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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2014 2:51:23 GMT -5
I am not challenged much because most people on this board are not atheists. I have been ferociously challenged on other boards though!!!
Also the subject is generally outwith most peoples' scope of study and interest, so they are not in much of a position to complement your views. After all, the views of many are in the main "faith based."
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Post by matisse on Nov 29, 2014 9:18:36 GMT -5
Some modern people quote the "six days of creation" in Genesis to voice their opposition. The same people will ignore that Genesis states that life came out of the sea. Okay? While we are at it, let's acknowledge that Genesis 1, Verses 11 through 19 describe how the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind. Not until the FOLLOWING day, according to the account, did God created the sun and the moon and the stars. "No doubt"...really? Is this an example of what you mean by "scholarship"?
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Post by matisse on Nov 29, 2014 9:30:45 GMT -5
I am not challenged much because most people on this board are not atheists. Well, this is good news. Just a few short months ago, atheists were being blamed for taking over and destroying TMB!! Ahh, you give us something to aspire to....
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Post by matisse on Nov 29, 2014 11:56:18 GMT -5
I just uploaded The God Delusion to my Kindle; it will be my first read of something by Dawkins. So far, it is worth the price for the bumper sticker slogan: "Blasphemy is a victimless crime!"
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Post by matisse on Nov 29, 2014 20:37:21 GMT -5
Dawkins says he was a "Christian" till he read Darwin's "Origin," which he said contradicted the bible. This assumes people believed the bible because they couldn't explain the natural world. This is a false assertion. It's also misleading because the bible not only says that God created life, but it tells us how: Genesis 1:20 " And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." (note: NOT "teemed" with life as some translations put it.) (note: not just sea life, but ALL life, including birds.) Dawkins found a contradiction where none existed. He either demonstrated he hadn't actually read the bible, duplicity in ignoring it or stupidity in not grasping what the bible was telling him. Talk about selective reading!!! I think it is worth pointing out to you again that Genesis also tells us that under God's direction, the earth brought forth plant life and seeds one day, and on the following day, God put the Sun, Moon and Stars in place in the heavens. I trust you will recognize that this sequence is incompatible with both the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution. You lifted/paraphrased from the introductory paragraphs to Chapter 2. At the end of his description of the negative aspects of the God of the Old Testament, and a brief (and qualified) reference to Jesus, he deliberately puts these aside and goes on to establish what he calls "The God Hypothesis", and an "alternative view", the subject of the remainder of the chapter. Now that I have a copy of the book, I can see, as I suspected, that you have done a hatchet job of "representing" Dawkins' arguments. For anyone interested, here is a link to a pdf copy of Chapter 2 of the book: LinkA caution: Dawkins lays the groundwork for Chapter 2 in Chapter 1, and lays the groundwork for the book in the Preface.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 1:52:46 GMT -5
Thanks Matisse I appreciate your feedback. Unfortunately I don't have Dawkins in electronic form so you can do super-fast* searches for text in a way I cannot. And in the first few chapters I did not mark where he made these remarks.
Yes, Dawkins described God as a "monster" and Jesus as a "milksop."
So for these descriptions I need to Google them. 2.7 million references to " Dawkins 'god is a monster' " and 1360 references to " Dawkins Jesus 'milksop' "
Dawkins' God is "infantical", "homophobic", a "hyped-up Ayatollah Khomeini", a "monster" He quotes Winston Churchhill "God is a s.h.i.t." Jesus is described thus, “this milksop persona owes more to his Victorian followers than to Jesus himself,”
* I once had a 286 Intel computer with those old 5.25" with 1.2 Mbytes in its largest iteration. I had the bible on one disk, which was amazing in itself. But at Genesis 1:1 I could do a search for the word "Amen" in the last verse of Revelation. Time taken, on that computer and disk, was less than a second. As a programmer I used to marvel that such a toy computer could do that - it's all in the power of what we called "indexed searches."
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 1:54:51 GMT -5
Thanks Matisse The Genesis account is subtle and complex. I will copy what I wrote for a Theology student a few years ago.
