Over the years I’ve been fond of saying, “if the Gospel isn’t good news for everyone, it isn’t good news for anyone.”
When I’ve said it, I believed it and said it with sincerity. I can also recognize that I said it in part to push-back against the faith of my youth which essentially proclaimed a gospel that is bad, bad, news for the majority of human beings who have ever lived. Pushing back on things that are wrong is good– but sometimes we can push too far in the opposite direction, not because it’s true or accurate, but for the sake of distancing ourselves from the alternative.
But today, I admit: I was wrong. The Gospel isn’t good news for everyone.
I have never been more aware of this as I have been this past week when reading stories of the Trump administration’s practice of separating children from their families at our southern border, and housing them in cages like animals at best– or handing them off to human traffickers at worst.
This feeling inside me has been building as I have read stories of children crying for their mothers. It’s festered as I’ve seen pictures of where the children are kept–pictures that look like my local dog kennel instead of a place for children. And it surely boiled over as I read an article by former First Lady Laura Bush, who reported that government officials who warehouse these children are instructed not to touch, pick up, or comfort children who are crying.
While I live in Maine and am about as far away from the southern border as one can get, these stories strike eerily close to home for me. You see, on the day I became a father it wasn’t in the delivery room of our local hospital. My first glimpse of my two wonderful daughters wasn’t as the nurse wrapped them in blankets, proclaiming “both girls!”
No, my first glimpse of my children was seeing them wave to me through the bars of the cage they were locked in.
I had no idea the first time I’d lay eyes on my children there would be a steel door with bars and a prominent lock in the middle separating us. I had always imagined our first moment would be filled with overflowing emotions of joy, but instead, as I saw my girls reach out between the bars to get our attention, the first emotion that filled my heart was absolute fury at the realization they had been waiting and locked in a cage all this time.
And so when I read stories of children being ripped from their mother’s arms, when I see images of cages that have little humans in them instead of dogs, and when I hear reports of children crying and needing comfort– but those tasked with caring for them being prohibited from picking them up, touching them, or soothing them, I realize I have been beyond erroneous in saying the Gospel is good news for everyone.
No, no, no– it is not.
The Gospel is not good news for those who rip children out of the arms of their mothers as they flee from places of poverty and violence.
The Gospel is not good news for those who toss these children in cages, subjecting them to additional trauma.
The Gospel is not good news for those who prohibit touching or comforting crying children, nor is it good news for those who obey such immoral directives.
For those who make these unjust policies, for those who carry them out even in the name of keeping their jobs, and for those who support the oppressors who enact these policies that destroy families and traumatize children, the Gospel is actually no-good-very-bad-news.
Regardless of theological position or nuance of what does or does not happen in the afterlife, what cannot be denied for anyone who claims to follow Jesus is that he clearly and articulately warned of a coming judgement. In fact, he laid it out in Matthew 25 so there were no questions: at the final judgement there will be two groups of people, and one will face divine punishment.
As much as I hate to spoil the surprise for those who haven’t gotten to this part of the Bible yet, it’s not “the gays, fake news media, and ‘godless progressives'” who get separated from the pack in order to receive their punishment.
Those who face the wrath of God, Jesus said, are those who did not welcome the immigrant, who did not clothe the naked, or feed the hungry. And specifically regarding harming children, let me remind you, is an act where Jesus said it would be better to have a rock tied around your neck and be thrown into the deepest ocean.
No matter which way you spin it, the Gospel is not good news for everyone if you believe Jesus.
No… it’s actually no-good-horrible-news for those who enact, support, or participate in the Trump administration’s unconscionable actions of ripping children out of the arms of their mothers, and then locking these children in cages.
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Holy dick, man, you still don’t know that family separation was an Obama policy that Trump couldn’t stop because the courts decided to uphold the EO and not let Trump rescind it?
That pic of a kid in a cage was from 2014!
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What a pathetic, closed minded, bigoted individual you are and sounds like you think you have the correct angle on Christianity as well and just the fact that you think the Gospels are not good news for everyone pretty much wraps up your pathetic and pious view of this life. On top of that spewing ignorance and falsehoods about the president is sickening. I am so sorry I came across your pathetic life
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If my memory serves me correctly, there are references in at least three of the gospels (in little red-lettered words/pretty significant) that it would be ‘better to have a millstone around their necks and cast into the sea’.
Just some more Arminian drivel from Benjamin L. Corey; due to his mistaken understanding of soteriology.
Whats with the gay evangelical conservatives stalking posters?
You’d think Ted Haggard would’ve learned his lesson.
The fraudulent Disqus account impersonating my username and avatar began with simple posts mocking me, but his comments have recently erupted into vulgar, explicit, homoerotic taunting. And he just happens to reserve his harassment for comment sections at RedLetterChristians, Sojourners, and Patheos Progressive Christian blogs—primary targets of rage-filled Evangelicals spreading their Evangelical brand of battery acid.
God gives them want they want, so they get what they deserve. They pour their acid upon us, only to find their battery is flat and the bus is no longer moving. Good to be able to support you on your conversation sites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4uivPpzCGo
Lol…hi john inman
https://youtu.be/q8jizCq3Su4
Better tell him to keep his homo-erotic fantasies to himself.
I like the way these ‘humans’ think they’re being clever when it just shows how big a d##k they are.
Certainly bigger the one they all think they have?
I wonder what Benjamin Corey believes the Gospel is? Using Matthew 25 as a club makes him every bit a fundamentalist.
That is a true point
Lol….you don’t even know what a fundamentalist is.
I know more than you…lol
lol….you clearly don’t.
Great to see you writing again Benjamin. Thanks so much for this.
I wasn´t aware of the human trafficking aspect of all this.
Who in the U.S. system is handing the children over to traffickers?
Lord have mercy.
Thanks, Matthew. It’s been a really dark year and a half for me, and I’m desperately trying to find life again.
I will pray for you and yours today Benjamin.
Who in the U.S. system is handing the children off to traffickers?
Adults claim children fraudulently, but separation is one of the primary tools used to prevent human trafficking at the border. Reducing border enforcement, the preferred “solution” of many, increases the risk of human trafficking. If parents and children got preferential treatment at the border, human trafficking would be incentivized. See [this article] from the Obama-era for some real life examples.
“Trump administration’s practice of separating children from their families at our southern border”
Why mention Trump without mentioning any other president?
With all due respect, brother, does it change the situation? Your response appears to be an attempt to deflect the truth of the situation as opposed to dealing with the here and now. I see your point but the biggest issue is that if we are hearing about it now we need to deal with it now, and the administration would rather throw God under the bus with out of context verses than address the issue at hand… not a very biblical response, though unfortunately, historically an American Christian one.
This is why: “There is no federal law that stipulates that children and parents be separated at the border, no matter how families entered the United States. An increase in child detainees separated from parents stemmed directly from a change in enforcement policy repeatedly announced by Sessions in April and May 2018, under which adults (with or without children) are criminally prosecuted for attempting to enter the United States”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/was-law-separate-families-passed-1997/
I also find it interesting that the morality of the practice is defended by some by saying or implying that “Obama/Clinton/anyone did it” (which is a lie, but how in the world is that a defense?)
Josh – There are some people who are probably criticizing President Trump who looked the other way during the previous administration, but I would guess most people just didn’t know what was going on. A lot of that has to do with the press – their biases lead them toward (or away from) particular stories. But Trump is the President now, and that’s why the attention is on him.
“But Trump is the President now, and that’s why the attention is on him.”
This may be; yet it still doesn’t excuse Corey of bearing false witness when, in the same sentence, accuses his administration of “handing them off to human traffickers at worst.”–which was actually an Obama administration report.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/us-placed-immigrant-children-with-traffickers-report-says.html
Having known this issue, Corey cited it which means he could also read who the president was at the time. Therfore, to center this on Trump is categorically dishonest.
That being said, it also serves the purpose of directing blame at one man and one administration, when, in recognizing that this behavior was also taking place in 4 other administrations, we should be aghast at this at all eras of government–that is at government.
Predicting a comment starting with “Well, ACTUALLY…” coming in 3… 2…
Anyway, good to see you back, Ben, and couldn’t agree more. The arrival of a new world is bad news for people who have put themselves at the top of the current one and will do whatever it takes to stay there.
Not only good to see Ben back, but good to see you back here as well Phil. BTW, do you plan to pick back up in Matthew on “Letters” blog?
You do know most of these illegal immigrants are Christian themselves, so the Gospel when used correctly is good news.
That article is about how the Gospel is bad news for those who would separate children from their parents, for those who harm children are condemned, and those who are unwelcoming to refugees are condemned, and those who are cruel to others are condemned.
The only way you didn’t understand the point is if you didn’t read any of the article. Par for the course?
And the Gospel still isn’t bad news despite what a lot of progressives will say.
It is pointless trying to talk with you. And I’ve tried for years.
Strange that you have to explain such simple concepts, but thank you for doing so. Reading comprehension is important.
Oh gosh, you are just as bad as well. And people call you out on how arrogant you can be.
The obvious is often bypassed in people’s thinking. For a while, I enjoyed a reputation for profundity gained exclusively from stating the obvious at every opportunity.
What boggles my mind is not that Trump still has defenders, but rather who those defenders are. How anyone can read the words of Jesus, claim to take them seriously, and yet still defend this administration is mind numbing to me.
His approval rating has actually gone up among white evangelicals. I am not sure, though, if it is defensiveness because of the backlash or if they really like what this administration is doing.
Yeah it’s bizarre. In a strange way, I think a huge factor comes from one’s view of the scriptures. It shapes a Christian’s entire worldview. Hardcore biblicists stress inerrancy where the entirety of the Bible inevitably overrides the specific teachings of Jesus. In other words, Jesus’ hard sayings like turning the other cheek and loving one’s enemies are contextualized such that they ultimately are superseded by the actions of a wrathful God, especially as depicted in the OT. So when one views God thru a lens of “the Bible” rather than through a lens of “Jesus”, then the actions of Trump are not counter to their faith. Just my 2 cents.
I´m wondering … these days … about the other hard sayings of Jesus like God can throw you into hell, a servant not doing the will of God deserves a severe beating, etc. (there are others).
I´ve been learning over the last few years or so to make Jesus the center of my understanding of scripture. Many say, “Look to Jesus and you see the true revelation of what the Father is like”. Even more say, “The Bible should only be understood via a Christo-centric hermeneutic”.
But I ask … is Jesus really all “hugs and kisses”? I know there are probably hermeneutical and metaphorical issues I am missing, but on the surface, Jesus seems to have said some hard things other than love your enemy and turn the other cheek.
I think a progressive Christian with more knowledge than me should write a book entitled:
The Tough Sayings of Jesus: What they really mean and why they still point to a God of perfect love.
Sounds like a great title!
Thanks Ron!
That is a great question. Unfortunately, the answer I’ve come up with is: they don’t. The Old Testament YHWH was terrible indeed, with his vengefulness and tendency to utterly disproportionate retribution for even the slightest slip-up. (Plague as punishment for a census, anyone?) The silver lining is that at least he stopped when you were dead. It wasn’t until Jesus came along that the idea of eternal consequences came into the picture. He’s the guy who told people that they need to keep fearing YHWH even after death, because that’s only the beginning. Not only that, he made it impossible to be “good enough”. Now your default state is eternal damnation, and only an ephemeral emotional state(faith) can save you. If you ask me, the only relationship you can have with the god of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus is an abusive one. At least according to his book.
Was Jesus being racist when he called the Syro-Phoenician woman a dog?
I’m going yes.
Well Bones … it´s my understanding that many in the church have struggled to explain this difficult portion of scripture over the centuries.
Why do you think Jesus called the woman a dog, Bones?
Exactly. Inerrancy of scripture ends up creating “followers” who don’t seem to follow very well. The other issue is how conservatives treat “sin.” Rather than seeing it as “missing the mark” in a broad ethical sense, it always devolves into particular sins, resulting in legalism. Broad, more nuanced application of scripture such as our responsibilities to refugees, racism, the poor and jobless, etc., are easily overlooked because of the narrow interpretation of sin. And, of course, if they are not fornicating or aborting babies, one has met their obligations to God. Not to say all evangelicals miss the mark on social responsibilities, but most seem to view it with a great deal of mistrust. It’s viewed as “political.” Strange!
Nailed it!
Ron,
I think it’s probable that most people look at Presidents and their administrations and judge each policy and action on its own. Yes, there are some people who will defend any President regardless of what he does, and President Trump does seem to have a higher than usual number of these people (or perhaps they’re just louder?), but most people aren’t like that.
For example, I can say that I oppose the President’s tariffs and policy of separating children from their parents while at the same time supporting some judges he’s appointed or his elimination of some Obama-era executive branch policies. I claim to take Jesus’ words seriously, but will also defend some of the policies of the present Administration. I’d like to think this is how most Christians operate.
But yes, still far too many people look at themselves as “defenders” of the President or part of the “resistance.” That’s only healthy at election time when you have to make a choice.
Hello SamHamilton. Can you share what Obama-era policies you are glad Trump eliminated?
Hi Matthew – A couple examples are the Obama Administration policy on Title IX and sexual assault that was rescinded last September and the Obama rules on school bathrooms that was rescinded in February of last year.
Thanks so much SamHamilton.
Sorry if it appeared I broad-brushed. I probably didn’t do a very good job of articulating my point. Where I grow weary are professing Christians who can’t bring themselves to criticize ANY of Trump’s decisions, actions, words, or policies because they equate their Christian faith to being loyal to a fiercely conservative agenda, viewing Trump as a type of American Messiah. I also don’t want to come across as painting a majority into this box, so I appreciate your clarification.
Thanks. I grow weary of fierce partisans as well.
“Where I grow weary are professing Christians who can’t bring themselves to criticize ANY of Trump’s decisions, actions, words, or policies because they equate their Christian faith to being loyal to a fiercely conservative agenda, viewing Trump as a type of American Messiah.”
Nice straw man! That one could fool a lot of ignorant people.
Ah ok. So are you one of them lol?
Meaning what?
Indeed, Jesus was overwhelmingly clear about his stance on what should happen to those who bring harm to children. Yet, U.S. Evangelicals still following Trump illustrate to the world their lust for the mirror opposite of what Jesus taught. This is how history will remember these Evangelicals.
150 years from now people may look back on our times much like how we look back at the atrocities of Christians justifying slavery 150 years ago. They’ll go, “so professing Christians actually tried to justify hate using the Bible for LGBT bigotry and separating children from immigrant parents? Like seriously?”
Yes. And Dr. Corey’s comment section will be Exhibit A for documented proof.
All the while Christians will be moving on to commit new atrocities in the new age, thinking nothing of the atrocities of the past.
History just keeps repeating itself.
We just can’t help using religion to justify our hate of others.
We ignore the teachings of the Christ and instead slam the nails in him for not conforming to our doctrine and ideology.
That is, after all, the primary task of any religion, and none are better at it than the Abrahamic.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world 1 John 4:1 …. its a great tool to help understand a lot of BS in the world
Really? The so-called Jesus was part of the Community of the Poor (in spirit), lead by James, Brother of Jesus, in Jerusalem, which characterised itself as being “zealous for the law (of Moses (another syncretic apocryphal character). Jesus supposedly came for the Jews, preached that Mosaic law would not change, warned that those who sought to go to heaven would need to be “more righteous than the Pharisees”, and said that those who made excuses for children who failed to honor thrir parents, as commanded by the law, rather than executing them as prescribed by the law, were hypocrites who nullified god.
How many children did you stone today?
Taking the alleged “words of Jesus” (not even a name but the acronym of a rabbinical curse at the time) serioisly requires the same kind of delusional thinking as the oligarchs have been using to condition Americans into supporting the Democrats and Republicans for decades.
I realize you mean well but you are just parroting Democrat faux outrage. This entire story is manufactured to give Democrats something to shout about.
LOL!! Let me guess. The moon landing was staged too!
You mean someone actually landed on the moon, Ron???
Manufactured, huh. The pictures, the stories, the eyewitnesses, the cages, etc. All manufactured? The change in policy by Trump and Sessions to require the children to be separated that started in April 2018. Made up?
I’d say you’re living in an alternate reality, but you’re not. You’re just lying.
Regardless of Bob’s inaccurate statements, I think it’s lame that you upvoted that comment by John Elton Smith. Don’t encourage that type of behavior.
Noted, and you are correct. Changed.
