So basically, anything that a bunch of people everywhere come up with is "good?" What makes us come up with such things?
Not at all. I'm saying that using one's judgement is always better than accepting what you're told at face value.
An example: Jesus, Confucius and Kant say that you should treat others like you would want to be treated. Accepting this just because these people say so is foolish, but the consequences can be considered positive because the message itself is positive. Accepting this because you can agree with it makes sense and has positive consequences.
Another example - a religious leader tells you that you should kill all the heretics you meet because it's God's will. Accepting this because the leader says so is foolish and has profoundly negative consequences. Accepting this because you agree with it doesn't make it right because it still has negative consequences as a whole.
And I'm still using Buddha's suggestion here in judging these two "orders", because I can agree with that; does it cause harm for people? If it does, it's no good. Is it beneficial for all parties involved? If it is, then it's good.
But it's not based on your particular sect at all. You're focusing on the wrong cause of salvation/damnation. If a person misses the mark, they die. "The wages of sin is death." Period. Christ offered a way around that. It's a gift one must accept to receive. It is not your lack of belief in Christ that condemns a person to Hell. It's their actions that cause them to NEED Christ to AVOID Hell. You go to jail for the crimes you commit, not because you didn't take the get-out-of-jail-free card. See the difference?
And if I'm being offered a hundred get-out-of-jail cards by each sect that has different opinion about what 's there truth about christianity, and a thousand more from all the other religions, which one should I pick?
I refuse to believe that anyone can correctly determine which is the correct card, and seeing how unlikely it would be for me to guess the correct one, it also follows that God, should he exist, either doesn't care about what I formally believe (or what group I affiliate myself with) since the likelyhood of making the right choice is so small, or if he really does expect that, I would want as little to do with that person as possible.
If God exists, I think he would rather want me to use my own judgement instead of others, regarding how to live my life. I'll get back to "if I think stealing is right, does it make it right" -question in the end of the message...
But if you are wrong, your gain is finite and your loss is infinite.
And I'm ready to take the risk* because I don't see any reason why God, should he exist, care particularly what I believe about his existence in my life, and if he does care, I again don't want much to do with him so the definition of "loss" becomes... subjective here.
To quote CS Lewis, "God cannot offer us peace and happiness and life apart from Himself, simply because there is no such thing. It does not exist."
I disagree. Peace and happiness and life apart from God can exist. Of course, that requres a lack of assumption that God exist, but I don't see peace, happiness and life being impossible in a world without God.
Most cavemen would unfortunately take the local opinion for granted seeing as it was drilled onto their heads at impressionable age.
Unfortunately take the local opinion? Weren't you stating that what people, by majority vote, decide is right, is right?[/quote]
Not necessarily, for a sheep in a wolf pack democracy is a bad idea.
I was talking about the fact that influences from local authorities would most likely make the caveman to assume that their interpretation of Moon's distance would be the only correct one, without any attempt to question the claim.
Associating democracy to good and right does not always work, especially if people are influenced to some direction by authority figures - religious, political or military leaders. If enough people are influenced to agree with someone through immediate benefits (populism), fear (fear/hatemongering), authority (this is right because I say so) or other things, it doesn't necessarily mean that the ideas of that person are the best ones, never mind good and bad, right and wrong.
For democracy to work ideally, people would need to thing through things themselves, but for the time being, democracy is still the best available option for government structure instead of, say, theocratic dictatorship.
Here's an argument for you. If there were no such thing as metaphysics, if there were nothing supernatural, how would we have even come up with the terms? If everyone in the universe were blind, "darkness" would be a meaningless term. So why do such words have meaning?
Specifically? Darkness has a metaphysical meaning associated to bad and evil because night time used to scary and dangerous. Also, a blind universe is, in evolutionary terms, hardly possible since sensory capabilities tend to evolve to concentrate on utilizing most possible ways of sensory perception. If electromagnetic radiation couldn't be used at all, then acoustic vision would replace it and silence - or chaotic high-volume noise - would probably be associated to scary and dangerous things.
Scary and dangerous things themselves are associated to bad and wrong because it could be argued that bad things cause more fear and danger and suffering than good things.
That question does not really have any difference to us during our lifetime. We cannot affect it in any way, we cannot believe God to be the thing we expect or want or need him to be. If he exists, so be it, I can't really get any sure information of him so I might as well ignore it as far as this life (the only one I know for sure I'm getting) goes, and live as I see fit. I'll see what happens after death. Or not, in the most probable case that there is no afterlife, in which case it would hardly matter because there wouldn't be "I" any more...