Reconciling GenesisTo reconcile Genesis’ account of creation with science three assumptions need making: Assume:1. The observer is standing upon the Earth (in reality most readers of Genesis had no concept of space, just as we have little idea of a “multi-verse” of whatever lies beyond this) 2. That the “days” are symbols of completeness or periods of creation. 3. One event is repeated. The order according to Genesis:
1. The separation of light from dark 2. Separation of the waters and “firmament” 3. Creation of dry land and the grasses 4. Creation of the sun, the moon and the stars 5. The waters bring forth life. 6. The land brings forth life.Saturn’s moon Titan is considered a “pre-cursor Earth.” That is, a cloud shrouded, pre-biotic world which approximates the early Earth. I will use this as a basis for understanding the primordial Earth. www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/titans-haze-help-us-understand-lifes-origins/The order according to science:
The molten Earth – (not mentioned in Genesis) 4.7 billion years ago. The first oceans. Prior to 4.4 billion years ago. The emergence of the granite continents from the seas. 4.4 billion years ago. The clearing skies. ?? First life forms inhabiting the seas. 4.5 – 3.5 billion years ago. Life colonizes the land. 580 million years ago. Emergence of man. (Depends on what is “man.”) 2 million years ago.KJ version: [1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. [2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. [3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. [4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. [5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.The existence of an early ocean was not accepted until 2005 when Australian scientists were able to study the chemical composition of zirconian crystals dating from the pre-continent age. Assuming a Titan analog, the early Earth would have been dark until the cloud deck cleared, bringing light. This would have exposed the day and night cycle caused by the Earth’s rotation. [6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. [7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. [8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.I do not understand what the “firmament” here means. I checked it in parallel translations. This might mean the air itself as it separates the waters below from the waters above. [9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. [10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. [11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. [12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. [13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.“Dry land” meant the granite blocks which rose above the submerged basalt crust. The continents required the existence of oceanic water to initiate the motion of plate tectonics (continental drift) and this in turn created the granite necessary for the lighter continents. 14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: [15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. [16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. [17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, [18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. [19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.This repeats day 1. [20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. [21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. [22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. [23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.It is the waters which create life. Water is life’s “solvent.” God’s agency is to command, NOT TO DIRECTLY ACT UPON. Until Darwin’s Origin of Species it was not understood how a bird could come from the ocean. 1. Birds come from therapod dinosaurs 2. Dinosaurs evolved from reptiles 3. Reptiles evolved from amphibians 4. Amphibians evolved from fishes This is one of the earliest references to life coming from the sea. [24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. [25] And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. [26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. [27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them…. [31] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
God made man in the image of something which already existed. The “second” Genesis account suggests that Adam and Eve were not the only people on the Earth, for Cain went out and married into people not know to that family. Genesis is roundly criticized in our secular society. It is remarkable that its account accords so closely to what is agreed upon in science.
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Post by dmmichgood on Nov 30, 2014 4:20:04 GMT -5
I am reading about evolution again... it's a subject I happen to love very much. I am glad to hear you like to study the subject o evolution, bert.
I am sure then that you then realize from the study of evolution that the process of evolution is slow, but the information from DNA must be stable. However, although stable, the information from the DNA must also be able to change (mutate). The mutation rate must be high enough that the species to adapt quickly as the environment changes. It also must have the means to reproduce itself'
Never-the-less Evolution is slow. It is also random. There is no guiding hand. There is no intent. There is no motivation.
This is the hardest thing that I think people have in accepting evolution. People want to believe that there is a "guiding hand" an "intention.
To face & accept that fact that there isn't any, horrifying to a lot of people. To know there really is no intentional reasoning, No intentional guiding hand behind what happens means we humans MUST accept responsibility in how to deal with life & the world. That is a very hard thing for people to accept!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 4:59:31 GMT -5
Evolution can be slow, and it can be fast. Just 20 generations for one lizard --- www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/invasion-drives-quick-evolution-lizard-feetSometimes a lucky genetic change can deliver a new species in a single generation, particularly if it happens in the "hox genes" which control the body shape. I am reminded of something I read years ago, a Christian and someone from another faith were talking Christian - "My God created all things!" Second party - "My God created all things to create themselves." I dispute what I read some evolutionists say about there being no "progress" in evolution, it being random and it can even go backwards. But FOR SOME classes of life clearly the evolution has been directional, ie vertebrates. And as for a "goal" in evolution - that's the realm of theology and philosophy. But there's an historical analogy to this issue, if I may: Both the OT and the NT predicted the destruction of Israel and the removal of its inhabitants. This was quite radical. If you read Josephus' War Of The Jews you see, as he and many of the Jews did, a sense of impending doom as if it was a foregone conclusion. **Things happened ** that seemed strange, alien, even symbolic. (Halley's comet, an symbol of doom, appeared over Jerusalem during the siege.) At every stage the events seemed "natural" but somehow, not natural. I wonder if life on Earth didn't progress like this?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 5:37:52 GMT -5
Are we talking about Macro-evolution or micro-evolution. Macro-evolution is certainly very slow...so slow that it is non-existent!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 5:50:15 GMT -5
Yes Ram, Macros evolved too.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 6:59:46 GMT -5
Yes Ram, Macros evolved too. Not if you are a creation scientist or someone who believes in God's Word!