All that you mention has been in place for a long time. All President Trump did was enforce existing law. Presidents don’t make law and that is why he cannot and must not change it by executive order. As far as the hysteria it is most certainly manufactured by the democrat machine because they are out of ideas to promote and have resorted to insanity. This fall the worst Progressives will be put in a box and put away for another 30 years. Blue Wave indeed.
Virtually every line you wrote is false. For example, there is no law that requires children to be separated. Trump and sessions could stop it immediately. They choose not.
You lie and you are a liar. Stop lying.
“All President Trump did was enforce existing law.”
Uh huh. So why did he wait 16 months into his presidency to start “enforcing” this existing law?
Hello Ron. Are you taking the place of boomerang man?
Those photos of children are all crisis actors! You’ll notice those same toddlers protesting school shootings and also shaking hands with the Reptoid Council that runs the UN!
You are a troll typing in Russia?
Bob and OutsideLookingIn,
I found this explanation of the issue by Rich Lowry of National Review helpful: http://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/illegal-immigration-enforcement-separating-kids-at-border/#slide-1
Mr. Lowry writes:
The Trump administration isn’t changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child. Those remain the same. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings.
It’s the last that is operative here. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults. The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry. (Illegal entry is a misdemeanor, illegal re-entry a felony.)
So President Trump is not changing the policy on when to separate children from parents, but he is changing the practice of what to do with adults, which does change what happens to children. This was a choice President Trump made, and a different choice than President Obama made.
Thank you
https://www.weeklystandard.com/holmes-lybrand/fact-check-did-democrats-pass-a-law-separating-children-and-adults-at-the-southern-border
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/was-law-separate-families-passed-1997/
This administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy is purely meant to deter any immigration, especially from those brown people seeking refuge from gangs and sure death for their children. Josh and Bob are no less puppets for white rule only proponents, such as President Trump, Attorney General Sessions, General Kelly and Stephen Miller, than were those no Jews, period, under Nazi rule.
Matthew 7:12
Matthew 22:37-40
Everyone of mankind, the only animal species on this earth made in the image of God who is spirit, is an other to each other, regardless of any carnal or spirit differences.
Mark 9:35-37
Shame on those, who rule today, whose heritage in the United States of America began with blood relatives who were all others in “huddled masses”. They offer no Good News to any seeking hope to just survive, inside or outside our borders.
The Good News is the Spirit of truth in me, and I in him, who teaches me empathy in joy and grief for all others of mankind. Woe be to the enforcing rulers of the United States of America today who cannot see others as themselves.
Thanks Ben! Nice to have you back!
Thank you Herm! Been missing you!
Bush signed Trafficking Victims Prevention Reauthorization Act & this is the law that prevents unaccompanied minors from entering. Many are brought in by ‘coyotes'(smugglers). My question is why should America be lenient in this matter for ANYONE trying to enter illegally? What kind of example is it to children if their parents do not obey the laws of the country they’re entering? All countries have penalties(some harsh) for breaking their laws & America is no different. My next question is what is their motives to enter illegally? If they want to come & make an honest living AND pay taxes then do so according to the LAWS OF THE LAND. We have these laws to protect law abiding citizens. I have personally known several families that have risked their children’s lives to get them in illegally while they themselves worked here in US illegally. What makes this so wrong is that law abiding, tax paying citizens end up paying for it.And even Jesus said ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s’…
Because I adopted internationally, I went through the process of bringing in a child, legally, from another country (South Korea). I am white, male, a veteran, upper middle class, born an American citizen. The international adoption practices between the US and South Korea have been in operation for over 50 years.
The process was incredibly long, convoluted, and expensive. Granting citizenship to my adopted son cost thousands of dollars. The amount of documentation I had to produce was not only enormous, at one point we hit a completely impossible situation where three different agencies required the documents the other two provided before they would produce theirs. It was literally a documentation deadlock until one day I just happened to talk to the agent who wasn’t as up on their requirements as the other agents I talked to, which allowed me to get an initial document that allowed me to clear the other two.
Once we had done all of this, it was still nine months before a judge allowed me to be the parent of my son. My son was in the country the entire time, however, and allowed to stay with me, although ICE could have taken him from me at any time for any reason.
I had the savings to cover all this, the time to spend, a nice place to come home to when I was tired of hanging out at Random Government Agency X, I speak fluent English and had birth certificates, passports, proofs of residency, etc.
And I -still- was greatly, greatly tempted to circumvent these procedures, especially when I only cleared one of them due to the “failing” of a government worker that day. If you think people come to America without following proper channels just because they’re willfully defiant of laws, you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about and need to shut up. You may still not think it’s right, but it is amazingly expensive, intensive, and occasionally impossible to come into this country legally. Once again, I was born an American citizen, and I still had all this trouble.
You’re right, Phil- the amount of red tape that immigrants to the U.S. have to negotiate is mind-boggling. For example, to come to this country as a refugee can take close to 10 years, and involves all kinds of background checks, U.N. involvement, etc. etc. And that’s to say nothing of how incredibly expensive it is.
With a system like this, why is anyone surprised by the number of people who try to come illegally? And no matter what, it’s just plain immoral to separate children from their parents.
The coyotes are no better or worse than the conductors of the Underground Railroad, who often did bad things in order to rescue their charges from worse conditions imposed upon them by unjust laws. Modern immigration regulations are no more morally justified than the Fugitive Slave acts were.
Where in hell is the “Christian Truth” that you tout? Can you not read “Trafficking Victims Prevention“? What makes unaccompanied minors “Trafficking Victims” in your spiritless mind, who you feel need to be prevented? What does this have to do with my Lord’s laying down the Christian law in:
Matthew 7:12
My Lord is not your lord.
Paul writes in Romans 13:1 that Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. In doing so God is glorified b/c He gives them their authority. I didn’t call them trafficking victims but that’s why many are being detained b/c they fall under this “Act”. Again I personally know families that have endangered their children to get them into America illegally & the REAL question is ‘WHY WOULD ANY PARENT IN THEIR RIGHT MIND RISK THEIR LIVES & THE LIFE OF CHILD(CHILDREN) to enter into a country illegally? Is that love? Does love say break the law in order to gain more money? I see it as the ‘love of wanting more’ at ANY expense. The main reason they come here is to make $ to send back home not to contribute to for the better of society. As a large percentage end up living off (free medical, schooling etc)and the law abiding citizens pay for it at the expense of their own lives. That’s what God wants? Not in a million years! Sir u can quote Scripture but make sure u quote Scripture that is relevant to THIS particular situation…
Romans 13:1-7 states, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.”
Immigrants who come to points of entry to seek asylum aren’t actually illegally in the country – they’re not arrested. They’re processed through ICE, and their children stay with them. If, however, illegal immigrants cross the border illegally, the Trump administration now treats them as criminals. If they choose deportation, they aren’t separated from their kids; if they choose to apply for asylum, they stay in the country longer than 20 days, and their kids have to be removed by operation of law.
Indeed, potential refugees are more than welcome to come to the U.S., the government just asks they do it legally.
As of the end of May, the U.S. had admitted more than 14,000 refugees in fiscal year 2018,
according to data from the Refugee Processing Center. The Trump administration has capped the allowable number of refugees in a single fiscal year at 45,000.
The Trump Administration certainly claimed this, but the facts on the ground speak otherwise. CPB and consular officials have been playing games with the asylum process, illegally failing to open an asylum claim when it is made, telling people making asylum claims that they will not be admitted for processing because they are “at capacity” (even if true, the law gives them no discretion in this matter, so being “at capacity” is irrelevant), and yes, removing their children from them anyway.
So the real question is, are you gonna believe blindly the story you’ve been told to pacify your conscience, or are you gonna wake up?
Indeed. And Jesus was unmistakably clear about the consequences of harming children. Today is a great day for Mr. “Christian Truth” to learn what Jesus actually had to say about that.
Why do they (the children) need to be removed by operation of law?
https://godless.no/wp-content/uploads/Atheist.jpg
Being an atheist requires one to accept stuff for which zero evidence exists, yet you all say that us theists are exercising “blind faith”.
Don’t believe me? Then show me the evidence that life arose on this planet by natural causes. I can show you scientific evidence that makes it unreasonable to hold such a belief.
Biologists are still working on the abiogenesis problem. I’m in no hurry for an answer, because I’m not working in that area of research and don’t have any projects that depend on getting that answer.
If natural origins versus divine origins were running a foot race, the natural origins runner would be at least 30% of the way along the course while the divine origins contestant would be sitting at the starting line claiming it was the finish line.
Fair enough answer. “. . . the divine origins contestant would be sitting at the starting line claiming it was the finish line” because too many of them keep spouting self-contradictory, illogical beliefs that contradict clear evidence and what is actually written in the book that they claim they get their beliefs from. For instance, the most glaring one is the rubbish that the earth was created and populated with life in 7 days of 24 hours each, 6,000 years ago. The bible says no such thing! It does not say how old the earth was when it was terraformed, and it does not state how long each “day” was. As in English, the Hebrew word, “yohm” has more than one meaning. The most obvious (to me) contradiction is Adam naming all those animals in such a brief period.
Agree wholeheartedly with the silliness of young earth creationism. (I still have an insurmountable problem with old-earth creationism and divinely-guided evolution, namely the apparent absence of any gods capable of such feats.)
Fair enough.
Atheists are free to believe – or disbelieve – anything they like, as long as they do not vest belief in god thingies.
You are completely confused about abiogenesis. If it is possible at all, given the size of the universe and the elapsed time since conditions conducive to the formation of life first arose, and the wildly varied conditions under which we know that credible precursors have formed, it is inconceivable that life has not formed many times in many places across the universe no matter what odds you give against it.
Science only needs to show that this is a credible path to life, using existing well understood physics, which it is, for this to stand as a far more viable alternative to a vastly complicated sequence of magickal implausibilities, motivated by unknown magickal entities of unknown origin, motivated by unknown reasons, by means of unknown mechanisms, that have never being detected, never been documented, never been credibly described, and having unknown qualities are only promoted by the delusional and the gullible.
There is no comparison possible
“Science only needs to show that this is a credible path to life, using existing well understood physics”. However, they have all failed to show any “credible path”.
Only in your delusional opinion. To the rest of us, your raving simply demonstrates your detachment from reality
Hermit!! You surprise me! You usually rebut using evidence.
Anyway, I can always depend on you to find evidence. Show me an article or paper where the scholar uses actual observations to support his opinion. I do admit that very often, the proposed explanation often sounds plausible, but since they do not add observations to support the proposed explanation, I always reject it. “Plausible” does not equal “fact” to me. Way too many plausible explanations have been subsequently proved false when further study is done.
I don’t need to rebut your misunderstandings about the scientific method or biology. You need to attempt to support your idiotic claims in the face of generally accepted science. And you cannot do that, because life exists and magic does not. Which is why I let you rant on.
By the way, it will probably horrify you to discover that analyzing samples from Miller-Urey some 70 years after the fact, that all 22 amino acids encoded for in nature have been found in original samples from their “volcanic” model, even though they had been in an aqueous solution for that entire period (See https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/miller-urey-revisited/). And a quantum investigation reflected that one path to the production of guanin was via formamide eliminating the need for formaldehyde intermediates which I think obviates many of your arguments against abiogenesis (See http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/15030), not that your assertions deserve or need to be taken seriously in the absence of a credible alternative.
Regarding your 1st paragraph, your conclusion is merely based on the fact that I disagree with the conclusion that there are reasons to believe that abiogenesis is the explanation for life as we know it. I base my disagreement on the findings of the very scholars who believe that abiogenesis is the explanation. Shapiro has disproved the RNA first world hypothesis, but still held the belief in a “pre-RNA” hypothesis, but I have not read anything from him showing the observations or findings that support his hypothesis.
Regarding the 2nd paragraph, I have already read that. First, the concentrations of the others discovered were very low. Second, remember that I have no problems regarding the formation of the chemical units; my point is that they were available, but would not automatically link up. Nobody has shown me why I should believe that they would link up.
BTW, why do they keep referring to the Miller/Urey experiments? According to Shapiro, the atmosphere proposed bore little resemblance to what is known about the atmosphere then. The 4 billion year old zircon crystals is evidence that the atmosphere back then had oxygen in it.
Living things exist in the universe on at least one planet. Space is full of the building blocks of life. At an earlier point in the life of the universe, the elements of which we are comprised did not exist. Therefore life arose in the universe. Before life arose in the universe there was nothing in the universe capable of establishing life other than physics (which current life forms prove is sufficient). So, by elimination, we know that abiogenesis occurred.
We know that all life of which we are aware exists to assist entropy hydrolyze carbon dioxide. Again, this is what living things do. We are all a fart’s way of ensuring that there will be another fart. So that is why those precursors organized and developed some of the emergent attribute of life. We see this process occurring today when lipophilic compounds globularize on water. However, it is unlikely that new life will originate in the current environment, because with the vast array of existing life everywhere, new developing stuff tends to look too much like lunch to all the hungry life forms that already exist to survive for long enough to evolve defenses.
Miller-Urey-Bada broke ground and created awareness. The volcanic experiment has been shown to be even better at producing amino acids, and the reducing environment preserved their results for half a century in an aqueous solution. Your arguments from personal incredulity not withstanding. The initial abiogenetic breakthrough could have occurred anywhere. Given 3 x 10^55 g of material and billions of years in which it could have occurred, there have almost certainly been many clones of every possible arrangement of molecules in configurations that we would recognize as living. And give that homeostasis, organization and reproduction are among the attributes of life, it only had to happen once to have a good chance of persisting wherever matter and energy were available. You are undoubtedly on the wrong side of this bet.
From iron bands in early sedimentary rock, we know that the atmosphere only oxygenated as a consequence of life. http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/21/3/article/i1052-5173-21-3-4.htm.
Dennis probably is unaware that the Miller-Urey experiment came about by reading Darwin.
I think that the list of things that Dennis does not know is exceeded only by the list of things that Dennis does not want to know.
https://scitechdaily.com/new-evidence-on-the-origins-of-life-on-earth/
https://phys.org/news/2015-06-evidence-emerges-life.html
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/epo_web/impact_cratering/origin_of_life/index.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-close-are-scientists/
http://www.godofevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nye-vs-Ham-cartoon-evidence.jpg
https://freethoughtnaija.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/graveyard-of-the-gods.jpg
Still no evidence that abiogenesis has occurred I see. Where is the rebuttal for Dr. Robert Shapiro’s findings? Where is the rebuttal for Dr. Miller’s findings? Every link merely shows opinions unsupported by even one piece of evidence. The very first has this statement: “there is no hard evidence about how LUCA arose from a boiling caldron of
chemicals that formed on Earth after the creation of the planet about
4.6 billion years ago.” A warm temperature would have destroyed ribose and cytosine way too rapidly. That observation by Dr. Stanley Miller frustrated him. It has already been shown by Dr. Carl Woese that archebacteria, bacteria and eukaryotes developed separately; none evolved from the other.
See? I don’t ignore what you present, but all I see from you are opinions and conjecture that have already been shown by other experts to be unreasonable expectations. It remains a belief based on zero evidence.
Quote: ” It has already been shown by Dr. Carl Woese that archebacteria, bacteria and eukaryotes developed separately; none evolved from the other.”
That is definitely a unique interpretation of Dr. Woese’s ideas and words. It’s also incorrect. Source: I’m a microbiologist. I study microbial ecology and evolution.
Of course those three lineages did not arise from each other. That’s because they all arose from a common ancestor. They are different branches on the same evolutionary tree, growing from the same root.
This is similar to the misunderstanding of human evolution that I’ve heard a lot, in which people claim it’s patently ridiculous that humans evolved from chimpanzees and this disproves evolutionary theory. Of course it’s ridiculous. But it’s not ridiculous because of a flaw in evolutionary theory. Rather, the flaw is in the understanding of evolution, which is descent with modification *from a common ancestor*. Humans and chimpanzees are cousins who both evolved from a common ancestor. Our common ancestor was neither a human nor a chimp. Rather, it was some other organism which shared some of our basic characteristics. We are no more descended from one another than you and your first cousin are descended from each other. We DO, however, have a set of grandparents in common, way back in the family tree. Different branches, same root.
BTW, I’d just like to note: you used the term archebacteria, which is technically incorrect. The correct term used to be archaebacteria, but the domain has since been recognized as separate from bacteria and renamed Archaea to reflect that separation.
(Also, there is some conjecture that Eukarya actually is a descendant of an Archaeal lineage, and we are in fact more closely related to Archaea than Bacteria, but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.)
