top.

It's just that I thought that you'd want to comment on the function of the 'pixie mode', surely to Dawkins it has some purpose.

So, like you said to Philip, you're *so* gonna have to to better.


BTW - yes, it is interesting ;-)

Oh, I don't mind speculating on that, once we've established the principle. Group cohesion oughta do the trick. Belief in deities might correlate with toeing the line within a group - and if you do that, chances are you might progress and spread your little genes.

Or it could be a "mis-fire" of another selection issue - perhaps pattern recognition (which humans are very good at), or trying to read the intent of other humans, and hence that ability spilling over into imputing intent into nature, and therefore belief in gods and stuff.

There has been a lot written on this, so the article at the top is hardly surprising.

Of course, all those examples you gave are formulated on the basis of something actually being there in the first place, the group for instance. Why spill over into what isn't.

Anyway, why not toe the group line cos the biggest guy in the group tells you to?

Or reading the intent in other humans would sort of imply they have intent, so you are going to have to explain that too.

The article at the top might not be surprising, but the lack of comment on it are.

RJB,

What makes you think I could afford a Morris Miinor?

But I would certainly stop to help...since, like many others, I've already found the Key!!

(See John 14v6)

Aaah Pastor P,

I dont need to know what the Bible says. 14v6 or anywhere else. I know this.

I want to know what you think.

What is the key, in your opinion?

jellybean #67, I think you mistook me for someone else. When I'm in rome, I never do as the romans do.

Dont think so, Marcus. I've never heard anyone who is searching as much as you are (and in the wrong place too), and who is so insecure in his own beliefs and worldview. What else could explain the regular and consistent outpourings of claptrap?

These Bajoobies are concerning me. What are they? Are they intelligently designed? Irreducibly Complex? I think we ought to be told.

GV

Given that our Helio is a male of the species, I wondering if the term should not be majoobies.

Peter - post # 78 - suppose I might venture a comment...

I think perhaps there may be two reasons for lack of direct commentary on the article: first, its lack of novelty and, second, that both sides of the argument can more or less read it and say "there you go, proves my point entirely".

The phenomenon of childhood religiosity has been noted for millennia - Jesus says "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein" and in one of the most achingly beautiful poems in the English language, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, Wordsworth speaks of the early spirituality of the child being attenuated by time and experience:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

The explanations for the origin and growth of religion offered by modern research as reported in the article - again not new - make sense to me. I tend to think of religion mostly in terms of a survival adaptation - a point of view I would not dismiss as quickly as Atran - belief in an afterlife, for example, is very likely to facilitate self-sacrifice in the interest of the community.

Many of the other points tie in fairly closely with the arguments I was making on the 'Science of God' thread for the origin of consciousness through the development of mechanisms to give perspective to the processing of information.

What I found most interesting perhaps was the comment by Paul Bloom at the very beginning of the piece: "It's not that religion is not important, it's that the taboo nature of the topic has meant there has been little progress".

Now if that is not a confession that "Science" has become a religion - I'm as Dutch as PeterK. Taboo is a quintessentially religious word.

I think it is important to acknowledge the truth of the fact that when we construct a world-view - effectively we create a religion. When we correlate and synthesise the results of the research of quite disparate disciplines based simply on a common methodology we move from science as tool to Science as organising principle.

I have no problem with that - if we recognise it for what it is. If Science is a religion then it is just as true and just as false as any other. Ithink that "our nervous systems are not aimed at truth, but just survival - the truth of our beliefs is neither here nor there". (Source: G Veale)

Science is nothing more than the working myth which shapes the enquiries of the human mind in this age. It is entirely suitable for the applications in which it is engaged but it no more (or no less) tells the truth about the universe than the spirit dreams of an intoxicated shaman and it is no less (or no more) useful to the society it serves.

I have said what I think but I am one of those blessed people who do not trust their thoughts. For me what I feel is every bit as important as what I think and I must modify the process of reason with emotion.

Wordsworth's conclusion to his poem expresses it much better than I ever could:

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

RJB (#80)

John 14v6 records the words of Jesus:
"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no-one come to the Father except through Me."

I would submit that His words are infinitely more important than my opinion, much as I appreciate the invitation to express it.

Millions of Christians affirm that CHRIST is the Key...to Scripture, the world and life itself.

Little point in trying other 'keys in the bunch' when you've found the right one!