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Post by matisse on Nov 30, 2014 10:45:55 GMT -5
Thanks Matisse The Genesis account is subtle and complex. I will copy what I wrote for a Theology student a few years ago. :)
Reconciling GenesisTo reconcile Genesis’ account of creation with science three assumptions need making: Assume:1. The observer is standing upon the Earth (in reality most readers of Genesis had no concept of space, just as we have little idea of a “multi-verse” of whatever lies beyond this) 2. That the “days” are symbols of completeness or periods of creation. 3. One event is repeated. The order according to Genesis:
1. The separation of light from dark 2. Separation of the waters and “firmament” 3. Creation of dry land and the grasses 4. Creation of the sun, the moon and the stars 5. The waters bring forth life. 6. The land brings forth life.Saturn’s moon Titan is considered a “pre-cursor Earth.” That is, a cloud shrouded, pre-biotic world which approximates the early Earth. I will use this as a basis for understanding the primordial Earth. www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/titans-haze-help-us-understand-lifes-origins/The order according to science:
The molten Earth – (not mentioned in Genesis) 4.7 billion years ago. The first oceans. Prior to 4.4 billion years ago. The emergence of the granite continents from the seas. 4.4 billion years ago. The clearing skies. ?? First life forms inhabiting the seas. 4.5 – 3.5 billion years ago. Life colonizes the land. 580 million years ago. Emergence of man. (Depends on what is “man.”) 2 million years ago.KJ version: [1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. [2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. [3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. [4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. [5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.The existence of an early ocean was not accepted until 2005 when Australian scientists were able to study the chemical composition of zirconian crystals dating from the pre-continent age. Assuming a Titan analog, the early Earth would have been dark until the cloud deck cleared, bringing light. This would have exposed the day and night cycle caused by the Earth’s rotation. [6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. [7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. [8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.I do not understand what the “firmament” here means. I checked it in parallel translations. This might mean the air itself as it separates the waters below from the waters above. [9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. [10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. [11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. [12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. [13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.“Dry land” meant the granite blocks which rose above the submerged basalt crust. The continents required the existence of oceanic water to initiate the motion of plate tectonics (continental drift) and this in turn created the granite necessary for the lighter continents. 14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: [15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. [16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. [17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, [18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. [19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.This repeats day 1. [20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. [21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. [22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. [23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.It is the waters which create life. Water is life’s “solvent.” God’s agency is to command, NOT TO DIRECTLY ACT UPON. Until Darwin’s Origin of Species it was not understood how a bird could come from the ocean. 1. Birds come from therapod dinosaurs 2. Dinosaurs evolved from reptiles 3. Reptiles evolved from amphibians 4. Amphibians evolved from fishes This is one of the earliest references to life coming from the sea. [24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. [25] And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. [26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. [27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them…. [31] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
God made man in the image of something which already existed. The “second” Genesis account suggests that Adam and Eve were not the only people on the Earth, for Cain went out and married into people not know to that family. Genesis is roundly criticized in our secular society. It is remarkable that its account accords so closely to what is agreed upon in science. Points to you for imagination and creativity, Bert. Points to the crafters of this particular creation story for imagination and creativity as well. (The Hindus, with all of their gods, get points for describing multiple universes long before the concept was developed through scientific inquiry.) I'm trying to figure out how flowering plants and trees (fruit trees, for example, which are specifically mentioned in Genesis) came into being and survived without pollinators.