You're belittling the importance of the matter. Again, eternal, infinite consequences. Christianity, if true, is of SUPREME importance, and if false, of no importance. so instead of resigning to a "why bother?" attitude, why not investigate until you are as sure as you can possibly be?
Same applies to every other religion. If a religion happens to be true, it is of supreme importance, that is correct. But there are thousands of religions that all claim to be correct. And the problem is that investigations are meaningless! I cannot get information about God's existence from a non-compromised sources. Defining the divine origins of a source is impossible. Therefore the only option left for me is to use my own judgement in deciding how to live my life, and what wise words I can agree with. And agreeing with, for example, Jesus' words about how to live a life does not mean that Christianity is then automatically the correct description of Universe, it just means I can agree with the message.
And agreeing with something someone says doesn't mean I would then need to agree with everything that person says or thinks.
Mongoose just explained perfectly the idea of God giving rise to time itself. It's not time before time. It's God before time.
...and if God's first real act was to create universe, then God and Universe can be argued to have become into existence at the same time. Which is to me somewhat more plausible than Universe requiring a sentient being to create it, not by much but still.
Also, because by definition universe is "all that exists", then if God existed before rest of things, he was the universe before matter, energy, space and time, and it's only a way to say that universe has existed forever. And if God influences the world in any way, then God is part of universe, because universe is all that exists.
Of course, semantic games like this have little meaning in arguments, but definition of supernatural really doesn't make much sense if the definition of universe is all that exists; if supernatural phenomena exist, they are part of universe, thus natural, ergo supernatural phenomena don't exist, or rather - no phenomenon is supernatural, since everything is a natural part of the universe...
I thought Evolution was about survival of the fittest, not survival of the group. Can, under Evolution, a group exhibit a group consciousness and self- (err... how would you term that?) -group-preservation instinct? I have never heard of such a thing. If Evolution took place via survival of the group, wouldn't that corrupt the gene pool with weaker members of the group?
Survival of the group can help an individual to survive. Why do you think many animals live in packs? Because it helps to preserve the species. Evolution doesn't care about individuals, but individuals' survival defines the evolution.
So, if behaviour that benefits a pack is more beneficial to the species than behaviour that benefits an individual, then the specimens that have pack-beneficial behaviour will become the dominant part of the population. Evolution also doesn't care about "corruption" of gene pool; it is a nonexistant term in evolution, only the ability to reproduce. If, for example, group dynamic preserving properties like empathy make it possible for the species to thrive, then empathy will become a prominant trait of the population.
When did Evolution dictate we care about the preservation of anyone beyond ourselves?
The benefit of the group benefits the specimen in many ways, therefore it's beneficial to look after other group members.
The many ways of benefit include:
-more difficult for predators to concentrate on a single specimen (namely, you)
-more unlikely that the predators will pick you from the pack
-more able members of group to protect your offspring as well as their own
-more females to mate with (if the alpha doesn't see...)
If you want to bring cultural evolution into it, then the tribe's loss of a skilled hunter would mean loss of food source; loss of a skilled weapon makers would mean the same, loss of whomever important to the tribe would mean loss for the tribe, and in the tribe everyone is important in some way.
So yes, empathy can be considered a beneficial property, so it's unsurprising that this ability exists in humans.
"Circular logic works because it's circular logic." Heh. Let me dig up that book.
Essentially... yes. Circular logic is circular. Obvious statement is obvious.
Perhaps what I wrote above about circular logic deserves some further explaining, so as to avoid being flamebait. You say that conscious thought is all about random chemical and physical interactions in the brain (because electron motion is, truly, random). If that's the case, why should we be so inclined to believe that's the case? If it's truly random, then our thoughts on the subject could be true just as well as false.
Oh, there's more than randomness in it. The only random elements in universe are on the quantum level, otherwise electrons move from - to + and there's nothing random in
that. Same applies to ions, which form the thought processes and consciousness. And there's no need for a God to maintain the process, since we pretty much know how it happens physiologically, it's just the interactions of individual thought processes that cause consciousness to emerge that still kinda baffle neurologists, but mainly because there are so many of them. Theoretically, sufficient amount of nerve cell imitating code pieces or physical devices hooked to sensory devices would eventually form similar patterns as brains, including consciousness.
Obviously we cannot be sure whether or not a God designed physical constants and interactions as they are for this kind of life to be possible. Personally I think it's just as probable, if not moreso, that universe just happened this way and life evolved independently because the parametres allowed that kind of physical and chemical interactions to take place.