PastorPhilip

Just go on calling it as you see it. Heaven forbid that someone would quote the Bible on a religious blog!

Perhaps RJB wants to know why, in your opinion, the incarnation and atonement was necessary. Or to express what biblical faith is in your own words. Or maybe not. I'd go ahead in any case.

G Veale

Pastor P,
Ok I'll help you.

John 14 v 6 is highly significant because.........

Christ is the key to scriptures, the world and life itself because.....

I know that no one can come to the Father except through Jesus because......

I would just like to know from where your certainty is derived.

RJB
Good questions, to my mind. I'm pretty sure Pastor P will enjoy answering them.

The question about certainty is interesting. Do I *feel* certain that my faith is true? Yes. Does that *prove* anything? Not much. Many people feel certain that their beliefs, which contradict mine, are true. Does that mean I should abandon my certainty? I can't see why - I feel certain that it is true that disabled children shouldn't be left out to be killed by the elements. Many people *feel* certain that I'm wrong. But I'm not abandoning what my conscience tells me to believe without very strong evidence. It's a similar experience that grounds my faith.

Do I ever doubt? Do I ever experience a momentary panic that I might be wrong? Like most folk, I can manage to doubt just about everything. My faith's no different. So yes, I have those moments. Can I see why someone might doubt that my beliefs are true? Yes, so I try to discuss what I believe as much as I can. I can't impose Christian beliefs on someone else.

But I agree with you that some types of certainty are worrying. If my faith is true, I think a person can only see it is true for themselves. Imposing a set of religious practices on a society wouldn't help me a jot. I would be cautious (to say the least) about religious&political systems, be they shaped by Christianity or Atheism, that make it possible for sincere believers to impose their beliefs on others.

Also there is a sort of *person* that worries me. That person is certain about any important issue that they have an opinion on. Only the foolish or the wicked would disagree with them. You find them in Churches, and on Dawkins blog, and in political parties and the local Golf Club. Nothing *external* to them gives them certainty. They seem to be certain just because that certainty gives them power.

I don't think Pastor P fit's into either category. If he is the same Pastor P whose wife wrote "Under the Rainbow" then, on a personal level, his reply should be taken very seriously.His faith has most likely sustained him. Of course that doesn't *prove* anything to be true or false. But Pastor P just seems more interested in sharing what he believes than establishing it to be true.

So long as he doesn't want to bang those who disagree up in jail, or force folk to listen to him, I can't see why anyone should object to that. (Not that I think you do - but some other folk get irate)

G Veale

PS Rome Jelly Bean - is there a hidden meaning here that I'm missing?

Portwyne

You are from Holland?

GV

RJB

Graham is fairly accurate about where I am coming from (and it was indeed my wife who wrote 'Under the Rainbow'). Since Will invites anyone to join the debate, I accepted the invitation! And since I am a Pastor, it is hardly surprising that my contributions are a little bit Christian!!

I appreciate that folk have a problem with Christian certainty: for us, it is based on the reliablity of the Bible and the Person of Christ - His life, death and resurrection. (I submit that there is a good deal of evidence in support of these foundations of the Christian faith.)

However, is also true that Christian faith must be more than a matter of an intellectually satisfying series of beliefs: it must be seen to work in human experience. My wife and I have discovered that it does!!

Okay, GV and Pastor P.
It doesnt surprise me, Pastor P, that your contributions are a little bit Christian.

I am a Catholic Priest and my contributions will be a little bit Christian.

I am not letting you off the hook so easily. The answers to the three questions I posed above now seems to be, because...... I am a Pastor. Not good enough, Phillip.

I believe that a lot of damage gets done to the Christian faith by people who just, and I genuinely dont want to hurt you here, fire out scripture texts very arrogantly. I know and you dont!!
is the message which comes across. Do you ever consider how those types of statements affect people who are intelligent and might actually give Christianity a chance?

I believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life but I also believe that we have a duty/calling to explain why.

Lets take this bloggs favourite saint.
St Paul stood in the centre of Rome. He looked at all the statues of the Gods errected there. They even, just incase they missed a God out, had a statue to the unknown God. St Paul stood infront of that statue and said, "I know who this God is." He then explained why. He convinced some, and not others. But he did try to explain.