Your condition of blanket denial and profound ignorance has already been established…
http://cf.mp-cdn.net/8e/f8/e9aa87d18709072db6e13e78fe43-of-course-so-many-issues-derive-from-religion.jpg
Same thing happened with atheism; when another con man met another fool 😀
Being an atheist requires no proof of anything. Religionists are the ones with the fantastic claims without evidence. Just because something is not fully understood in the scientific community in no way implies that origin stories of ancient tribes of the Middle East are factual. But the fact that the kingdom of heaven didn’t come in the first century as predicted in the storybook ought to be enough to discount it.
“Being an atheist requires no proof of anything.”, So why criticize theists? You are either being inconsistent or hypocritical; which is it?
Being an atheist is a default state. You are born that way. Any other position should require evidence.
Neither inconsistent nor hypocritical, just understand that we’ve evolved to jump to conclusions, assuming cause and effect in places where that is not factual. If there were anything supernatural, wouldn’t the religionists all agree?
Also, you clearly have not studied biology as extensively as I have. Two experts with equal qualifications and experience will examine the very same evidence and each draw different conclusions 😀
If you had actually studied biology and ignored the pseudo science of lying creationist – you would not be repeating the recycled garbage you spout.
Please reference the scientific papers that have been published and that support your assertions or once again prove yourself to be a gullible and delusional liar.
No evidence suggests that evolution is losing adherents. Pick up any issue of a peer-reviewed biological journal, and you will find articles that support and extend evolutionary studies or that embrace evolution as a fundamental concept.
Conversely, serious scientific publications disputing evolution are all but nonexistent. In the mid-1990s George W. Gilchrist, then at the University of Washington, surveyed thousands of journals in the primary literature, seeking articles on intelligent design or creation science. Among those hundreds of thousands of scientific reports, he found none. Surveys done independently by Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University and Lawrence M. Krauss, now at Arizona State University, were similarly fruitless.
Creationists retort that a closed-minded scientific community rejects their evidence. Yet according to the editors of Nature, Science and other leading journals, few anti-evolution manuscripts are even submitted. Some anti-evolution authors have published papers in serious journals. Those papers, however, rarely attack evolution directly or advance creationist arguments; at best, they identify certain evolutionary problems as unsolved and difficult (which no one disputes). In short, creationists are not giving the scientific world good reason to take them seriously.
Evolutionary biologists passionately debate diverse topics: how speciation happens, the rates of evolutionary change, the ancestral relationships of birds and dinosaurs, whether Neanderthals were a species apart from modern humans, and much more. These disputes are like those found in all other branches of science. Acceptance of evolution as a factual occurrence and a guiding principle is nonetheless universal in biology.
Unfortunately, dishonest creationists have shown a willingness to take scientists’ comments out of context to exaggerate and distort the disagreements. Anyone acquainted with the works of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University knows that in addition to co-authoring the punctuated-equilibrium model, Gould was one of the most eloquent defenders and articulators of evolution. (Punctuated equilibrium explains patterns in the fossil record by suggesting that most evolutionary changes occur within geologically brief intervals—which may nonetheless amount to hundreds of generations.) Yet creationists delight in dissecting out phrases from Gould’s voluminous prose to make him sound as though he had doubted evolution, and they present punctuated equilibrium as though it allows new species to materialize overnight or birds to be born from reptile eggs.
Your bunkum remains debunked, Dennis.
I don’t know how much you’ve studied biology, so I cannot compare that area, but I know that scientific conclusions are always conditional on finding more evidence, often with more advanced tools. This is where it contrasts with religion. Please provide a specific example of of the different conclusions of equally qualified scientists. Often they agree about the big picture, only differ in the details. Some ask different questions, therefore seeing things a little differently. I don’t know when you studied biology, but it’s become way more scientific since I did in the 1950s! Of course there are a few smart people who study science only to get the credentials so they can claim non-scientific conclusions by ignoring scientific method: http://www.discovery.org
If you require no proof for your beliefs, but criticize others of requiring no proof for theirs, that is either inconsistent or hypocritical.
The clergy has made sure that truth will be hidden by teaching contradictions. If their congregations ever discover the truth, the clergy will lose all control over them.
How so?
Atheism does not speak to whatever you imagine god thingies may be, and I know that you have no clue what intersubjectively verifiable attributes are necessary and sufficient to qualify a thing as a god thingie, meaning that your concept of god thingies is incoherent and indefensible, but to the attitude of the person. Atheists, for any or no reason, do not vest belief in any god thingies.
I would argue that vesting belief in undefined, indistinguishable things you call god thingies is beyond asinine, but please feel invited to rebut.
Nice “cop out”. It is that very requirement that made me start out as an agnostic. I have not suggested that, if something is not fully understood in the scientific
community, it implies that origin stories of ancient tribes of the
Middle East are factual.” I also needed evidence that those stories were factual, hence I started out as an agnostic. I was not prepared to believe either without reasons to believe. The fact that the kingdom of heaven didn’t come in the first century as
predicted by the clergy back then was enough for me to discount their teachings. My personal studies showed that they were, and still are, contradicting what was written in the very book they claim is the source of the teaching. Getting lies from the clergy does not prove that the bible is wrong.
“Obviously, if theism is a belief in a God and atheism is a lack of a belief in a God, no third position or middle ground is possible. A person can either believe or not believe in a God. Therefore, our previous definition of atheism has made an impossibility out of the common usage of agnosticism to mean ‘neither affirming nor denying a belief in God.’ Actually, this is no great loss, because the dictionary definition of agnostic is still again different from Huxley’s definition. The literal meaning of agnostic is one who holds that some aspect of reality is unknowable. Therefore, an agnostic is not simply someone who suspends judgment on an issue, but rather one who suspends judgment because he feels that the subject is unknowable and therefore no judgment can be made. It is possible, therefore, for someone not to believe in a God (as Huxley did not) and yet still suspend judgment (ie, be an agnostic) about whether it is possible to obtain knowledge of a God. Such a person would be an atheistic agnostic. It is also possible to believe in the existence of a force behind the universe, but to hold (as did Herbert Spencer) that any knowledge of that force was unobtainable. Such a person would be a theistic agnostic.”
― Gordon Stein
You defined my position when I was an agnostic; I thought that it would not be possible to know one way or another. As you have shown me, I therefore started out as an atheistic agnostic, then became a theistic agnostic.
What changed to change to any sort of theist?
The first was my biology classes. No way was it reasonable to conclude that life arose on earth by natural causes. That forced me to accept that it was a deliberate act, however, since science never identifies the individual responsible, I changed my position to hold that any knowledge of that entity was unobtainable.
However, a chance reading of a text book on geology made me decide that the entity was the one described in the bible because it read almost like Genesis chapter 1, but because it didn’t tell me much more, I became a theist without a religion (is that a deist?) It took almost two years of debate with theists before I chose a religion that taught what I was reading in the bible. To all the others, my religious beliefs were plain heresy! Jesus was not God, hell as described by the clergy does not exist, the soul is not immortal, when you die, you cease to exist, you will have to be resurrected to exist again, paradise is going to be on earth. All those beliefs were way too offensive to the theists I debated with; except one.
Many things we know to be true are not intuitive, else Galileo wouldn’t have been put under house arrest! You need to explain where your creator came from, and why you chose the one in the bible rather than any of the many others. I realized by the time I was 20 (in 1960) that it was just as easy to believe that the universe has always been as to believe that a creator has. Deist and theist both derived from words for god: Latin deus and the Greek θεός, so originally meant the same thing, but evolved to be different: deist to mean someone who thought a god started the operation, then let it run by itself; and theist to mean someone who believes the supernatural being continues to interfere with the operation of it.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard P. Feynman (theoretical physicist)
I saw no need to answer where the creator came from. I reasoned according to cause and effect, which meant that I should arrive at an un-caused first cause. As an agnostic (atheist agnostic) I therefore reasoned that it would not be possible. It was what was shown to me in biology that forced me to acknowledge that the un-caused first cause was intelligent. This went completely against intuition, but I just could not shake of what the biological evidence clearly showed. Not that the complexity itself was proof, but that it was achieved way too rapidly for natural causes to be a reasonable explanation. By your definition then, I became a theistic agnostic.
The fact that there were so many religions and religious belief reinforced my theistic agnosticism. I was given a bible and I was (still am really) addicted to reading, so I read it. It was while waiting in a bookshop for my daughter to find what she wanted that I just passed the time reading that book on geology and saw that amazing chapter that looked so much like Genesis chapter 1. I then decided that the god responsible for the bible was the correct one, but that still left way too many religions, each teaching contradictions. My reading of the bible made me adopt religious beliefs that, to theists, were heresies.
Richard Feynman is correct. I noticed very early that everybody chooses what information to process, usually it is those that confirm to ones preferred beliefs that are processed and everything else is ignored. Another problem I encountered was that what one already believes to be true will affect his/her perception of what is shown to him/her. It was troubling because acknowledgement of that fact did not make me immune. The answer, to me was to diligently search for contradictions. If two beliefs contradict each other then one or both is/are wrong.
Assuming an intelligent first cause because of what is not known or understood is not following evidence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8HEwO-2L4w
Where do you get that from? The evidence does not exclude it. Also, what is wrong with basing beliefs on what is currently known. Saying that new information may exclude it amounts to having a belief based on zero evidence, and requires a generous application of circular logic.
What evidence do you have that points to a ‘god’ in/behind the cosmos?
“…what is wrong with basing beliefs on what is currently known”. Again, what ‘knowledge’ are you referring to?
There is no evidence for “prime movers”, and no known example of a single instance of anything. In addition, even if prime movers were necessary (which they are not), and not purely imaginary (and there is no evidence they are more than a product of second rate thinking), and were cognitively competent (which there are no grounds to assume they would be if they existed), they would necessarily exist outside any universe they instantiated, and as such could not interact with such universes (by definition a universe contains everything, imaginary and more than imaginary, which it is possible for anything in that universe to experience) which shows that your ideation rests on flawed thinking. Then too, the bible, including Genesis 1, syncretes many mutually and factually contradictory creationn myths (See my “Once upon a time in Genesis” https://goo.gl/Ax3i0p). Why do you prefer this confused and invalid mish-mash to science?
Why would prime movers not be necessary? You are correct that a prime mover would exist outside the visible universe. The current opinion is that the visible universe is what appeared 13.8 billion years ago. Since it is obviously expanding, it must be expanding into something (unless you view it as expanding in nothing). The prime mover would therefore, logically, be able to interact with the visible universe. There is nothing in the bible that was taken from Akkadian myths. What the clergy tells their congregation about Genesis is not what Genesis says. The clergy’s version might very well be from Akkadisn myths, but the account in Genesis is not. I use science as part of my religious beliefs. There is no antagonism between science and the bible. There is conflict between what the bible says and what the clergy says it says. Another conflict is between what scientific evidence says and the beliefs of atheistic scientists.
A scientist is a scientist because he/she subscribes to the scientific method, and sticks to it in his/her scientific work. Thus there are some scientists who are deists, but they are acknowledged as scientists, not because of their religious beliefs, rather in spite of them.
As for Akkadian myths, you really have no idea of the impact that extant Pagan mythology had in the syncretic concoction of the so-called ‘bible’, have you? Why not research it for yourself. instead of merely denying it. You could do worse than start by reading the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, noting its impact on Genesis.
Touching the OT we also have ‘Inventing God’s Law – How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi’, by David Wright, 2009, OUP.
Then there is the ‘Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity – Texts and Analysis’, by Gallagher and Meade, 2017, OUP.
“Why would prime movers not be necessary?”
“Prime movers” are your thing. I know that no matter what you imagine them to be (and you have not defined them anymore than you have defined your god thingies), they are not necessary for the universe to exist and thrive. If you want “prime movers”, please motivate why they must exist or even why you imagine that they could exist.
“The current opinion is that the visible universe is what appeared 13.8 billion years ago.”
I try to keep up with modern science, so I know that the Big Bang is not a singularity, that universes instantiate continuously and embed no energy, that energy is required to transfer information which is always bidirectional and so not only are universes closed by definition, but that anything interacting with a universe from the outside would either be incorporated in that universe (which would require energy from somewhere), or, more likely, would result in the collapse of the universe.
“Since it is obviously expanding, it must be expanding into something (unless you view it as expanding in nothing).”
The universe did not “appear”, it evolved. Think of the universe as a loaf of raisin bread being baked. As the bread bakes the gaps between the raisins increase, but they never leave the loaf, the outside skin of the loaf always defines the boundary of the raisin universe, and it does not expand into anything. The loaf is always defined by its boundary. Similarly, the Universe is not shooting apart , the gaps between things in the universe are increasing. This and the speed of light will result in a reduction in the visible universe over time, such that astromers in a few billion years time will see thge universe as a big dark empty place without stars, because the gaps between the stars will exceed their visible horizons. However the Universe will still be defined in terms of the boundary that has existed since the strain energy released in the instantion of the Big Bang established it, and that boundary will continue to define “everything imaginary and more than imaginary that can be experienced”.
“The prime mover would therefore, logically, be able to interact with the visible universe.”
Your “obviously”, and “logically” both having been shown to be false by evidence, your conclusion is necessarily false too. And you would need to propose a mechanism outside of existing physics, because noppt only we understand physics well enough to know that this is not happening, but the horizon would necessarily work both ways.
“There is nothing in the bible that was taken from Akkadian myths.”
See my monograph, Once Upon A Time in Genesis where I identify the actual fables incorporated from the Akkadian mythos into Genesis 1 and 2. If I live long enough I will probably tackle some of the other blatant borrowings from Bronze Age sources. Against this your assertions fail.
“I use science as part of my religious beliefs. There is no antagonism between science and the bible.”
As I have repeatedly shown, your belief is what you do in the face of the evidence or in the absence of evidence, and reject evidence that conflicts with your beliefs. That is the opposite of what science does, which is to build evidence based models that make intersubjectively verifiable predictions or projections and adapts, extends or replaces models when they do not make good predictions. So your belief in this matter is as delusional as all your other dogmatic beliefs.
“Another conflict is between what scientific evidence says and the beliefs of atheistic scientists.”
There are no “atheistic scientists”. Only scientists, who apply the scientific method, and others who are not scientists. Your delusional beliefs notwithstanding.
Almost forgot: There are atheistic scientists, agnostic scientists, deistic scientists and theistic scientists. I have even encountered a few who used to be atheistic, but abandoned atheism because of their own discoveries. Application of the “scientific methods” often causes a scientist to abandon atheism.
There is no proof that none exists and lots of reasons for saying that they do. Your statement that, “they are not necessary for the universe to exist and thrive” is not based on any evidence and is just an assumption. Nothing wrong with assumptions, but one should always remember that that is what they are.
In order to evolve, the universe must first appear. Please don’t confuse start with development; I don’t.
“anything interacting with a universe from the outside would either be incorporated in that universe”. You are making another assumption. The universe is much larger that the part that appeared 13.8 billion years ago. Your assumption is that the observable universe is the entire universe. It is not. The prime mover exists in that part of the universe outside the observable universe and can therefore interact with it.
Another mistake you are making is believing that the teachings of the clergy are the teachings of the bible. The bible contradicts the clergy!
Robert Shapiro is one of the originators of the modern hypotheses of abiogenesis and far from ridiculing the modern concept of life from raw chemistry he endorsed that concept saying: “life arose from some self-sustaining and compartmentalized reaction of simple molecules: “metabolism first” instead of “RNA first”. This reaction would have to be able to reproduce and evolve, eventually leading to RNA. He claimed that in this view life is a normal consequence of the laws of nature and potentially quite common in the universe.”
Your creationist garbage is not consistent with modern science.
Read that already. As I said, I have not used the findings of any “creationist”. However, you again merely cite his opinion without stating the evidence on which it is based. I quoted his opinions and the evidence he used. Do the same here.
In that case you appear to be reinventing or channeling the arguments of the completely dishonest Institute for Creation Research. As these are specious nonsense, that seems unlikely in the extreme and a simpler explanation is that you are, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, plagiarizing their guff.
For me to have plagiarized what the have on their sites, I would have to have read them. I will now have to google “Institute for Creation Research” to see what you are accusing me of. I never go to that site, and never quote anything “creationists” have written, for obvious reasons; their arguments too often are self-contradictions and ignore clear evidence to the contrary.
What was that I read??? They certainly “cherry pick” a lot. Can’t use anything from that site!