So you have more faith in a supernatural "empathy" than in a supernatural Creator?
There's nothing supernatural about empathy (it's a part of us and us are part of universe, therefore no supernatural things there!) but essentially yes.
Believe nothing just because you have been told it, or it is commonly believed, or because it is traditional or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to and take as your guide.
...this is what I find to be most suitable for that task.
So you would believe the words of a liar because it sounded good?
If I were to find it conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings, then what the liar actually believed to be true wouldn't matter. "Sounding good" is such ambiguous term, but I could ask you, would you believe me if were to tell you suddenly that the Bible is truth?
...Exactly. I would be, in my perception, lying to you. My nose will now grow.
Mmm, indeed. Parallel myths are pretty common in history of mankind. Almost every culture has a some form of dragon in their mythology, does that mean that dragons are or were real?
Hey, I'm not the one touting that commonality = truth...
Neither am I. I'm just stating that parallel evolution of religions into similar or nearly identical forms is hardly implausible even without a divine connection between them.
But look at the differences between the massively polytheistic Egyptian mythology and the Christian faith. I'm talking about basically identical belief systems here.
Indeed, but adoption of myths and stories can happen from very different faith systems to another. Someone already pointed out that the site I posted should be taken with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of doubt, but regardless of that a lot of things in Christianity have resemblances in other mythologies and even religions, like the Messiah myth I pointed out, and the great flood, and to certain extent even creation.
Moar pointers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_as_mythhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan_influences_on_ChristianityThen why is the Hebraic book of Isaiah identical to the Christian Bible's book of Isaiah?
Changing it would've been meaningless if the purpose was to make Jesus appear as the subject of the book, since Jewish scribes would hardly have consented to changing
their version.
These are not loose, broad-based prophecies. These are very, very specific things. The crown of thorns. The fact that none of his bones were broken (which is something that typically happens as a crucifixion comes to its end), born of a virgin, no children, etc.
Was Jesus wearing the only crown of thorns in the history of all crucified criminals? And do you know he actually wore it, or are you just quoting the words of people who wrote so?
Also, could you PM me the autopsy report that states no broken bones?
The actual information of historical Jesus is scarce and limited to a few sideline comments by Roman historians. If the credibility of gospels and other stories is questioned, what is left?
And there are still all the other mythological people born of virgin and having no children... or so they say. The only thing that makes them mythological, of course, is the fact that not enough people believe in them.
Also, remember that only 2 of the Gospels were written by members of the original 12 Apostles.
Indeed, which makes it even more plausible for them to be made to make Jesus appear as the Messiah.
What do you mean by secular power division? Most of our early congress were seminary graduates and pastors.
I meant the division of power as Montesquieu formalized it - legislative, judicial and executive power. And regardless of the background of the early congressmen, I don't think they ever made laws based on a single religious doctrine. And the laws they made regarding religions were made to ensure religious freedom instead of endorsing some single doctrin as the correct one... If I'm wrong, point me.
Yes, I believe God is incapable of lying, because God is perfect.
Suddenly the claims of God's omnipotency seem exaggerated. What do you mean he can't lie? Do you mean that what he says becomes the truth? Or that he
won't lie?
So because the Bible doesn't have a day-by-day timeline set up, you don't believe any of it happened?
Not in so many words. I have doubts mostly about all the accounts of miracles, and the dates of the stories given can't really be fixed onto historical events in most cases so the timeframe is also doubtful. It is likely that things described in the bible have happened in one form or another, and excluding references to God I don't think there's any harm in using the Bible as a limited reference to the history of Israelites, but that's about it.
Obviously it was in the time of Egypt.
Old Kingdom or New Kingdom? Time of Egypt is a rather vague timeframe...
If they gave a Pharaoh's name, and if Egyptian records had marks of Israelites arriving and leaving associated to some rulers, that'd be a historical reference, but as it stands they just went there at some time and went away later and AFAIK there are no records of a pharaoh drowning in the Red Sea (or rather Gulf of Suez if they had any semblance of sensibility in the story). So fixing biblical events to historical events is relatively hard. Some post-exodus events have references to them, but only few as far as I know.
It's commonly accepted that Jewish slaves were behind much of the grunt work that built the pyramids.
It is also commonly accepted that people thought Earth to be flat in Middle Ages. Both beliefs are wrong; the roundness of Earth was well known and preserved knowledge from the time s Ancient Greek, and in fact the consensus amongst egyptologists is that the workers who built pyramids were valued workforce who were paid for.