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Post by matisse on Nov 30, 2014 11:01:10 GMT -5
Are we talking about Macro-evolution or micro-evolution. Macro-evolution is certainly very slow...so slow that it is non-existent! Not if you have billions of years to work with. If you can accept the concept of micro-evolution, the model for macro-evolution involves the isolation of groups of a species from each other, and time for these isolated groups to micro-evolve separately to the point of being so different from each other that the two populations can longer reproduce with each other. There is no call for the sudden appearance of a completely new species....an ape giving birth to a homo sapiens, for example. The time scale required for the appearance (through population isolation and micro-evolution) of distinct species will be a tripping point for people who believe the earth is only thousands of years old.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 11:21:59 GMT -5
Are we talking about Macro-evolution or micro-evolution. Macro-evolution is certainly very slow...so slow that it is non-existent! Not if you have billions of years to work with. If you can accept the concept of micro-evolution, the model for macro-evolution involves the isolation of groups of a species from each other, and time for these isolated groups to micro-evolve separately to the point of being so different from each other that the two populations can longer reproduce with each other. There is no call for the sudden appearance of a completely new species....an ape giving birth to a homo sapiens, for example. The time scale required for the appearance (through population isolation and micro-evolution) of distinct species will be a tripping point for people who believe the earth is only thousands of years old.I'm afraid "time" is the all important factor for this sort of thing. Personally I have NO time for this sort of thing since I only have a few thousand years in which to accommodate it! "Time" is the God of Evolution. The evolutionary God is hugely more patient than even the God of the Bible and dare I say just as miraculous, since the works of the latter are attributed to the former. In either case a God is necessary to explain things and both demand faith. I go for the short answer. Somebody has to do it these days!
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Post by snow on Nov 30, 2014 12:44:19 GMT -5
Yes Ram, Macros evolved too. Not if you are a creation scientist or someone who believes in God's Word! Why would you want to be something that doesn't deal with facts? You can always change and not believe that what creationists say is true and God's word. There are options and choices.
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Post by matisse on Nov 30, 2014 13:49:29 GMT -5
Thanks MatisseI appreciate your feedback. Unfortunately I don't have Dawkins in electronic form so you can do super-fast* searches for text in a way I cannot. And in the first few chapters I did not mark where he made these remarks. Yes, Dawkins described God as a " monster... I have not come across the word "monster" in this book, so far. Dawkins describes the God of the Old Testament as "the most unpleasant character in all fiction..." The context of these words about Jesus: "It is unfair to attack such an easy target. The God Hypothesis should not stand or fall on its most unlovely instantiation, Yahweh, nor his insipidly opposite Christian face, 'Gentle Jesus meek and mild'. (To be fair, this milksop persona owes more to his Victorian followers than to Jesus himself. Could anything be more mawkishly nauseating than Mrs. C.F. Alexander's 'Christian children all must be / Mild, obedient, good as he'?) The further point, is that Dawkins sets aside the particulars attributed to Yahweh in the Old Testament and to Jesus in the New, as well as the particulars of other gods mentioned in other holy texts. He does not use any of these characterizations as a basis for arguments that follow in this chapter that you have taken words from. So what? Not Dawkins' God, the God of the Old Testament. I remember reading "infanticidal" and "homophobic", but not the other terms. Nope, not Winston Churchill, rather Winston Churchill's son, Randolph. Randolph was brought up free from exposure to the scriptures and made the quoted comment as he read the Bible for the first time. (You seem to have skimmed Dawkins' book, Bert.)
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Post by matisse on Nov 30, 2014 13:59:34 GMT -5
Not if you have billions of years to work with. If you can accept the concept of micro-evolution, the model for macro-evolution involves the isolation of groups of a species from each other, and time for these isolated groups to micro-evolve separately to the point of being so different from each other that the two populations can longer reproduce with each other. There is no call for the sudden appearance of a completely new species....an ape giving birth to a homo sapiens, for example. The time scale required for the appearance (through population isolation and micro-evolution) of distinct species will be a tripping point for people who believe the earth is only thousands of years old.I'm afraid "time" is the all important factor for this sort of thing. Personally I have NO time for this sort of thing since I only have a few thousand years in which to accommodate it! "Time" is the God of Evolution. The evolutionary God is hugely more patient than even the God of the Bible and dare I say just as miraculous, since the works of the latter are attributed to the former. In either case a God is necessary to explain things and both demand faith. I go for the short answer. Somebody has to do it these days! I would never question these as being your particular beliefs, Ram. They are not at all mine. Dawkins' "The God Delusion" refers to "supernatural" gods, like Yahweh of the Old Testament, and not to what some (Einstein, for example) might refer to as 'God" that has nothing to do with answering prayers, or rewarding and punishing human beings, or paying any attention to human beings at all. I agree with Dawkins, that a word other than "god" for the latter would be appropriate and would take away a lot of confusion in conversations like this.