🙂
Your dishonesty knows no bounds…
http://www.godofevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nye-vs-Ham-cartoon-evidence.jpg
just curious. What is your background? You seem to be speaking some weird information that interest me
No scientific background appears possible for those who mindlessly cut and paste dishonest propaganda from corrupt creationist web sites and recycle that debunked bunkum across the web.
There are none so blind as those so brainwashed and indoctrinated that they refuse to see. Fortunately they form a small and rapidly declining human cohort more to be pitied than despised.
“There are none so blind as those so brainwashed and indoctrinated that
they refuse to see. Fortunately they form a small and rapidly declining
human cohort more to be pitied than despised.”
Careful there; you have just described almost every atheist. Unfortunately, that description also fits way too many theists; especially the “young earth creationists”.
Old Earth creationists like you also fit the description, Dennis.
Religion is bunkum.
Creationism is nonsense.
Cite the “creationist” sites you refer to. I have not quoted from any of them.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/03/researchers-may-have-solved-origin-life-conundrum
That’s a creationist web site? Didn’t know. The information in that article actually contains stuff that supports atheists’ arguments. I saw nothing in it that seemed to have been written by a creationist. What did I miss?
Of course not. Are you really as dumb as you appear to be.
Many links to education have been presented to you.
You appear to prefer to ignore the opportunity to cure a little of your ignorance and superstition.
rationalobservations? is an obstructionist to distract you.
lol
Your condition of blanket denial and profound ignorance has already been established…
Your garbage originates from a few dishonest and debunked sites.
https://creation.com/why-the-miller-urey-research-argues-against-abiogenesis
The Miller-Urey experiments predate modern research and were naive at best.
Not all that naive, as it has turned out!
Only naive in that they still had the simple “warm primordial soup” model that has been overtaken by more evidence supported models of the very young Earth of 400,000,000 years ago.
Spot on in the knowledge of the 100,000,000 suns within our own Milky-way Galaxy system many/most of which have rocky Earth like planets in orbit around them and the 100,000,000 similar galaxies in which the unstoppable natural and non-magical abiogenesis of abundant chemicals into primitive proto-life and then onto actual life must have occured and still be occurring.
The most naive concept of all must surely be the idea that there is anything unique about our insignificant little planet or that life upon it could be the result of undetected and undetectable super-spooks simply wishing things into existence from nothing.
“The Miller-Urey experiments predate modern research and were naive at best.” Already read that from Shapiro.
I have neither cited or quoted anything from any “creationist” site. Show me anything that shows why I should still believe that RNA or DNA will form by natural causes. Show me why I should believe that RNA was formed by some other set of chemicals that had formed by natural causes. Show me how RNA would have survived being hydrolyzed. The cytosine in RNA readily changes spontaneously to uracil. Why should I not expect that the information in RNA would not become garbled? Ribose is destroyed by the very oxygen in the molecule. RNA does not stick around for very long, it is hydrolyzed by the very water in which the polymerization occurs. Why should I accept the hypothesis as plausible?
See, I give scientific reasons from actual observations. I showed you my scientific reasons, now show me yours.
Neither statements, nor questions, constitute reasons. Citations, with reasoned arguments, required.
I note that you do not refer to mitochondrial DNA, the oldest DNA, at any point. If you understood the story of evolution from the earliest Hominids, through, Homo-erectus, Homo-habilis to Homo sapiens, you would not spout so much shite.
http://www.godofevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nye-vs-Ham-cartoon-evidence.jpg
http://www.amerika.org/wp-content/uploads/burning_man1.jpg
Ok?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyhZcEY5PCQ
Your infantile condition of blanket denial continues.
It is you who fail to justify your blind faith in that for which no evidence exists.
Show me the evidence of gods and magical creation when the evidence of natural processes are all that can be observed.
Still waiting on counter arguments. I have said that you simply ignore the evidence I present, yet you persist to reply that I have presented no evidence.
I already did:
1. Life based on DNA and RNA does not arise by natural causes because DNA is destroyed by the very water in which the polymerization occurs. The oxygen we must breath in also damages DNA, so DNA must co-exist with its repair system or life will be impossible. Also 5 of the components of DNA and RNA are so unstable that it is unreasonable to expect that there would be enough of them to form a polymer. Cytosine is so unstable that an enzyme must constantly read the code sequence of DNA and replace any uracil it comes across with a new cytosine molecule.
2. Life as immensely complex as cyanobacteria was teeming in the ocean almost as soon as the earth got its ocean.
3. The bible contains stuff no human could possibly have known to be true at the time it was written.
Now show me the evidence that abiogenesis has occurred on this planet. The evidence says it has not!
The bible contains an immense amount of nonsense, most of it by unknown authors at unknown times, that can be interpreted to mean anything the motivated reader wants to find in it.
For example pi is approximately three. Given that other cultures had far better approximations much earlier, that is signally unimpressive.
Why do you imagine that it is important that “abiogenesis has occurred on this planet”? The presence of life in a universe brimming with precursors shows that it has happened somewhere at least once.
“The presence of life in a universe brimming with precursors shows” nothing. Those precursors will never form DNA or RNA. Dr. Robert Shapiro has already shown that they won’t and nobody has proved him wrong.
Nobody has “already shown that” “[t]hose precursors will never form DNA or RNA”. All that anyone can have shown is that some paths from precursor to RNA or DNA are more likely and others more convoluted. Nobody can say, “Those precursors will never form DNA or RNA” unless they can show that there has never been any possible path from precursor to RNA and DNA which we know is utter specious nonsense, because “those precursors”, the amino acids, are in fact the building blocks of RNA and DNA.
As Dr. Robert Shapiro and even Dr. Stanley Miller had observed, ribose would not have stayed around long enough to become part of a polymer. Shapiro has also pointed out that cytosine is even more unstable than ribose, so both men have proved that it is unreasonable to expect that those precursors would form DNA or RNA by natural processes.
The amino acids? Are you saying that amino acids linked up to form a protein that acted as the catalyst for the polymerization? That is an unreasonable hypothesis. Aside from the vanishing probability of getting the sequence right, there is the observation that a protein will not assume the correct shape unless the polymerization occurs on a ribosome. Some had proposed clay particles performing the role played by the ribosome. I had mentioned that to Dr. Seymour Garte in a discussion and he pointed out that experiments involving attempting to use clay particles turned out to be very disappointing, so they were discontinued.
Without a catalyst, the components do not stick around long enough for a polymer to form and as Dr. Shapiro has indicated, even when the polymer is formed, the water in which it occurs hydrolyzes the bonds and pulls units off, breaking the chain. That is one big reason why the nucleic acid must co-exist with its repair system. At least two proteins must exist simultaneously; one to catalyze the reaction and another to repair the breaks. The probability of each forming with the correct sequence is a vanishing probability (that’s two vanishing probabilities)
You could cure your ignorance and brush off all that creationist garbage with a few selected key words in a search engine. Why do you prefer ignorance and lies?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyhZcEY5PCQ
See also https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/life-possible-titan-chemical-precursors-life-confirmed-saturns-largest-moon-1632782. It is apparently easier and happens under a much broader range of circumstances than previously thought.
Yet they have not addressed anything written by Dr. Shapiro. They simply ignore the fact that much of the components necessary for DNA and RNA were not available. They have ignored the fact that the very water in which the polymerization occurs will hydrolyze the polymer.
Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.
It ain’t necessarily so. See my post above. The Miller-Urey Volcano experiment produced all 22 amino acids used by RNA and DNA, which survived almost half-a-century in an aqueous solution before being analyzed.
Ahhhhhh, I love it when you exhibit that faith and belief of yours Hermit in something like the “Worlds most ridiculous lottery’ where you win nothing in hindsight. Congrats on the mind bending wishful thinking to avoid looking at ‘self’ and having to make a decision to either conquer self to a higher being or living a completely pusillanimous life full to the brim with your momentary gasconades of blatheskite that will be sizzlefitzed into time.
I pray you are not an agelast to all Christers and if you were to be correct surely you can seen the irony of wasting one second writing anything as all will be forgotten in your view of things to come. Why waste your time on expunging truth at all.
???
Not surprised you don’t understand David. Cloud Cuckoo land….. really?
Indeed! Paraphrasing the words of one molecular biologist I recall reading a few years ago: “The basic chemistry required for life is so abundant across the universe that it appears to be unstoppable and must be abundant”.
There is nothing magical or mysterious about the evolution of basic life from proto-life and the most common chemical elements.
As the introduction to one of the best creationist debunking web sites observes:
“Creationism is not the alternative to Evolution – ignorance is”
https://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/
Yet they will not form DNA or RNA. So why should I believe that it has happened by natural causes?
Who says that the ancient precursors of RNA and DNA did not combine and evolve as modern science has indicated?
You will be quoting that crackpot liar Ray Comfort as a credible scientist next!
In any event: You cannot validate magical creation from nothing by an entirely hypothetical, undetected and undetectable super-spook by failing to discredit outdated experiments and misquoting long dead respected scientists (like Robert Shapiro) who actually supported accepted and supported abiogenesis.
Your dishonest bunkum remains debunked.
Dr. Robert Shapiro is one. http://www.pnas.org/content/96/8/4396. Haven’t seen anything that says he was wrong.
How dare you continue to desecrate the memory of Robert Shapiro by misquoting him?
Robert Shapiro proposed that life arose from some self-sustaining and compartmentalized reaction of simple molecules: “metabolism first” instead of “RNA first”. This reaction would have to be able to reproduce and evolve, eventually leading to RNA. He claimed that in this view life is a normal consequence of the laws of nature and potentially quite common in the universe.
His argument against the spontaneous formation of RNA is and was common among modern scientists who share the concept of the long evolution of common compounds into a succession of forms that have led eventually to RNA, DNA and other results of 4,000,000,000 years of the evolution of life on Earth.
So much has progressed since Robert Shapiro published his “Skeptics guide” and as he observed at the end of that book: “`We may be closer to the answer than we think.’ Subsequent discoveries, experiments have led to leaps in understanding of which you are ignorant or dishonestly choose to ignore.
Too much Ray Comfort and creationist garbage and too little attention to modern science and actual scientists, Dennis. Shame on you!
First, I quoted Dr. Robert Shapiro. I don’t know who Stanley Shapiro is. However, if you meant Robert instead of Stanley, then you are very correct about his opinion, however, you will notice that nowhere does he present any evidence to support the conclusion.
Another error: Life appeared on this planet by the very latest, 3.5 billion years ago, so it occurred within the first 500 million years. To get from simple precursors all the way to something as complex as cyanobacteria in such a brief amount of time by natural causes is an unreasonable expectation.
All the progress made since Robert Shapiro has not actually brought us any closer to a plausible “natural causes” explanation. Insisting on RNA still leaves the situation of RNA’s being a bad place to store information. Ribose is destroyed by the very oxygen in the molecule and cytosine readily changes to uracil, corrupting the information. There is still no evidence to support the belief that RNA can be synthesized by any other means than how it is now being done. I see nobody addressing the problem posed by the fact that the ribose unit will destroy itself (ie. how it is replaced when that happens) One scholar has proposed a double helix RNA which will easily allow the molecule to be repaired when cytosine becomes uracil. cytosine bonds to guanine and uracil bonds to thymine, so an enzyme that reads what is on the other strand will be able to easily identify which uracil used to be cytosine. When water hydrolyses a bond, breaking the polymer, an enzyme could simply read the other strand and replace the missing unit with the correct one, but he could not identify any such system.
Who is Ray Comfort? I have never heard of him! Also I agree that the “creationists” are spouting loads of garbage, so I very strictly avoid using their posts. “Creationists” get even more irritated with me than you because I usually don’t take their sides in a debate; to them, I’m a heretic 😀
.
“Who is Ray Comfort?” So much for your ‘research’ around a subject.
It appears that you consider 500,000,000 years to be a short time??
I suggest you read “Life: an Unauthorized Biography” by the eminent Professor Richard Fortey who is the now retired CEO of the worlds leading Natural History Museum in London UK.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0044DE96A/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
It is somewhat refreshing for a creationist to admit that creationists spout garbage. This was rather unnecessary since you (and the equally wacko Ray Comfort and Ken Ham) all spout similar garbage.
Please read and at least make some attempt to understand some reasonably current thinking on abiogenesis.
https://www.mpg.de/8234936/origin_of_life_basetext.pdf
https://phys.org/news/2015-06-evidence-emerges-life.html
https://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_life.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3718341/
You could also enter into your search engine the keywords: abiogenesis, origin of life, dynamic kinetic stability, systems chemistry but studiously avoid the lie factories of creationists while you research the actual evidence and current scientific consensus of probabilities.
It is clear that we do not know the exact method by which inanimate chemistry formed “proto-life” but several experiments demonstrate the probability and one laboratory recently saw the resulting proto-life begin to mutate and evolve – so we are clear on that possibility.
While your straw man arguments against the minutia of some scientific hypotheses continually fail – What you have also signally failed to do is to present evidence of the possible existence of supernatural or paranormal super-spooks or explain and demonstrate how an undetected and undetectable hypothetical paranormal “entity” could magically wish the infinite and rapidly expanding universe into existence from nothing? Of all the possibilities experimented with and all the scientific hypotheses that consider the fact of abiogenesis – super-spooks and magic appear to be not among those sensibly considered?
Creationists and Scientific Logic
– Scott Anderson
“Creationists are of the opinion that creationism constitutes a better explanation of the evolutionary process? By what standard would they consider it better? Creationism demands that the logic of the scientific method be abandoned in favor of whatever logic one might be able to scrape out of the Bible.
Special creationism demands that we believe that some six thousand years ago the universe was magically created, with the sun appearing long after plants, and man apparently living concurrently with carnivorous animals (perhaps including dinosaurs). It demands that all the planetary evidence that coincides with evolutionary theory (the geologic table, continental drift, erosion, et cetera), all the biological evidence (DNA, biochemistry, microbiology, anthropology, et cetera), all the historical evidence (the fossil record, archaeology, anthropology, et cetera), all the astronomical evidence (quantum singularities, the age of stars, the history of the universe, et cetera) has been misinterpreted. The evidence from physics and chemistry (the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics, amino acids and proteins, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad absurdum) have all been misinterpreted. And I’m even leaving out several fields.
They are all in error, I take it? Why, then, has it all seemed to fit so well? Was it a conspiracy, or was it simply science’s way of hiding the fact that they had no idea?
Creationists still have to show that science is, in fact, wrong. This must first occur before they can begin postulating how the errors (as they must call them) persisted for so long. Creationists are more than happy to accept scientific reasoning but are unwilling to accept the conclusions. That’s why the battle is not creation versus evolution. Perhaps many creationists believe that, but it is not the case.
The same thoughts and processes thereof that led to the theory of evolution exist in all branches of science. It’s called the scientific method. In addition, evolution gets direct and indirect support from a thousand different facts from every constellation in the sky of science. In addition, evolution gives direct and indirect support to every constellation. Science is not a batch of unrelated theories – science is a unit.
To replace evolution with creationism would dictate that we throw out all the data we have about the age of the universe (all of it points to billions of years, not thousands). We would have to throw away the psychological data gained from testing on, for instance, lab rats. How could the data from rats relate in any way to the inspired, specially created souls of human beings? Anthropology would have to be dispensed with. Archaeology would find itself in the trash bin. Biology books would be so much toilet paper. In short, a thousand different independent but strangely cohesive facts and theories – a million tidbits of knowledge about ourselves and our world – would have to be destroyed in favor of magic and mysticism.
We’ve been through that before – it was called the Dark Ages. I see no logical reason why we should return to them.”
Half a billion years is way too short a time to expect hundreds of billions of galaxies to be all over the universe. Had it all been by natural causes, there would not be that degree of order and complexity so soon.
Who are “Ray Comfort and Ken Ham”? I won’t even bother to google them
“”Life: an Unauthorized Biography” does not include any evidence t support the opinions stated. I never blindly accept something simply because it is the opinion of experts. I will consider it if the opinion is accompanied by actual discoveries or observations.
The same is true of what is written in the other articles.
My search always include those words. BTW, don’t bother with wikipedia.org.
So now you are a Nobel prize winning cosmologist as well as a Nobel prize winning biologist, having redefined two major scientific fields. Or you are a delusional loon trapped in blanket denial of anything you imagine contradicts the belief you vest in primitive myths.
I wonder what odds I would be offered on this by the bookies?
Comfort and Ham are rabid creationists who say a lot of idiotic things.