You are a Pastor, Phillip. Explain your deeply held beliefs. Otherwise you come across as an empty gong booming and are no more than these placard wielding fundamentalists who stand behind the goalposts at cup finals pointing to John 13 or 14 or any other text.

I think you do damage if you dont explain.

There, thats me out of the closet.

RJB

I brought some oats here for your vertically gifted equine.

;-)

OT

RJB,

By coincidence, I will be speaking from Acts 17 this Sunday - Paul's sermon In Athens. (not Rome - brief lapse of memory....I have them frequently!!)

I note that what he said to those 'agnostics' sounds very arrogant to us today, but he did not hold back from declaring things he knew they would find hard to take - especially the fact of the Resurrection of Jesus.

When Jesus said He was 'The Way, the Truth and the Life', it seems clear that He was claiming to be the only way to God, that His word could be trusted, and that satisfying spiritual life was to be found in Him. His rising from death 3 days after His crucifixion gives that claim some added credibility, don't you think?

No, I don't usually communicate with 'gongs or placards', but you can't deny that the message of the empy tomb deserves urgent attention!

Okay PP, the 64 million dollar question,
will anonymous christians, (all those people who lead merciful, compassionate, loving lives) but who have never heard of Jesus or the Father, go to heaven?

(On an earlier point, the reason that we differ fundamentally is because, you apparently believe that the Bible is the pinnacle of Gods self revelation. I believe that the most powerful way we can encounter God is in the poor and suffering. They are the face of God on this earth. Everything we need to know about God, we will find in the poor. If humanity/christians treated the poor with the same reverance they treat the Bible, (or the Eucharist, or the Sacraments)what a different world we would be living in. It would be the Kingdom.)

RJB,

I must confess I am surprised that you seem to think that God need not have revealed Himself in Scripture and in Christ...did you really mean we need nothing other than to look at the poor?

My conviction is that we should never have been able to know God had He not revealed Himself. And the Bible is clear that none of us deserves to be in Heaven. (check out Romans 3) - All of us are deserving of His condemnation.

Believing in Christ alone is the only way both to forgiveness and eternal life (Peter confirmed this in Acts 4v12) - the exclusive nature of the teaching may be uncomfortable for some, but that is how it is clearly laid out in the New Testament.

As to those who have never heard...I'm content to leave them in the loving hands of God. But maybe we who HAVE heard should get on with telling those who have not!

Pastor P,
your last two sentences totally contradict each other.

Leave those who havent heard in the loving hands of God. THEN, lets not leave them in the loving hands of God, lets tell 'em, (us who know better.)

Which is it to be?

Here's a challenge, Phil, for Sunday. Dont preach. Dont TELL anybody anything about God.

Ask your people to give one example of what made them cry this week. Then one example of what made them proud.

At the end of it, I think you will know something about the unknown God which you would never have found in the scriptures.

Lack of risk is a sure sign of mediocrity.
Risk it, Phil.

RJB,

You can't seriously expect not to preach tomorrow!! Quite apart from the fact that I would be disobeying what God has called me to do, many people would think that was what I'm paid for!

I'm still fascinated by your suggestion that we should set aside God's revelation of Himself in Scripture (Can this really be coming from a priest in the Catholic Church?!)

I won't be doing it - people deserve the best.....and I'm not referring to my preaching (!) but to the Word of God itself. (see 2 Timothy 3v16)

I'm not asking you to set aside the scriptures. Proclaim the scriptures!!
Proclaim the Word!!

I am asking you to stop quoting the scriptures and using them as proof texts. (As you've done yet again in your last post.)

Anyone can quote the scriptures, as does Satan in the temptations in the wilderness.

The point I'm trying to get across, albeit not very successfully, is that we can all learn so much about who God is by listening to the hearts and minds of our people, especially if those people happen to be poor, suffering, grieving, hungry, marginalised, oppressed etc..

Some of the best preachers in the OT were unwilling (and unpaid!!) The speech impeded Isaiah, the terrified Elijah.

The latter finding God, not in the fire or wind, but in the gentle breeze.....

I hope your sermon went well.

RJB,

I'm relieved that you don't want me to stop preaching the Word!

While I agree that we can learn much from others and even recognise God in them, that can never happen apart from what we learn of God in Scripture. Otherwise, how would we know the lessons were true?

Jesus said in John 17v17 "Sanctify them through Your truth: Your Word is truth."

Oops - there I go 'proof texting' again!
.......it's still a great verse!!