The Pharaoh that lived when Joseph brought the Israelites to Egypt died, and it was his immediate successor that oppressed the Israelites.
If you were to give me names of these Pharaohs, these claims would be a lot more interesting. But that would, of course, be a historical sensation and we would probably have heard of it.
How long was a year if Metusaleh lived for 969 years?!?
Depends on how far away from the Sun the Earth moved. Also, who's to say lives didn't go that long? In the Bible, there's an overall trend of lives getting shorter and shorter from the time of Adam until the time of the Judges. Which, oddly enough, is chronologically speaking, right after Joshua demanded for the sun to be up throughout the night, so his men could keep waging war. It is HIGHLY theorized that this event (light lasting for so long) was caused by the planets Mars and Earth switching orbital positions.
That's just one theory. Another is that people, in those days, did actually live upwards of 600 years.
Well, the problem with years being shorter in relatively close history is that there are trees old enough to reach those days and the change in the year growth should have been measurable... assuming the change of orbit didn't change the metabolism rate of those trees as well.
Not to mention the fact that if Earth was moved from further orbit onto closer orbit by some force, the year would have shortened, not lengthened... and there's the fact that Sun's radiation power would've been required to be changed as well. And some other things I've surely missed.
That is not a possibility. During Christ's life, He claimed he would be resurrected 3 days after he died. No one believed this. Not the Desciples, not Pilate, not the Pharisees, no one. So, when Christ was buried, Pilate was informed of this and asked to place guards outside Christ's tomb to keep anyone from stealing the body, putting the empty tomb on display, and propagandizing a falsely "risen" Christ. The Jewish High Priests were very much afraid of a Jewish revolt, because they felt it would bring the heavy hand of Caesar down on their people. Remember, in this day, there were many, many Jewish zealots who would go around slaughtering Roman soldiers in their sleep, as a way of resisting Roman oppression.
The tomb was most definitely opened from the inside.
Or so they say. The story is relayed by people, whose trustworthiness I have no way to evaluate in any meaningful way...
Why is such love impossible for men?
Because when we develop a new way to make extremely abundant quantities of energy by expending a relatively miniscule amount of energy, we turn it into a way to kill 300,000 people in one blow rather than use it as it was intended- to power our civilization and allow it to reach new heights. I'm talking, of course, about Nuclear fission.
Because the single greatest driving force behind our innovation, our economy, just about every single scientific, technological, and social breakthrough, is competition with our fellow man. War is what boosts our civilization the most. The very nature of Capitalism is competition. Even communism, an idea that, in THEORY, levels the playing field between all people and SHOULD make all equally prosperous, is turned into a way for one man to grab all power and property for himself.
Because we, the Human Race, are living life like a man who jumps off a 100 story building on a bet, and at the 10th floor, says to himself, "So far so good, not a scratch on me!"
None of these things is proof that it isn't possible... it just demonstrates that very few, if any people choose to do so.
Except Descartes was Catholic, and even HE stated that matter, and the physical world cannot be trusted, because things change, whereas Ideas don't necessarily need to change. He also had a tiered system of ideas, the least trustworthy ones being based on things in the perceivable world, and the most trustworthy being innate ideas, that is, ideas given to us by God. The foremost of these was, our morality.
And Newton was an alchemist and wrote over million words about it (which the Royal Society deemed that they were "not fit to be printed"), but that doesn't make his work with physics any less valuable...
Similarly, "I think, therefore I am" remains true regardless of Descartes' other statements and beliefs. Since the concept of "I" exists, something must really exist. Whether what we sense is real or not we cannot know, but something most definitely does exist.
The assumption that what we perceive is actually the reality is just the simplest one that is possible to make and thus the most likely correct one when one applies the Occam's razor to other assumptions like for example the Matrix hypothesis, or being someone's dream, or other similar assumptions about the nature of reality.
Here's the Slashdot article on Radioactive decay: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/29/1227239
Thanks. An interesting article, but it hardly compromises the age defining methods based on radioactive decay, since the average values can still be trusted even if one considers those fluctuations to be accurate measurements. The average decay rate would be the same over a year anyway.
Assuming, of course, that something as outlandish as Earth and Mars swapping orbits hasn't happened, that is. I say wait and see what the peer review process can get out of that decay rate fluctuation phenomenon...