You have not rebutted my assertion that, “Living things exist in the universe on at least one planet. Space is full of the building blocks of life. At an earlier point in the life of the universe, the elements of which we are comprised did not exist. Therefore life arose in the universe. Before life arose in the universe there was nothing in the universe capable of establishing life other than physics (which current life forms prove is sufficient). So, by elimination, we know that abiogenesis occurred.” The hurdle to establishing an alternative hypothesis which matches observation is one which you have not begun to approach.
I’m sure you loathe the fact that reputable academics curate many of Wikipedia’s “origin” pages to prevent vandalism by religiots.
I thought I did refute it, sorry for that oversight.
Space being full of the stuff that make up life forms means something only if you can show those substances spontaneously polymerizing. I did show that it is unreasonable to conclude that the components will form polymers by natural causes. I also showed that for life as we know it to be possible, nucleic acid must co-exist with its repair system because the water in which the polymerization occurs pulls units off the polymer, and cytosine keeps becoming uracil, corrupting the code. Also ribose is destroyed by the very oxygen in the molecule. Deoxyribose is less unstable, but it too needs to be replaced. Uracil and adenine spontaneously deaminates and must be periodically replaced.
FYI, I am pleased “that reputable academics curate many of Wikipedia’s “origin” pages to prevent vandalism by religiots.” I get way too much self-contradictory garbage from them.
Again, we have irrefutable evidence that ” the components will form polymers by natural causes” because that is what they do in every living thing and in space as well (See e.g. https://phys.org/news/2006-08-formation-chemical-precursors-life.html). You have not “shown” anything. You have waved your hands and said that you can’t imagine how something happened, so it must be impossible, missing the elephant in the room that your lack of imagination is no obstacle to anything else. As I noted previously, the right environment can preserve molecules, even in an aqueous solution, as can a membrane as spontaneously forms in the case of lipophilic substances in the presence of water, including the tars formed in the Miller-Urey apparatus, and that not only formaldehydes but many alkanes and alkenes, some of which act remarkably like RNA precursors, are capable of spontaneous polymerization (See e.g. https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-chemistry-of-life-seeking-a-precursor-to-rna-20140205/.
Unless you have tested every possible combination, you cannot credibly say what is “impossible”, particularly as I keep pointing out, life, usually exhibited by bags containing aqueous solutions, robustly rebuts your assertions.
Great articles! Many thanks.
However, I am not surprised that polymers can form without enzymes. I have already read about peptide nucleic acids (PNA’s) with can form without enzymes. However, in the first article, those are not the units that should spontaneously polymerize. The second article is also great, but did you notice this: “Proponents of the traditional RNA world hypothesis say that moving from an RNA precursor like Hud’s to RNA itself still represents an incredible challenge, possibly as daunting as making RNA from scratch. If these molecules were successful enough to launch the origins of life, where are they now?”
Both articles, though immensely interesting are both unconvincing.
FYI, it is not necessary to, test “every possible combination”, it is sufficient to indicate that when two or three things, each with an incredibly tiny probability of forming with the correct sequence, must co-exist, then the belief that they all formed by natural causes is an unreasonable belief. Nucleic acid must coexist with its repair system or life based on them will be impossible. To keep proposing the RNA first hypothesis, they must also propose a double helix molecule because when the strand gets broken, how will it be possible to correctly repair the damage? “We don’t know” is not a good answer; it means that the hypothesis remains unreasonable.
That would be a wriggle and massive shifts of the goal posts. You claimed that “spontaneous polymerizion” did not occur. I showed that it does. Now you claim that the spontaneous polymerization shown does not involve “the units that should spontaneously polymerize”, completely ignoring my point that it happens continuously in every living thing. That that is what life has evolved to accomplish.
While the odds may be small, we know that life on Earth happened within 300 million years of it being possible for it to occur in a universe containg the equivalent of 5.0234427e+27 earth sized crucibles ((3*10^55 g)/(5.972*10^27) g). When you have spent 300 million years trying every possible combination of precursor that existed under all the conditions that prevailed at one time or another on the early Earth, in an equivalent set of cruciblesc (and that is not even insisting that you avoid the anthropic fallacy by performing the experiments in all the possible metaverses, including all those in which life could not evolve) using the well understood processes of physics, and recognizing that in a universe where life has already evolved to regard less optimized processes as lunch, you need to protect your experiment from competition, it will be time enough to evaluate alternatives. The balance of your cavailing is spurious, for the reason given a over. Life evolved to accomplish what your imagination cannot encompass being possible. A chemical interaction can occur in Planck time (10e-43 seconds). In a universe
some 4.35e+17 seconds old, all those molecules have had some 4.35e+60opportunities to interact. And bearing in mind that one of the emergent properties of life is to form a self-reproducing, persistent, less energy intensive state over time, it only had to happen once, somewhere. Against that, stories made-up by Akkadian priests are completely irrelevant.
And you could cure yours by abandoning presuppositions. I still see no rebuttal even to the very first argument, “DNA is destroyed by the very water in which the polymerization occurs.
The oxygen we must breath in also damages DNA, so DNA must co-exist with
its repair system or life will be impossible. Also 5 of the components
of DNA and RNA are so unstable that it is unreasonable to expect that
there would be enough of them to form a polymer. Cytosine is so
unstable that an enzyme must constantly read the code sequence of DNA
and replace any uracil it comes across with a new cytosine molecule.”
Give me even that rebuttal.
You , and more advanced lifeforms are a complete rebuttal. As von Neumann showed, self-organizing cellular automata will arise wherever it is possible for them to arise, because this contributes to entropy. Once they have instantiated, they can perform any computable task with no limits to complexity.
So despite the CRI’s never ending streams of crap, it is likely that life evolved and continues to evolve anywhere it can.
Where is the evidence to support the belief that “self-organizing cellular automatically will arise wherever it is possible for them to arise”? That is what I keep asking; there is absolutely none!
I did experiments myself using the contents of bacteria. Did it several times. I was very disappointed to note that even when every component is fully formed and in the same enclosure with a nutrient solution, none of the bacteria re-assembled themselves. It was not until I read Dr. Robert Shapiro’s papers that I realized that a major major cause was that the water hydrolyzed the DNA.
Even worse, I read this from one of his papers, “These suggestions still presume that the bases adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil were readily available on early Earth. I have argued that this presumption is not supported by the existing knowledge of the basic chemistry of these substances” (There is an abstract at http://www.pnas.org/content/96/8/4396) So, If none of those were available, and the water in which the polymerization occurs will hydrolyze the DNA, why should I believe that it had occurred by natural causes? Nobody has yet shown Shapiro’s findings to be in error!
This is a vast amount of speculative nonsense, even for the CRI. Besides which, I addressed most of this steaming pile of woo last time you raised these same supposed issues. Many known processes result in the formation of globules, and some in membranes. Although not strictly speaking necessary, to establish self-replicating molecules, either would suffice to permit the evolution of RNA molecules and all amino acid protein precursors. That makes this a far more likely path to life than, “and then some magic happened”.
See my comment to your other reply. Dr. Robert Shapiro has completely debunked the RNA First hypothesis. They first need to refute, with evidence, what he has shown. The hypothesis assumes that the bases adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil were readily available
on early Earth. He has argued “that this presumption is not supported by
the existing knowledge of the basic chemistry of these substances”. Am I to still accept it simply because the experts say so? My mind doesn’t work that way!
Nobody needs to. Your sources are “creationist” sources lacking not just any hint of scientific credibility, but any cognitive competence.
None are “creationist” sources.
It would be useful if you were to cite your most important sources.
”
I regularly check sites such as : http://www.pnas.org/content/96/8/4396.
Look for this: “Many problems have arisen with both the prebiotic synthesis and the stability of ribose (4–9). To avoid the need for ribose, some authors have preferred to invoke an RNA-like polymer, with a simpler or more accessible backbone. . . ”
And this: “These suggestions still presume that the bases adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil were readily available on early Earth. I have argued that this presumption is not supported by the existing knowledge of the basic chemistry of these substances (4, 17). If the availability of the Watson–Crick pairs at the start of life appears implausible, then more attention must be given to theories that employ a very different replicator or no replicator at all.”
Shapiro still believed abiogenesis is the explanation, but he has presented no evidence to support this belief.
Here’s an interview with Dr. Stanley Miller: http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.html
You can download a pdf of one of hi papers from: http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/92/18/8158.full.pdf. Here are two observations:
“The half-life at pD 7.4 extrapolates to 300 days at 25°C and to 44 years at 0°C. Even with correction for the buffer concentration, this is a very short period of geological time, and it is difficult to see how ribose could have been available for prebiotic use, even at low temperatures.”
“2-Deoxyribose decomposes at pD 7.4 and 100°C with a half-life of 225 min (2.6 times slower than ribose). Ribose 5-phosphate decomposes with a half-life of 7 min (12 times faster than ribose). These differences in rate are relatively minor, so that the same considerations apply to these ribose derivatives as to ribose itself.”
Dr. Miller still believes that abiogenesis is the explanation for life on earth, but I am still waiting to read any evidence supporting the belief.
You are making an unfounded assumption. I have not yet quoted any “creationist”. Dr. Stanley Miller and Dr. Robert Shapiro are/were not “creationists”. At the time they wrote what I read, they were both atheists. I do not know if any of them converted.
How dare you desecrate the memory of Robert Shapiro by misquoting him?
Shapiro proposed that life arose from some self-sustaining and compartmentalized reaction of simple molecules: “metabolism first” instead of “RNA first”. This reaction would have to be able to reproduce and evolve, eventually leading to RNA. He claimed that in this view life is a normal consequence of the laws of nature and potentially quite common in the universe.
His argument against the spontaneous formation of RNA is and was common among modern scientists who share the concept of the long evolution of common compounds into a succession of forms that have led eventually to RNA, DNA and other results of 4,000,000,000 years of the evolution of life on Earth.
So much has progressed since Robert Shapiro published his “Skeptics guide” and as he observed at the end of that book: “`We may be closer to the answer than we think.’ Subsequent discoveries, experiments have led to leaps in understanding of which you are ignorant or dishonestly choose to ignore.
Too much Ray Comfort and creationist garbage and too little attention to modern science and actual scientists, Dennis. Shame on you!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21514/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shapiro_(chemist)
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evolution:_A_Fairy_Tale_for_Grownups
http://www.godofevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nye-vs-Ham-cartoon-evidence.jpg
creationist sources unfortunately have significantly much more cognitive competence. You can see it in many ways with morals, self discipline, respect, etc. With science we are limited to what little understand we have of something that is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy older than us. If anything science is a lack of cognitive competence and constantly being discovered, rediscovered, and changed. Science is extremely flawed and we are babies in the universe. Science and creationist sources have killed many people. Like comparing apples to oranges. 2 completely different ideologies that do not add up. There is no comparison. A study on religion and its main purpose of religion really shows how great of a tool it is in your life and you can see the changes it makes just like science can. Its a whole other animal
Science is continuously reducing error. Religion cannot even do that.
The evidence is that government, city building, religion and war all co-evolved on an Earth that was rapidly drying, leading to enormous stress on previously easy-going hunter gatherers. We can see in history, as today, that religions sustain and exacerbate UTism (US-versus-THEM-ism), supporting the banding together of religiots in groups of “US” larger than family, clan and tribe; and to fear, hate and depersonalise the “OTHER” also defined as groups going beyond family, clan and tribe; and so for the “US” to do things to the “OTHER” that go far beyond mere cruelty, so making wars larger, nastier and more decisive than they would otherwise be. Which is why religion is a social phenomenon which does not address questions, or provide answers, outside of answering the question, is that person part of US or part of THEM, by carefully evaluating, down to fine nuances, whether other people vest belief in similar ridiculous things to ourselves, and if not, to depersonalise the THEM, depressing empathy in order to make THEM easier to abuse or kill. History proves that religion, while not the exclusive source of UTism, is remarkably good at that job, and that of the world’s religions, the so-called Abrahamic religions, are much more effective than others.
If you imagine that you see any other more fundamental role for the world’s many religions, you are deluding yourself.
[From https://goo.gl/gVzEY1 “Religion considered Harmful”]
Science was created by creationists. Western Society is what it is because of Christianity and you are free to say what you think, live how you want thanks to Christ.
Should be a little grateful little one.
What a lot of tripe. Modern science only developed in the 1920s when scientists and mathematicians finally threw off the bonds of religiosity and the miasma of metaphysics, while everything that is best about “Western Society” is what has happened since the religiously deluded lost the ability to immolate those who had the temerity to disagree with them.
AHHAHAHA That can be your little secret Hermie, You really do hate reality, I guess that is why you are a big distorter of truth and very selective about what is science and what is not. But hey My opinion matters because My God thingy loved me so much he died for me…and you but you choose to be obscure and worthless and a complete nothing in time as you believe in Nothing Faith in Nothing, A complete chance at being nothing , you choice confounds me. But hey you must be an intellectual.
You are obviously an inhabitant of cloud-cuckoo land!
I do not disagree whatsever. Hit it right on the head. I hate how humans have taken advantage of such a beautiful tool to spread hate and division. Its actually quite the other half if used properly. I do see also though that sometimes things need to be done in order to do what is right. Like if I see a man who rapes and kills women, children, men, etc with zero remorse and has no effort to stop. I can see justification on ending life. even in the case of whole cities. Unfortunately morally proper to end life in order to keep peace. But you are absolutely right. Its been twisted and taken advantage of. That is why I gave you that scripture. Even “religious” people are terrible people just trying to trick you. Because properly practiced “religion” reduces error also. It can reduce the error of hate, violence, division, etc. It also is a very powerful tool. I also am weary of false prophets in the science world. so many instances of false studies and evidence. Test and question always. That is how we become smarter
Your description of your own personal degree of ignorance is at least honest.
The sum total of all human knowledge has expanded by more since around 1950 than the whole sum total of all human knowledge up to that time.
Creationist ignorance and dishonesty remains debunked.
https://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/
http://www.godofevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nye-vs-Ham-cartoon-evidence.jpg
Wow 60+ years of knowledge. Man we know so much. It’s crazy how we know everything. Crazy how humans can debunk such things with only 60+ years of knowledge. Man. I shall trust science over everything. Especially when I watch it kill and make people sick with experimental ideologies. Good luck with that. Lol
Your straw man burns, son.
http://www.amerika.org/wp-content/uploads/burning_man1.jpg
Your comments are like farts in the wind
Run along child. The grown ups are discussing stuff you are too ignorant to understand.
Ah I get it. You’re a time wasting troll. How much they paying you?
Now you have scraped the bottom of the barrel to display how pathetic you can appear to be.
Bravo! You are officially the most simple minded and ridiculous contributor of the day!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SLVOq77YxcI/WdD49ptS1SI/AAAAAAAAlOs/FqEnF3E72zoc4HIK4i_jqfQAVYLOGvclACJoC/w1435-h1221/20171001_101457.png
I love the faith in evolution.
I have no “faith” in the evidence supported facts supporting past, current and ongoing evolution.
Tell me about the evidence for magic, gods, god-men and supernatural creation?
Who are you talking to lol? Nothing what you say is even close to what I’m talking about
All you need now to do is present your thoughts and the evidence upon which they are formed?
Good luck with that…
Your continual denial of all that confuses and confounds you is noted.
My denials are backed up be evidence. I still se nothing from you based on evidence; only the opinion of experts who do not include the evidence to back up their opinions
Your continual denial of all that confuses and confounds you is once again noted.
http://www.godofevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nye-vs-Ham-cartoon-evidence.jpg
All those journals and still no real sense. Simplicity is confounding is it not.
Simplistic fairy tales, legends, and regurgitated folklore (as found in the so-called ‘bible’), being mostly derived from Pagan sources. are only believed by the ignorant, and superstitious among us.
I guess you are so familiar with the bible you believe Yahushua was born in December on the 25th…………..Maybe you need to start again with an open mind and not be fooled into trap of believing the Roman Catholic church which used the garb of Christianity over their unchanging pagan beliefs. While you are at it why don’t you look into the clash between the True Christians of the Syria to Northern Israel areas and how they differed from the doctrine and the much later Roman and Alexandrian Sects that mirrored Paganism which were condemned by the Christians in the regions known as Turkey and Syria now, where the Christians fled before the sacking of Jerusalem in 70AD. Why do you think Rome tried to expunge these people who love Yeshua the salvation of Gods people. When you look at what the actual Bible says instead of Roman Catholic Pagan garbage you find no similarity at all.
“… Yahushua was born in December on the 25th”. Yes, at 0300hrs., with a menagerie of animals looking on!