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Post by SharonArnold on Nov 30, 2014 15:13:32 GMT -5
I would never question these as being your particular beliefs, Ram. They are not at all mine. Dawkins' "The God Delusion" refers to "supernatural" gods, like Yahweh of the Old Testament, and not to what some (Einstein, for example) might refer to as 'God" that has nothing to do with answering prayers, or rewarding and punishing human beings, or paying any attention to human beings at all. I agree with Dawkins, that a word other than "god" for the latter would be appropriate and would take away a lot of confusion in conversations like this. If I had a literal reading of the God in the Bible, and nothing experiential, I would have punted “him” to the curb when I was 8 years old. One of my earliest memories is when I was about 4 years old. I had just eaten breakfast, and was outside our house on my father’s farm, wearing a sweater that my mom had knitted for me, which enveloped me in a big warm hug. God was in heaven and all was right with my world. It was very profound, I felt very alive. Years have passed, I’ve been through a lot, and learned a lot. My cosmology is different, the terminology that I use by default is different. Again and again, I return to that same place of deep meaning and connection that I recall experiencing when I was 4, that morning on my father’s farm. It was in a 2X2 Christian context, with the KJV as a background, that I learned many of the life truths that guide me still today. I have found those same truths in many contexts, under many labels since then. I’ve really never had a problem in using the “God” terminology – though had it ever ceased to serve me, I would have dropped it in a second. I do not judge anyone who has decided that terminology does not work for them. I understand that when I use the term “God” that it may not mean exactly the same thing as someone else that uses the same term. Yet, I know, through its usage – we are reaching to express the same thing – an experience that transcends all levels of thought, and that connects us to the mystery that is the ground of our own being. “Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.” ― Rumi
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 15:32:37 GMT -5
Not if you are a creation scientist or someone who believes in God's Word! Why would you want to be something that doesn't deal with facts? You can always change and not believe that what creationists say is true and God's word. There are options and choices. Snow, I have examined the options and for me, they just don't add up. I need a lot more faith to believe in evolution than I do in the Creator God. A lot more.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 15:54:53 GMT -5
Quote - " So for these descriptions I need to Google them. 2.7 million references to " Dawkins 'god is a monster' " and 1360 references to " Dawkins Jesus 'milksop' "
So what?" You said I lifted or paraphrased the "monster" from the introductory chapter. The references were to ensure others were not "lifting" or "paraphrasing" as I have done. No, I haven't "skimmed" this book. It's quite interesting.
A point to make. I believe in the Jewish God, or Yahweh. I don't believe in other gods. These gods (and including the Muslim and Mormon versions of Yahweh) are strikingly man-made. At one stage I considered the proposal that seeing how so many gods are man-made, then perhaps ALL gods are man-made.
And by "man-made" I mean these alien gods appeal to human reasoning in a way that Yahweh does not. How so? Much of what God and Jesus spoke of is deliberately circumvented by most religious people, and the hole which is left is filled with all sorts of more human-like attributes.
Secondly its the power of prophecy. See my thread "Explaining away prophecy" by way of example.
Thirdly the fact that this Yahweh is a God of history, for much of what transpired in the bible has been traced to actual places and actual dates (ie Jewish conquest of Palestine, King David, Babylonian captivity, Herod's temple mount etc..)
Fourth, the symbolic power of scripture. One European king said he believed in the bible because of the continuance of the Jewish people. The story of the Jews, by way of example, IMO is there as a symbol of God's will, TO THIS DAY: The Jews are given the land of Promise; the Jews are taken into captivity; the Jews return from captivity. The Jews lose their land and even freedom after their rejection of the Messiah. The Jews remain curse "until the time of the Gentiles be complete." So these people and their history "shadow" what the bible states.
And fifth (I am sure to think of others later!) the very verses some used to "prove" the bible is fanciful, the six days of Genesis, impress me with their power. Until a few years ago I believed these verses were too way off due to the fact that we believed Earth was not oceanic so early. It turned out that Earth was an oceanic planet for a long, long time, with little or any land at all, not a glowing red ball of magma for billions of years. ie Earth forms 4.7 bya and its oceanic 4.5 bya. Look at this article - its COOL. www.sci-news.com/geology/science-jack-hills-zircon-oldest-known-fragment-earth-01779.html
Cheers!!!