Doesn't involve an extra variable? It involves an INFINITE NUMBER of extra variables! Based, largely, on conscious choices of conscious beings! Doesn't the multiverse theory state that every time a person makes a choice, a new universe is born that runs the course of that person making the other choice(s)?
Actually it would only involve the assumption that every possibility divides the universe into both paths, which means that every single difference in photon paths or electron scattering or whatnot makes new universe. That's just one variable, and if it is assumed as part of the universe it's still a lesser assumption than existence of a sentient God to make the universe...
WRONG! lol. The Universe cannot be all places at all times, because it is confined within itself. Your whole ideas of evolution not being a far-fetched cosmic accident hinges on the Multiverse theory. Which shows that the Universe can be elsewhere than within the Universe, yet it is not.
What. Of course universe is everywhere in universe. That's the very definition of universe... something not in universe doesn't exist.
And what comes to evolution not being a far-fetched cosmic accident, I don't think multiverse theory is necessary for that. Multiverse theory is just the easiest way to point out that if every kind of universe exists, then the possibility of this kind of universe existing is 1:1 (since all universes exist).
Without multiverse, the fact that life is possible in this universe does become a bit of an accident, but then again if life wasn't possible we wouldn't be here to wonder why it's possible. Moreover I think life in some form would find a way to evolve if given the slightest chance; the natural interactions just happen to be pretty good to allow it to happen with relative ease in our universe.
Except, I thought the Greeks believed in a Void before the existence of the Titans. Nevertheless, my God exists outside of the Cosmos. He pieced it together.
Doesn't change the fact that first scientific experiments weren't inspired by God but ancient Greeks just wanted to find out about the order behind Cosmos (ie. natural laws) and about properties of things (like the circumference of Earth).
Well there's three possibilities - either Jesus thought he really was the prophezied annointed one and acted accordingly, or he fell victim to a series of events that by chance ended up a lot like what Isaiah wrote and the disciples either believed in the prophecy or just wanted to make sure Jesus ended up as Messiah - heck, one of them even betrayed him to make sure he was crucified while the poor guy tried to spend an easter holiday. And the betrayer ended up dead soon after, what a coincidence, clearly it was a suicide... my CSI-senses are tingling...
EASTER holiday? You mean passover feast, right? lol.
Same difference to me, mostly. The Finnish word
Pääsiäinen is more related to the original word than the English term
Easter, so I'll just ask forgiveness for mixing things up.
But Christ had foreknowledge of the Betrayer.
...Or so they, again, say.
Alas, the fallacies of the Catholic Church come forward. I hate to be so blunt, but you must know: That is NOT what the Bible teaches. But believe me, you've nailed the RCC's teachings on the head.
If Man could earn the reward of Heaven, Christ's sacrifice is meaningless. Completely unnecessary. For starters. But as I said, that would add COUNTLESS piles of text to this topic. Let's save that for another topic.
But do try to keep denominational specific teachings and doctrines out of this. Go by the Bible, not by what your local priest tells you.
What makes the authors of Bible different from local priest?
I refuse to answer TM's posts directly anymore. But Herra, as far as subjectivity vs. objectivity go: What if it's "right for me" to steal every penny you own? Are you going to say that's OK because my morality says so?
That's exactly what I mean about good and bad being subjective. If you steal from me, obviously it is - at least for short term - good for you, as in you benefit from it. Right and wrong are less subjective in a sense that few thieves would claim to do the right thing. The natural empathy (which I think is a result of evolution rather than a god-given ability, but that's a matter of opinion I guess) in most people makes it automatic for them to consider the other people your actions affect, and that gives most people a sense of right and wrong.
So unless you're a sociopath your morality does not tell you it's "acceptable-OK" to steal. You might do it nevertheless if the benefit is good enough (you would hardly steal something if you knew it was bad for you), but most thieves do consider what they do to be wrong. The exception is where you think that the victim does not have right to what he has in possession, but then it becomes a bit difficult to define who is right and who is wrong and largely case-specific too.
So yes, I think that as a whole humans have an in-built moral compass in a form of ability to empathy, but I think it's unnecessary to specifically credit God from that, or use it as a proof of God's existence. Moreover, cultural evolution might have diminished it in a lot of people, which is one possible reason to why some people value themselves over others (or rather, their benefit at the cost of others' suffering becomes acceptable).
If you're a sociopath who thinks it's OK to grab every benefit you can even if it causes harm to others you aren't fit for normal social interaction with people and should be offered special conditions where you aren't able to hurt people by your inability to consider them to be equal in value as you.