Your lack of knowledge concerning the history of christianity is palpable.
There is no evidence that any god-man named JC ever existed, whether written or archaeological. If you know of any, let’s have it. The same goes for the real existence of your favourite ‘god’.
By the way, there is not much difference, give or take a book or two, between the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus (the earliest known ‘bibles’, both dating from the 4th cent, CE). Both Codices have since been edited, added to, or had later interpolations. by a variety of writers, over the succeeding centuries.
There’s nothing confounding about simple minded ignorance and gullibility.
The complexity of reality takes more than myths, legends, lies and superstition to confound.
Education confounds superstition.
Pity I can only upvote you once.
You can copy a pass on the truth as many times as you wish. That’s the best upvote of all.
Thanks
https://religionpoisons.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/480034_342051569209203_1479475788_n.jpg?w=640&h=427
Jesus is indeed mentioned, but every time I indicate where, atheists claim that it was forgery.
The very same writing that mention Pontius Pilate also mention Jesus, but you all accept Pilate, but reject the mention of Jesus as forgery.
Wrong. In the earliest writings, dated before 15 CE, Simon son of Joseph, a messianical rebel is described as being told by Gabriel, “After three days, rise”, providing the earliest “Jesus” prototype, within the Society of the Poor (of spirit) and the writings by that group, the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls. Mid first-century, Chrestus the magician, another messianical rebel, was crucified, providing the basis for a tradition of fables related to the writings by Saulus the Herodian traitor about his cosmic man myth. Chrestus’ followers, the Chrestians, eventually joined the messianic Jewish groups in Rome to become what we think of as the the christers, apparently in the third century. The fables continued to be extended and amended until about the 12th century.
See my “On Jesus and the so-called New Testament” at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1suoqwsyVciuu8_1kP6gOrN_NJkFqQTd9JlehczYNffA/.
All other known referrals are from much later documents of uncertain provenance, forgeries, interpolations, skewed dating of much later documents or lies.
The source you cite and your claims for it, border on inbred fallaciousness.
Which is why Eisenman, who is just one of many sources, is a respected academic, biblical scholar, prolific author, respected historian, acclaimed archaeologist, tenured professor and director of the Institute for the study of Judeo-Christian and Islamic origins at California State University Long Beach, consultant to the Huntington, Senior Fellow and Senior Member of Linacre College Oxford and national endowment for the humanities fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. And you are?
If you imagine that you have evidence contradicting anything I have said, you are invited to bring it on. If you don’t, stop yammering and engage in some actual studying.
I have met Eisenmann, he is a speculative scholar and creates his theories out of little more than thin air and his
interpretation of texts that we have little contextual knowledge of.
You can believe what he writes if you want to, but few others do, and it goes against common history.
I don’t do “belief”. I follow the evidence, Which you appear to be ignoring.
Appeal to “Common history” is Argumentum Ad Numerum and consensus gentium fallacy. History is full of examples of ideas held ny many or even most people that are dead wrong.
Claiming that having “met” somebody is grounds for criticism is like claiming that you are fit to be president because you can see Russia from your house. A complete non sequitur.
What are your credentials to criticize any textual specialist and archaeologist? What is your actual evidence against his well supported arguments and the evidence I have provided?
Hermit,
Everyone does belief, most of what you claim to know is just belief, you did not do the original archeological research,
you did not transcribe and translate the texts you cite, if you are not the original scholar involved in the study, then
you just have a belief concerning what they present to their audiences.
Appeal to Common History is not an Argumentum ad Numerum and it is not a Consensus Gentium Fallacy.
By that statement alone, I am led to wonder how old you are and what is your educational background.
When you say that History if full of examples….you are making an appeal to Common History but you deny such
appeals and so you have hoisted yourself on your own rhetorical petard.
Your analogy is broken and fails to show anything.
I have met Eisenmann and I have listened and read what he said and has written and in my mind, and many others
he is just trying to make a name for himself.
Doctorate in Ancient History, Doctorate in Philosophical Theology, Masters in Archeology, Retired Professor of
Biblical History, Languages, Texts.
“Everyone does belief, most of what you claim to know is just belief, you did not do the original archeological research,
you did not transcribe and translate the texts you cite, if you are not the original scholar involved in the study, then
you just have a belief concerning what they present to their audiences.”
Again, I do not do “belief”. Belief is usually the assignment of a truth value in the face of compelling confounding intersubjectively verifiable evidence, or occasionally the assignment of a truth value in the absence of sufficient intersubjectively verifiable supporting evidence. When sufficient intersubjectively verifiable supporting evidence is present, belief is not required, merely observation, evaluation and acceptance of the preponderance of the evidence.
This follows from the dictionary definition of belief:
“Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; reliance upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge or absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses.” –Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
I’m fond of “weyken”, a neologism that makes theis explicit. Weyken is significant intersubjectively verifiable provisional knowledge preferably derived by means of application of the scientific method (which is the end result of the proper application of agnosticism) to proximal and compelling evidence. Weyken is a provisional, mutable, revocable, testable datum or data agglomeration which has been intersubjectively verified.
As far as the research I reported, I rely on the assessments of competent in-field researchers and how well their analysis comports with the sparse physical evidence. Which is why I support the positions I do.
How else do you imagine that “common history” originated, other than through reaching a colloquial consensus? While “biblical maximalism” (to coin a phrase) was a thing, the “common history” was interpreted entirely through biblical perspectives, even when this required ignoring evidence and straining time-lines beyond breaking point. When burned cities with collapsed walls were found, they had to be “proof” of Exodus and the Jericho fables, even if we already knew that Moses was the syncretic borrowing of Egyptian and Akkadian legends, genetics told us that Hebrews are Canaanites, archaeology tells us that there was no late bronze age invasion of the Levant, that Hebrews never were slaves in Egypt, nobody spent years wandering around in sensitive eco-systems without leaving a trace, and radiometric chronology tells us that the burning was a thousand years too early. It was only when scholars discarded beliefs in the biblical narratives that “common history” began to have some intersection with actual evidence and Middle Eastern history to make some kind of sense. Though I have never heard an apology from a maximalist. They go protesting to their graves.
Outside of closed systems of limited applicability, there are no “truths”, and even if there were, all we have access to are interpretations of limited information, contaminated by error and deliberate confabulation.
I am not relevant to this discussion as I am not claiming expertise or engaging in per se defamation of a respected academic.
When I said that “history is full of examples” that was not an appeal to numbers, but a statement of fact. For example, at the time that Solomon was supposed to have ruled, Israel was controlled by Egypt, and Jerusalem was occupied by about 200 people. So goodbye Solly (and Dave before him). More recently, the “pilgrims” did not flee England to avoid persecution, but went to America so that they could persecute others. They hijacked the Mayflower, which was supposed to have gone South to Virginia (and did after dropping off the hijackers). When they were too stupid to fish in a bay that they almost could have walked across if they had balanced carefully on the marine life, they turned to cannibalism and grave-robbing the indigenous people to survive. So much for moral exceptionalism. Contra the beliefs of most Americans, the American insurgency against the crown was lead by the wealthy merchant class who owned warehouses full of the sweepings of the tea sorting floors bought at high prices (but without paying tea taxes) from Dutch smugglers. The merchant class were threatened with ruin when the taxes on tea were reduced and the English East India Company were allowed to sell their high quality teas directly to the public in the US, rather than to wholesalers at auctions in London. So the merchants, the oligarchs of their day, who controlled the press and the economy, ginned up a revolutionary war, using the poor and farmers to do the fighting, paying them in worthless script that nobody, including themselves, would accept. Even more recently, the US entered WW I for Israel. The Soviet Union did not engage in mass murder in the Ukraine. WW II was completely unnecessary. FDR had foreknowledge that Pearl Harbor would occur. Neither US attacks, nor nuclear weapons resulted in the surrender of Japan. Iraq did not have “Weapons of Mass Destruction” or any intent to attack anyone when they US engaged in an illegal war of aggression against it, making that war a crime against the peace. And that was off the top of my head using examples for which I can provide support if challenged.
Oh, so you think that “being able to see Russia from your house” qualifies you to be president, or “hav[ing] met” somebody qualifies you to criticize them?
Ah, now you have an opinion about Eisenman based on what he has said and written. Before it was based on having met him. Which of his more significant assertions do you consider “create[d] … out of little more than thin air” and which “texts” do you think we “have” more than a “little contextual knowledge” about, making them more credible” that Eisenman, who seems to be a lot better known than “Henry”. At least, the better known Henrys I knew in those fields are all dead now Are you motivated by jealousy perhaps?
Felicitations. Was all of your study at “bible colleges”?
Acceptance is an act of the will, not of the intellect
so your long definition fails as you choose to accept which is an act of the will which is dependent upon a belief.
Neither you, nor I or anyone has any knowledge, but we do have well accepted beliefs.
You are, whether you intend to or not, a modern day gnostic in your interpretation of what occurred in
Palestine in the first century. You are entitled to your views, but you are in a distinct minority and the evidence
upon which you base your views are a shambles.
Archeology of the Levant is very tricky, people have lived there for over 3.000 years.
Walls were either torn down or built upon, if torn down then evidence of fires could be lost,
whole towns and fortresses were torn down and rebuilt.
A friend of mine in Lebanon had a marble middle support for their dining room table that was
from a palace of Herod the Great, they had no idea, it had been in the family for centuries.
How eco-sensitive the Sinai was 3500 years ago is an open question.
My favourite philosophy professor was Ukrainian and lived through those times and would disagree with you.
Explain about World War I and Israel, please.
No, Israel was not controlled by Egypt in the years 1.000 – 900 BC – the Egyptians
exaggerated their claims of territory, victories.
No one can precisely date the population of Jerusalem in 1050 BC.
I agree with most of what you have to say about the Founding Fathers and the Pilgrims.
Explain Israel and World War I.
I had a Professor who lived though the starvation/genocide in the Ukraine, he would disagree with you.
Why didn’t Hitler agree with you about World War II.
My grandfather, who lost three sons in World War II, two in the Pacific would agree that FDR
had to be aware that the Japanese would attack American Bases soon after the Embargo was tightened.
The Emperor seems to have asked the Imperial Council to find a way to end the War after the Atomic Bombs
and the Russian opening a front against Japan.
Iraq had come close to creating a super-cannon to fire long range shells at Israel.
They did launch missiles at Israel during the first Iraq war.
Listening to someone give a talk, or engage in conversation may tell you more than
reading what they have published. You get a better sense of the person.
His theory of the rise of Christianity is a distinct minority view based on texts that he interprets the
way he so wishes to.
Oxford, Cambridge and Stanford.
“Acceptance is an act of the will…”
Again you fail. This time by attempting to formulate an argument around a murky philosophical idea, “will”, which neurology has shown is an inherently flawed and incoherent concept, even in subjective terms, utterly unsupported by evidence (See e.g. Harris S. (2012-03). The Illusion of Free Will. Simon and Schuster.), and which physics has shown is not only imaginary, but in this deterministic universe cannot exist, because our universe has been proven chaotic meaning that you cannot predict the deterministic outcome. Refer Aydiner E (2018). Chaotic universe model. Nature Scientific Reports. Vol 8, Article number: 721 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-18681-4.
“Neither you, nor I or anyone has any knowledge…”
You indubitably have beliefs. I do not. I continuously evaluate myself for and reject beliefs.
Like Huxley, I utterly reject gnosticism. “When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them.They were quite sure that they had attained a certain “gnosis”–had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion …”
“You are, whether you intend to or not, a modern day gnostic…”
I see the modern “New Testament” as a syncretic accumulation of third and fourth century Rome, based on the messianical beliefs of the Community of the Poor (of Spirit), the sayings of Simon son of Joseph (“ישו” acronym for “ימח שמו וזכרו(נו”)” ), and the followers of Chrestus, known as Chrestians.
“…the evidence upon which you base your views are a shambles.”
As I emphasize, the evidence upon which I base my opinion is tangible. The radiocarbon dated documents, contemporaneous alterations, and artifacts supporting this perspective are laid out in detail. Claiming that it is “a shambles” without providing counter evidence showing that there is a better interpretation than that which I present simply exposes you as a bloviator.
“Archeology of the Levant is very tricky, people have lived there for over 3.000 years…”
While there is evidence of earlier neanderthal and human habitation, genetic and cultural evidence of the from the Upper Paleolithic Boker Tachtit at Ksar Akil level XXV dating to 52,000–50,000 BCE shows that the Levant has been continuously occupied for over 50,000 years.
“Walls were either torn down or built upon…”
The point was that contra the biblical minimalists finding the ruins of a city did not support the historicity of the bible anymore than finding a cart embedded in the walll between stations 9 and 10 of Kings Cross Station supports the historicity of Harry Potter.
“How eco-sensitive the Sinai was 3500 years ago is an open question”
The eco-sensitivity of the Sinai is not an “open question” at all. Lichens grow at a rate of 0.9 – 0.3 millimeter per year, and are easily damaged by being walked upon. The Sinai is well supplied with Lichen. with 9 fruticose, 7 foliose and 84 crustose species identified, supporting reliable lichenometry to at least 7 kybp. We would indubitably not only have solid evidence for, but would be able to reliably date any large scale wandering in the Sinai at any time in the Bronze Age, but that dog is not barking.
“My favourite philosophy professor was Ukrainian and lived through those times and would disagree with you.”
The weight of the evidence is against your favorite philosophy professor. See e.g. http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm
“Explain Israel and World War I.”
At the onset to WW I, Britain had only recently permitted Jews to enter England Legally after banning them for 600 odd years. By the early 1900s, they were experiencing high levels of immigration from Europe and did not like it. Britain was sympathetic to the Zionists on the basis of resettling Jews anywhere but in England. In this environment, Sir Mark Sykes met with Zionist leaders including Lord Rothschild and Chaim Weizmann on 1917-07-02 where Lord Rothchild proposed that he could influence the Americans to enter the war on Britain’s behalf in exchange for some guarantees that a Jewish state would be established. This was agreed and America’s entry to the war accomplished on 2017-04-07. In a meeting on 1917-06-19 Lord Balfour requested Lord Rothchild to produce a proposed letter, and this was done and discussed by the cabinet in September and October leading to the Balfour declaration on 2017-10-31. The war went from stalemated which would have ended in an equitable ending, to an unconscionable armistice which made WW II inevitable, and the Zionists received a deliberately vague promise of a homeland in the Palestine, which they turned into a license to steal the entirety and murder the Palestinians.
“No, Israel was not controlled by Egypt in the years 1.000 – 900 BC – the Egyptians exaggerated their claims of territory, victories.”
Given that the Egyptians had a chain of provisioned forts across Canaan and the Palestine after Thutmose III’s (who is one of the syncretional sources for Solomon) conquests, that they were still burying soldiers in Jerusalem in 1150 BCE, and that we have found amulets bearing Thutmose III’s seal in Nahal Iron and Jerusalem, while the Tell el-Amarna letters, including one from Abi-milku, Prince of Tyre, reflects subordination to Egypt so I’d suggest that your ideas on this issue need to be refreshed.
“No one can precisely date the population of Jerusalem in 1050 BC.”
I’m not sure how one would “precisely date” any population, but the population can be estimated by, inter alia the extent of the buildings and layers of the middens. I could have said, as Israel Finkelstein does in (2006) David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition , “not more than 200”, rather than “about”, but it would not have changed the meaning or provided the “:precision” you apparently seek.
“I agree with most of what you have to say about the Founding Fathers and the Pilgrims.”
Thank-you.
“had a Professor who lived though the starvation/genocide in the Ukraine, he would disagree with you.”
Asked and answered. Supra.
“Why didn’t Hitler agree with you about World War II.”
Hitler did. In March 1939, he told his generals that he did not expect war, but to prepare for a sharp but short war with the Soviet Union in 1942. See Buchanan P.J. (2008). Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. Crown.
“My grandfather, who lost three sons in World War II…”
Not only was he aware in general (and the appended transcript shows that too), but a specific warning including the date of the attack. We know this because we have the actual original German transcript of the intercepted radio telephone call between FDR and Churchill (which was on telex like tape, pasted into a signals log as it was received, along with tens-of-thousands of other such transcripts). The transcript is contained in Douglas G. (1999). Gestapo Chief — The 1948 Interrogation of HEINRICH MÜLLER. Bender*.
“The Emperor seems to have asked the Imperial Council …”
You are incorrect about the Emperor and the “atomic bombs”. See Tsuyoshi Hasegawa (2006). Racing the Enemy, Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Belknap Press. and e.g. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/.