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Post by dmmichgood on Nov 30, 2014 16:00:11 GMT -5
Evolution can be slow, and it can be fast. Just 20 generations for one lizard --- www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/invasion-drives-quick-evolution-lizard-feetSometimes a lucky genetic change can deliver a new species in a single generation, particularly if it happens in the "hox genes" which control the body shape. I am reminded of something I read years ago, a Christian and someone from another faith were talking Christian - "My God created all things!" Second party - "My God created all things to create themselves." I dispute what I read some evolutionists say about there being no "progress" in evolution, it being random and it can even go backwards. But FOR SOME classes of life clearly the evolution has been directional, ie vertebrates. And as for a "goal" in evolution - that's the realm of theology and philosophy. But there's an historical analogy to this issue, If you read Josephus' War Of The Jews you see,as he and many of the Jews did, a sense of impending doom as if it was a foregone
if I may:Both the OT and the NT predicted the destruction of Israel and the removal of itsinhabitants. This was quite radical. conclusion. **Things happened ** that seemed strange, alien, even symbolic.
(Halley's comet, an symbol of doom, appeared over Jerusalem during the siege.) At every stage the events seemed "natural" but somehow, not natural. I wonder if life on Earth didn't progress like this? Your last paragraph is not about biological evolution.
Your are talking about the evolution of ideas which is what Craig James does in his book, The Religion Virus.
James compares biological GENES & MEMES (IDEAS) development, way they are the same & ways they differ in their evolution.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 16:11:32 GMT -5
This thread shouldn't be about evolution on its own. It's about Dawkins' book and the existence of God. Evolution of ideas is fine - that "meme" thing is just an hypothesis at this stage, but it has a grainy plausibility.
This comes down to what I believe is the "Truth" okay? I believe that most of the ideas presented in the bible are overly and covertly dismissed by most religious people. Dawkins talks about the "milksop" Jesus of the Victorian era, for example - if there's a "meme" floating around here it's that Jesus is the gorgeous hunk of a guy who loves the kids, feeds the hungry, seeks world peace and heals the sick. Period. The Jesus of the bible, warts and all, is bypassed.
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Post by dmmichgood on Nov 30, 2014 16:27:58 GMT -5
This thread shouldn't be about evolution on its own. It's about Dawkins' book and the existence of God. Evolution of ideas is fine - that "meme" thing is just an hypothesis at this stage, but it has a grainy plausibility. This comes down to what I believe is the "Truth" okay? I believe that most of the ideas presented in the bible are overly and covertly dismissed by most religious people. Dawkins talks about the "milksop" Jesus of the Victorian era, for example - if there's a "meme" floating around here it's that Jesus is the gorgeous hunk of a guy who loves the kids, feeds the hungry, seeks world peace and heals the sick. Period. The Jesus of the bible, warts and all, is bypassed. No, "that meme" thing, as you put it, isn't just an hypothesis.
Your next book to read should probably be Craig James's The Religion Virus.
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Post by rational on Nov 30, 2014 16:32:02 GMT -5
Quote - " So for these descriptions I need to Google them. 2.7 million references to " Dawkins 'god is a monster' " and 1360 references to " Dawkins Jesus 'milksop' "
So what?" Yes, so what. The third and forth hit that turned up when I did the search was about The Flying Spaghetti Monster. And there was a lot of discussion about a different book: Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God by Copan. So you might have a lot of hits but do they concern the topic at hand?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 16:35:54 GMT -5
Been arguing about Australian politics with someone on the phone as I type this !!!!!!! A "meme" as I understand it is a virus-like transmittable IDEA. Not sure if you could put your finger on a meme. It is probably a way of looking at a topic. BTW the RCC agreed with Galileo's sun-centric studies, but held his Copernican ideas were just a way of looking at things, not the real deal. They held he couldn't prove his theory due to various anomalies, ie stellar parallax, the improbability that the two tides per day (not one as needed) demonstrated movement of the earth etc.. In a sense, the RCC was right and Galileo was wrong - but let's not hijack the thread!
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Post by dmmichgood on Nov 30, 2014 16:39:39 GMT -5
Quote - " So for these descriptions I need to Google them. 2.7 million references to " Dawkins 'god is a monster' " and 1360 references to " Dawkins Jesus 'milksop' "
So what?" You said I lifted or paraphrased the "monster" from the introductory chapter. The references were to ensure others were not "lifting" or "paraphrasing" as I have done. No, I haven't "skimmed" this book. It's quite interesting.
So, Bert you are admitting that indeed you stated Dawkins made statements that he didn't actually SAY!?
Putting words into someone his mouth, words like "monster" & "milksop?" That is is NOT "paraphrasing!"
That is LYING!
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Post by matisse on Nov 30, 2014 16:42:50 GMT -5
Dawkins did use the word "milksop"! He qualified the statement as I detailed above.
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