“Iraq had come close to creating a super-cannon to fire long range shells at Israel.”
Bullshit. Gerald Bull, whose space cannon was being paid for by Hussein and built in Iraq to launch satellites, not attack Israel, had been murdered by the Israelis in 1990, the parts for his space cannon were held in Britain, and the project abandoned by Iraq before the US launched the first US Iraq war let alone the second.
“They did launch missiles at Israel during the first Iraq war.”
Yes, which was started by the US. However, Iraq was a basket case, and the US not only knew it, but had engineered it, long before the second US Iraq war. They had neither the intent nor the functional missiles to attack anyone.
“Listening to someone give a talk, or engage in conversation may tell you more than reading what they have published. You get a better sense of the person.”
I agree. But sometimes disagreement with what they have to say leads to argumentum ad hominem instead, which I suspect it s the case here, as your assessment is at odds with that of many other competent academics. See for example, Robert Price’s (1997) Robert Eisenman’s JAMES THE BROTHER OF JESUS: A Higher-Critical Evaluation. Institute for Higher Critical Studies (Drew University). Retrieved https://depts.drew.edu/jhc/RPeisenman.html 2018-11-17
“His theory of the rise of Christianity is a distinct minority view…”
I agree. The, now rapidly collapsing, majority view is riddled with religiosity and “traditional interpretations” informed by christianity. In textual analysis and history, as in science, as Max Planck said, “Eine neue wissenschaftliche Wahrheit pflegt sich nicht in der Weise
durchzusetzen, daß ihre Gegner überzeugt werden und sich als belehrt erklären, sondern vielmehr dadurch, daß ihre Gegner allmählich aussterben und daß die heranwachsende Generation von vornherein mit der Wahrheit vertraut gemacht ist.” [A new scientific realization does not overcome opposition through making opponents perceive the light and convicting them of its accuracy, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation familiar with the new understanding arises, or more succinctly, in my articulation “Progress occurs over the corpses of its opponents.”] That does not mean that Eisenman’s interpretations are incorrect or indeed, that anyone else does it any differently The majority view is greatly troubled by the plethora of contradictions that it takes great pains to avoid. Eisenman (along with Reza Aslan and Richard Carrier who have independently reached similar conclusions through very different approaches) do not participate in the selective conspiracy. Which is why, if you read what I wrote, I found Eisenman, Aslan and Carrier very helpful in contextualizing and explaining recent archeological discoveries, particularly the Hazon Gabriel which are not otherwise coherent.
“Oxford, Cambridge and Stanford.”
Respect.
*
.
The will is not murky, you have one and you can exercise it.
As William James said:
We are far more aware of our own wills than anything else.
The experiment(s) you mention are flawed, and why do you assent to believe in them,
since you did not carry them out, only through an act of will which leads to your belief that they are valid.
If you are a free thinker, you are a free thinker, but since you cannot verify all that you hold to be the case,
you are, like the rest of us, reliant upon others knowledge claims, and thus a believer.
The claim that the Church formulated the Christian faith as most live it today, in the third century is
unsupportable. We have the writings of the Early Fathers of the Church before the third century unless
you wish to believe the claim by some, one man in particular, that medieval monks created all those writings.
Your statements about the Sinai are laughable as you act as if only Moses and the Children of Abraham went through
there some 3500 years ago, armies went back and forth, caravans, pilgrims. North Africa used to be a land rich
in agriculture but the Sahara sent it sands in to cover the fields.
When you dispute someone who lived through the Famine, who say people arrested and taken away, who lost his grandparents and father to Stalin, you only make yourself look silly. Again and again you cite reports that you did not write and
which you cannot verify.
That does not mean those seeking the State of Israel brought about World War I, but did their best to bring the
Americans into the war.
No claims, that I am aware of that David and Solomon ruled in 1150 BC.
Again, archeology in the Middle East is tricky, buildings were torn down for their stones, there may be an older part of
Jerusalem that they evacuated but that does not show that was all there was to David’s City at that time. Digging in
Jerusalem is a nightmare. Again you did not participate in the dig and so you only have a belief about the population.
News to the Poles and the French that Hitler did not want war.
Hitler, like Trump, said a lot of things off the cuff that were not his definitive statement on the matters at hand.
Somehow he changed his mind and decided to invade Poland…
My professor of Japanese History, whose Uncle was present when the Emperor asked that a way to Peace be found said the Russians entering the war along with the Atomic Bombs, led the Emperor to ask for Peace Terms.
If the Iraq’s intended to launch satellites via the cannon, why they would do so is an open question, then they would have had the cannon constructed in Souther Iraq and pointed east, not west, so as to have the greatest chance of putting the
satellite in orbit. Why would Iraq seek out such a method when they were developing long and longer range missiles that could be adapted to launch satellites as India has done ?
Richard Carrier confabulates in order to become well known.
Are you sure that was not Mach that said what you attribute to Planck, or they said two very similar things.
If you wish to believe in the “Chrestus” theory – you are free to do so – but it will never become mainstream.
The evidence is just not there and the history of the Early Church does not support it.
If the transcription is accurate then why didn’t Churchill prepare Hong Kong/Singapore for the oncoming war with
Japan to a better degree ?
“The will is not murky, you have one and you can exercise it…”
More nonsense. I am aware of the evidence that my ability to make choices is limited both by the emergent domain exposed to my awareness by the brain (which nullifies any meaningful expectation of “will”), and by the evidence that, at least at the levels at which we operate, this universe is both fully determinate and ultimately chaotic, which utterly prevents me from doing anything which was not going to happen including through predicting what is going to happen, which means that not only is any notion of “will” incoherent, but that your thinking on this issue is clouded by the beliefs which riddle your thinking.
“As William James said…:”
Not being hag-ridden by the hobgoblins of belief, and being fully aware of the inherent doxastic undecidability of anything of a complexity rising above the level of closed systems of limited applicability, which includes the natural numbers upon which most (perhaps all) science is dependent, I rely on intersubjective verification to reduce error in my thinking over time, rather than delusional logic which can take you anywhere, perhaps especially when propounded by a mystic, and usually is (taken anywhere). Awareness is yet another murky poorly defined concept from a prescientific miasma.
“The experiment(s) you mention are flawed,…”
I did not mention experiments. I mentioned a book and a paper. The book relies on the standard neurological model and a broad range of arguments while the physics is the standard model. Even if you had provided compelling proximal evidence that “the experiments” (which experiments, how do you know) are “flawed”, this would not be the same as showing that our neurological models are invalid. I do not vest “belief” in experiments. I accept that experiments appear to confirm, within the limits of the measurement boundaries established, the consensus neurological model which is that the brain formulates decisions and then justifies those decision to the emergent processes experienced as consciousness. My conclusion is provisional and open to modification based on compelling proximal intersubjectively verifiable evidence from competent sources.
“If you are a free thinker, you are a free thinker, but…”
Bifurcation? I expected better. Again, like Huxley, I reject belief. I can provisionally act on information without verifying it or vesting belief in it. That which contradicts observation is likely wrong. That which does not, may be correct. That lets me act as if it is, without vesting belief in it at all. See how easy it is. Repeating your claim without providing supporting evidence simply makes you look ridiculous. You have provided no evidence that you know more of my mental processes than I do, and until you can, your claim must fail. Even if you point to what I say and do, and go “Ah hah! Caught you behaving as if you have beliefs”, you could still not show that the behavior was ultimately caused by what you term “a belief” (whatever you imagine you mean by that), or some other model, reason or even chance, making it a particularly silly claim to attempt to persist.
“The claim that the Church formulated the Christian faith as most live it today, in the third century is unsupportable. We have the writings of the Early Fathers of the Church…”
More bifurcation? Really? Again, I do not do belief. I do evidence. There are no original writings of the “Early Fathers of the Church” precluding radio-chronological dating or verification that later versions are accurate, except through happy accidents, due to the christers having deliberately eliminated most documents from the era, which is why we have many earlier and later documents, but very little for the critical period, only variants of copies of copies, which show continuous transformation and adaptation. For example, can you cite an example of the critical Pericope Adulterae predating the Codex Bezae? And then the strawman of a medieval forger? What has happened to standards at “Oxford, Cambridge and Stanford?”
“Your statements about the Sinai are laughable as you act as if only Moses and the Children of Abraham went through there some 3500 years ago…”
And you act as if there were not well defined routes across the Sinai, from which most travelers did not deviate – for thousands of years. Where later travelers or development has not obscured their tracks, we can still see the paths – even of individuals deviating from the roads for whatever reasons – and we can date these excursions when they seem interesting. But as Israel Finkelstein (who adduces a lot more evidence to show that Exodus is entirely mythical) observes, if 600 thousand to 2.4 million people had wandered around the Sinai for any time, it would be a miracle if any lichen had been left undamaged. Which is why I alluded to the Hound of the Baskervilles.
“When you dispute someone who lived through the Famine,…”
You bring personal anecdotes and stand them against contemporaneous records? Whatever were they teaching, when you attended “Oxford, Cambridge and Stanford”?
Sure there was a “famine”. That is what happens when you have no rain and no gold, and people with grain will not sell it to you except for gold. That however is not what you objected to, I said, “The Soviet Union did not engage in mass murder in the Ukraine.” and you asserted “”had a Professor who lived though the starvation/genocide in the Ukraine, he would disagree with you.” Without motive, intent and results, a famine is not “mass murder”. In the absence of mens rea and compelling evidence of surplus deaths caused by motivated actions murder is not on the table, and given the relatively few (however nasty) deaths across the entire USSR, with no particularly exceptional number of deaths in the Ukraine, no grounds to invoke “mass murder” at all.
“That does not mean those seeking the State of Israel brought about World War I, but did their best to bring the Americans into the war.”
Did you misunderstand, “Even more recently, the US entered WW I for Israel”?
“No claims, that I am aware of that David and Solomon ruled in 1150 BC.”
Did I claim that they did? I merely cited this to rebut your claim that “the Egyptians exaggerated their claims of territory, victories.” On the other hand, as Finkelstein (supra) notes, “”we still have no hard archaeological evidence–despite the unparalleled biblical description of its grandeur–that Jerusalem was anything more than a modest highland village in the time of David, Solomon, and Rehoboam.”
“Again, archeology in the Middle East…”
An extended phenotype of an argument from personal incredulity somehow mated to a slippery slope? I’m not sure that there is even a name for that. The problem you have is that the magnificent empire described in the bible has vanished, leaving a village behind. Losing a village in the detritus of a city is credible. The reverse, not so much.
Again, I am not relevant to this discussion, and you know nothing about me.
“News to the Poles and the French that Hitler did not want war.”
But not to actual infield historians like Buchanan (supra) or military researchers who have studied the primary sources. Hitler did not expect a war. Poland provided far stronger grounds for Germany to intervene than Germany had had in Silesia (Czechoslovakia), and as history shows, the declaration of war by the UK and France was completely pointless as far as Poland was concerned.
“My professor of Japanese History, whose Uncle was present when the Emperor asked that a way to Peace be found ”
Actually some of the Japanese leaders had intended that from before the war, and others from 1944, when they determined that, as Isoroku Yamamoto had warned, there was no path to victory for Japan.
In any case, as the sources I provided showed, your professor was incorrect. The Japanese noted that many cities had been destroyed, and it was actually argued that the Japanese people would get used to the idea (!). Their deliberations show the use of nuclear weapons was not understood by them as significantly different or germane to the decision taken. That was driven by the fact that the Soviets would be in a position to occupy the Northern island “within ten days”.
“If the Iraq’s intended to launch satellites via the cannon…”
Iraq had just engaged in a brutal war with Iran when satellite imagery would have been invaluable. Bull could put satellites into orbit almost as fast as the special castings could be delivered. The initial cannons were neither designed as weapons against terrestrial targets, nor could they be used as such except with ballistic reentry, as there was no way to elevate the cannons which were far too powerful for anything except fixed mountings. At the time he was murdered, all that had been constructed was a small prototype, with the main cannon under construction intended to fire almost horizontally, in the same way as Bull’s earlier HARP system, due to the challenges involved in dealing with a muzzle longer than 150 meters (over 500 feet). Bull had considered building super-guns, with very large bores and 100m long barrels mounted in turrets to use as as weapons, but they would have had really slow rates of fire and would have been ridiculously easy to identify and destroy, which is probably why they were not even prototyped. Iraq was concerned about the reaction from Iran and the potential loss of payloads to Iran if they fired to the East. Israel also launches rockets to the West so as not to have them shot down. It is after all just 450 m/s or less compared to the 7.5 km/s or greater escape velocity.
“Richard Carrier confabulates in order to become well known”
Another per se defamation. Project much? I am beginning to think that “Oxford, Cambridge and Stanford” might be “confabulat[ion] in order to become well known.”
“Are you sure that was not Mach that said what you attribute to Planck, or they said two very similar things.”
I’m sure. Source is Johann Ambrosius Barth J.A. (1949). Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie. Mit einem Bildnis und der von Max von Laue gehaltenen Traueransprache. Verlag (Leipzig), p. 22,
It is also quoted in Planck M.K., trans. Gaynor F. (1949). Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, Philosophical Publishing (New York) , pp. 33–34 which is cited by Kuhn T. S. (2013-04-30). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press; Fourth edition. Chapter XII – The Resolution of Revolutions.
“If you wish to believe in the “Chrestus” theory – you are free to do so – but it will never become mainstream. The evidence is just not there and the history of the Early Church does not support it.”
Are you sure that you were at “Oxford, Cambridge and Stanford” ? We have the Chrestus Cup “Magician through Chrestus”, from Alexandia harbor, as well as the early altered copies of both Suetoneus (Claudius 25.4) “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome” ( Ultraviolet image showing “alteration” from Chrestianos to Christianos appended)
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31a7f814ffed427199e0698ba4d08c833eca06dc77e8a514bbf46fa04a74ae1b.jpg
And of Tacitus “Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite punishments on a class hated for their disgraceful acts, called Chrestians by the populace. Christ, from whom the name had its origin.” and in any case the jump from Nero to Tiberius and back again has lead to the citation being regarded as an interpolation, rather than a mistaken correction, which my explanation eliminates.
So I rather think that it is your position which is unsupported by evidence. PS The evidence is compelling that there was no “Early Church” (sic) and that as the church emerged, just as today, christers would support any weird notions including the ideas that black is white and up is down.
“If the transcription is accurate then why didn’t Churchill prepare Hong Kong/Singapore for the oncoming war with
Japan to a better degree ?”
The transcription is accurate (the source has a photograph of the original signal tape). The British went to extreme lengths to prevent the Axis powers from learning that they could read their codes, including deliberately allowing vessels to be sunk and vial war factories to be bombed.
.
“Acceptance is an act of the will, not of the intellect”, which explains why religiots accept the existence of the supernatural in the absence of any irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence for doing so.
“… if you are not the original scholar involved in the study, then you just have a belief concerning what they present to their audiences”.
This, obviously, does not apply to you, in your deluded christer’s philosophical theologians’ imagination.
Way to hermit, Hermit…
Blinks.
Wiggles ears.
Absent mindedly scratches you behind the ears.
The public records were still in existence when they wrote all that. They wrote what they saw in those records.
Now to demonstrate that you are not a liar you are required to list these authentic and original 1st century originated “public records” and inform readers of the location in which they are conserved and available for study.
You continually condemn yourself as a LIAR when you make claims you cannot support through evidence.
Shame on you for your dishonesty!
What nonsense. There is nothing factual in the bible
Everything in the bible is factual; you simply don’t wish them to be.
Read your article. See, Jesus is mentioned! The Jewish writings even admit that he performed powerful signs; they simply attributed it to his practicing magic. I had read that decades ago, but could not recall where I did. Many thanks for that link. BTW, did Josephus write that the Christians fled Jerusalem when Cestus Gallus’ forces were routed? Or was that another forgery. When I read that account, I was amazed! That was clear proof that Jesus had given them that instruction.
King’s Cross Station exists. Therefore, according to you, Harry Potter is “real”?
From your inability to comprehend the so-called “bible” I should have expected you to misunderstand my article too. “Jesus” is merely the acronym of a rabbinical curse, “ישו” (“Yeshu”) used in place of a name in some rabbinical writings (and carried over in Latin and Greek transcriptions, sometimes as a marginal gloss). The first prototype appears to be Simon son of Joseph, and the second is Chrestus the Magician, who was still being confused for the Herrodian traitor Saulus’ mythical cosmic-man, Christos, centuries later. Whenever you see “Jesus” or “Christ” or “Christian” before the fourth century, you can be reasonably certain that some later scribe “corrected” an older work on the assumption that this is what must have been meant. See https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/12334 from an actual in-field historian and expert.
Did you mean Cestius Gallus perhaps? There were no christers then, but Josephus did say that “After this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most eminent of the Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when it was going to sink, Costobarus, therefore, and Saul, who were brethren, together with Philip, the son of Jacimus, who was the commander of King Agrippa’s forces, ran away from the city, and went to Cestius.(Josephus Of the War Book 2 Chapter 20 paragraph 1 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/war-2.html). You were probably confused about that too.
Seeing that one prototype was definitely killed between 5 BCE and 15CE, and the other in 59CE, while Cestius Gallus only invested Jerusalem in September 66 CE, you would be as wrong about your “clear proof” as you are about all your other projections and interpolations.
Surprising me again Hermit. I have never suggested anything as what you infer in that 1st sentence. You’re the first atheist to say that i have an inability to comprehend the bible; so far, only theists have told me that 😀
You are very wrong about “Jesus” being merely the acronym of a rabbinical curse, “ישו”. It was a very common name then (probably still is) The edits made by the copyists did not include adding that name. I have seen nothing on which to base that conclusion. I have seen clear evidence of the other edits.
Sorry about that type, I did in fact mean “Cestius Gallus”. The Christian congregation did in fact exist at that time. What evidence do you have that said it did not?
The Christian congregation did abandon the city, however, I would be very surprised if they were the only ones. Sensible Jews would have also done so, having reasoned that the Romans would return and keep coming back until they completely crushed the revolt. To avoid that, the zealots sealed up the city as soon as they returned from chasing out the Romans.
BTW, is the name “Cestius Gallus” chiseled into stone? or did you accept what was written on the historical documents, the copies of which has survived, or do you say that those you read were the original documents?
” I have never suggested anything as what you infer in that 1st sentence.”
When you try to claim this place or these people are real, therefore the so-called bible and all of its magic is real, you are doing exactly what I pointed out. Confusing the part for the whole and asserting that fiction is validated as fact because things mentioned in it can be validated. I’m sure today we can find a child called Harry Potter. Even if he went to Kings Cross Station and stood next to the cart that now appears to protrude into the wall between platforms 9 and 10 for an artfully posed photograph, it would no more confirm the veracity of the magical Harry Potter of the famous books, than a late 1st century BCE rebel named Simon, bastard son of Joseph, or mid 1st century CE rebel called Chrestus, can possibly validate a magical character, even if the people lived in a real place called the Palestine, Simon’s parents featured in the fictional stories, and the stories about the former were borrowed for the latter and set in the same locations. Even if the people who wrote and vested belief in the fiction expended enormous efforts in the succeeding millennia in attempting to obliterate any contradictory evidence.
I am not wrong about “Jesus”. Refer my monograph where this is discussed at length and with references.
Christianity is a much later invention. At this time the head of the “church” in Jerusalem was “James the Brother of Our Lord”. He was only assassinated in 62 or 69 CE. The “church” which referred to itself as “the Society of the Poor (in Spirit)”, to which James and Simon son of Joseph belonged, was indubitably as zealous as they come. Indeed, they self identified as such, being “Zealous for the Law (And the Law was of Moses)” Again, see my monograph or refer to Robert Eisenman’s extensive works on this issue.
There is no reason to doubt Cestius Gallus, whose name, as a suffect consul, is in fact chiseled in stone. More importantly, unlike the so-called “Jesus”, he did not have armies of authors and editors making up, modifying, and suppressing stories about him for the next millennium or so, to suit the needs of the day.
You are indeed wrong about Jesus, but perfectly correct about, the “. . . armies of authors and editors making up, modifying, and suppressing
stories about him for the next millennium or so, to suit the needs of
the day.” That last fact however is not evidence that he never existed.
https://religionpoisons.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/480034_342051569209203_1479475788_n.jpg?w=640&h=427
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So what am I wrong about?
so… “justice is inherently exclusive (i.e., evil, etc.); therefore, the Gospel is exclusive,” eh?
aren’t you just using “social justice” the same way the fundies you criticize use doctrine?
Republicans: “Democrats deserve Hell!”
Democrats: “Republicans deserve Hell!”
Jesus: “I’m the only one who *doesn’t* deserve Hell, but I died to make my enemies into family.”
The Gospel is good news for everyone who knows they need mercy.
It’s bad news for everyone prideful enough to think they can do it themselves – left, right or in between.
The Epistle to Hebrews 9:11 But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
The Epistle to Hebrews 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
And the others answered: “We all do the laws of Moses, our lawgiver, even as they are written in the holy scriptures.”
And Jesus answered: “Seek not the law in your scriptures, for the law is life, whereas the scripture is dead. I tell you truly, Moses received not his laws from God in writing, but through the living word. The law is living word of living God to living prophets for living men. In everything that is life is the law written. You find it in the grass, in the tree, in the river, in the mountain, in the birds of heaven, in the fishes of the sea; but seek it chiefly in yourselves. For I tell you truly, all living things are nearer to God than the scripture which is without life. God so made life and all living things that they might by the everlasting word teach the laws of the true God to man. God wrote not the laws in the pages of books, but in your heart and in your spirit. They are in your breath, your blood, your bone; in your flesh, your bowels, your eyes, your ears, and in every little part of your body. They are present in the air, in the water, in the earth, in the plants, in the sunbeams, in the depths and in the heights. They all speak to you that you may understand the tongue and the will of the living God. But you shut your eyes that you may not see, and you shut your ears that you may not hear. I tell you truly, that the scripture is the work of man, but life and all its hosts are the work of our God. Wherefore do you not listen to the words of God which are written in His works? And wherefore do you study the dead scriptures which are the work of the hands of men?”
“How may we read the laws of God elsewhere than in the scriptures? Where are they written? Read them to us from there where you see them, for we know nothing else but the scriptures which we have inherited from our forefathers. Tell us the laws of which you speak, that hearing them we may be healed and justified.”
Jesus said: “You do not understand the words of life, because you are in death. Darkness darkens your eyes and your ears are stopped with deafness. For I tell you, it profits you not at all that you pore over dead scriptures if by your deeds you deny him who has given you the scriptures.
I tell you truly, God and his laws are not in that which you do. They are not in gluttony and in wine-bibbing, neither in riotous living, nor in lustfulness, nor in seeking after riches, nor yet in hatred of your enemies. For all these things are far from the true God and from his angels. But all these things come from the kingdom of darkness and the lord of all evils. And all these things do you carry in yourselves; and so the word and the power of God enter not into you, because all manner of evil and all manner of abominations have their dwelling in your body and your spirit. If you will that the living God’s word and his power may enter you, defile not your body and your spirit; for the body is the temple of the spirit, and the spirit is the temple of God. Purify, therefore, the temple, that the Lord of the temple may dwell therein and occupy a place that is worthy of him.
“And from all temptations of your body and your spirit, coming from Satan, withdraw beneath the shadow of God’s heaven.”
Jesus Christ, from the “Essene Gospel of Peace, Book One” unearthed in Palestine in 1948, along with the dead sea scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank. The elimination of many Christian books occurred during the meeting of the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, thus determining the context of the official “New Testament.” Then also began the inquisition to eliminate all possible opposition and to burn all the so-called blasphemous books known as apocrypha. Original Hebrew and Aramaic texts translated and edited by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely. They remain the oldest untouched copies of Christs original and most intimate teachings, and the Hebrew Torah. Palestinians are currently seeking to get them back from Israeli custody.
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That is an excellent example of your religious bigotry- nothing but ridicule and mockery. The truth is God is the same yesterday, today and forever.
You still have not come up with an intersubjectively verifiable attribute to qualify your non-omnipotent goddities* as god thingies. I don’t care what you believe about your imaginary thingies, whatever they are, I am only speaking to the stories about god thingies recorded in the bible.
Your problem is that the above is a perfectly valid characterization of the biblical fables, and you know it. So you are reduced to waving your hands and shrieking, rather than attempting to explain why it is invalid. You are confirm that your cognitive dissonance is so overwhelming that you cannot even consider how to attempt to address the fact that what I have said is a perfectly legitimate synopsis.
*Aside from any other limitations, you have established that they are not naïvely “omnipotent” (whatever you may mean by that) as previously claimed, by asserting that they are incapable of cooperative “omnipotence”.
No Christian that I know says, “that the God of the New Testament is completely different than the God of the Old..”
The truth is that the Old Testament is outfolded in the New Testament, and the New Testament is infolded in the Old Testament. The entire Old and New can be summarized as this: God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. It is a complete narrative from beginning to end. It is not an instruction manual, but a book of revelation of what God wants us to know.
We both agreed that “omnipotent” means the ability to do anything at all.
Given that definition, it is logically impossible for there to be any more that ONE omnipotent being because the presence of any alleged “omnipotent being” would limit the power of the other and vise versa. There could be two powerful beings, but neither would be omnipotent.
The God of the Bible created all things from absolutely nothing. God says that He is the All-Mighty.
And you have now asserted that your concept of omnipotence for your goddities precludes sharing capability, therefore your god thingies are not omnipotent in the sense originally agreed, and therefore your goddities are shown, by your own statements, not to be omnipotent and therefore not even worth of being regarded as deities.
Is it really beyond your capability to understand the difference between a “powerful” being and an “all-powerful” being?
is it really beyond your capability to understand that there is no practical difference between an imaginary, undetected and undetectable being and a non-existent one?
https://godless.no/wp-content/uploads/Atheist.jpg
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Given that atheists operate at best on a 6th grade level, it is no wonder that conceptualization is beyond their capabilities. They are stuck at that learning phase between what to think and how to think.
Conceptualisation is one thing, but reification is another, more difficult, exercise!
You have got it backwards because all things are not necessarily material, manchild.
Thank you so much for once again demonstrating the puerile and risible level at which you (and most ignorant arrogant religionists) operate.
This further demonstration of the effect of indoctrination upon the ignorant and the gullible was superfluous as it has been evident within every meaningless and logic, reason and evidence devoid attempt at ad hominem against those who continually confuse, confound and humiliate you.
You are stuck in the twilight zone of indoctrination that blocks you from thinking at all about the garbage you recycle but can never validate, justify, defend or excuse.
Thanks also for the demonstration that it’s really beyond your capability to understand that there is no practical difference between an imaginary, undetected and undetectable being and a non-existent one.
Please keep up this pathetic behavior. You are probably doing as much good as Dawkins in attracting attention to the risible and pathetic nature of religionism.
Is it really beyond your capability to understand that if something cannot do something then it is not omnipotent in the sense of being able to do anything.
The absurdity of your retorts is exceeded only by the exuberance of your intellectual dishonesty, hermit.
Again, you sling another paradox which does nothing but declare yourself to be a sore loser. God is omnipotent which means he can do anything at all. But he ain’t stupid.
Oh – the irony!
Your ridiculous recycled claims regarding childish superstitions, myths legends and lies are confounded by two words:
PROVE IT!
Talk about a “sore loser”.
Your bunkum is constantly debunked and your humiliation made complete. Only your pathetic level of ignorance and egotism blinds you to that self evident fact.
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What is there to prove? You have already rejected it.
“Egotism” is another word you should study up on. Maybe you are projecting since you have wasted your mind.
How does one reject a proof that has never been proffered?
Now you are just lying to yourself. The Bible has the answer that you are looking for. Get a good teacher.
Where is the evidence/proof you claim exists? In the absence of such proof/evidence from you, that makes you the liar.
The so-called ‘bible’ is not the answer to anything pertaining to reality. Quoting the ‘bible’ is merely committing the fallacy of the circular argument, since it cannot be used to confirm anything it makes claims about. Hence the need for the external evidence/proof that you have failed to adduce in support of your persistent claims.
What is “reality”?
You are going to die. That is a fact. The promise is eternal life for those who trust in the Lord.
A lot of the things prophesied in the Bible have come to pass. There still remains much that is yet to come.
You can either wait to die to see if any of it is true, but I am afraid it may be too late at that point.
Or, you can jump on board and live a life of faith. The choice is yours.
The reality is the fact that you have been unable to provide a shred of irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence for the real existence of your puny ‘god’. That is the elephant in the room.
The fact that you refuse to accept the possibility of the supernatural limits your understanding of reality.
The fact that you continue to ridicule and mock that which you don’t understand makes you a punk.
Produce the irrefutable evidence, as requested several times now.
Read any of your posts. You are a punk.
???
In a universe that will end, the “promise” of eternity is a lie. To an entity like a human, dependent on aa functionin brain for existence, a “promise” of a “life” divorced from that brain is a lie. I would say, You’ve been had”, only you have already proved that you vest no confidence in these lies.
So in what kind of a psychotic position are you left?
What is there to prove?
Everything that may contradict the charge that all religions are fraudulent and that there is no evidence of the existence of any and all the millions of undetected and undetectable gods and goddesses so profitably sold to the ignorant and the gullible by the oily tongued and dishonest employees of all the vile and anti-humanitarian businesses of religion.
I reject nothing, son. I have been offered nothing tangible and evidence supported to reject.
Your infantile beliefs are known, understood and rejected on the grounds that they are baseless and that you cannot validate, justify, support or excuse those ridiculous beliefs.
Get back to me with authentic and verifiable evidence of more than the fact that you have been brainwashed to believe nonsense – and we can interact based upon that.
Thanks for this further demonstration of mindless denial however. It may help those not so profoundly ignorant and deeply indoctrinated as you continually demonstrate yourself to be.
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Given that I am fully aware that the very idea of god thingies is incoherent and that all of them are imaginary, I did not say that god thingies are anything at all. That is your insane prevarication. It is the people who imagine god thingies that appear to be stupid. Some are even stupid enough to assert naïve omnipotence and immediately contradict themselves.
Given that you are fully aware and content with the idea of eternal nothingness, you are to be pitied. Your level of indoctrination is so ingrained that you have wasted your mind.
There is no eternal. Our universe had its start when strain energy was released by a gravitational fluctuation some 13.82 nillion years ago, and will end when the last matter evaporates and energy is expended some 200 google years from now. For most of its existence, the universe will not support anything like human life. And either everything we know about physics is wrong, or there are no souls, ghosts, zombies, disembodied consciousness or other “supernatural” or “paranormal” effects. See e.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ghosts-brian-cox-large-hadron-collider-cern-real-truth-standard-model-physics-a7598026.html.
You are too delusional or stupid to accept this well supported evidence, which leaves you looking ridiculous as you flap your gums and hands with no visible means of support.
The truth is – that there is no evidence of the existence of any/all the millions of undetected and undetectable gods and goddesses.
For the prime example of religiot ignorance and bigotry, look in a mirror Ed Senter…
If you were indeed capable of rational thought, an intelligent person would at least wonder about an afterlife. As any educated person would know, there is more that we don’t know than what we know.
The Bible is evidence of God. Whether or not you understand what is written, says more about you than it.
Intelligent people, even “true Scotsmen”, know that “afterlife” is nonsense. Death is irreversible.
Not knowing everything is not the same as not knowing anything, neither would it imply that what is known is probably or even possibly wrong. Indeed, when delusional people, such as you, bring up ideas which are incompatible with what is already known, then sensible people, such as almost everyone here, discount their nonsense, precisely because it does conflict with what is already known
Just as the Harry Potter series are proof that somebody wrote something, the Bible is the same, although the Harry Potter books are more coherent, tell a better story and are much better written
Sure. And A Midsummer Night’s Dream is evidence that Oberon and Titania were king and queen of the fairies.
An intelligent person would at least wonder why there is no evidence of the existence of any of the millions of undetected and undetectable gods and goddesses and why no historical evidence supports the diverse and very different, confused and contradictory, historically unsupported, historically inaccurate and scientifically absurd content of any of the different christian bibles fabricated by men since the oldest/first prototypes appeared in the late 4th century.
The many diverse and different bibles contain the evidence of their human fabrication – nothing more.
http://www.ancientpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/oldestbiblelent3.jpg
Yet, what you call “the many diverse and different bibles”, everyone of them proclaim the basic tenets:
1. God = All-Mighty Supreme Being (I am), therefore, there is only one true God.
2. God was in Christ (Jehovah = to reveal) reconciling the world to Himself.
The Bible is not an instruction manual. The Bible is God’s word revealed. The fact that there are minor discrepancies between diverse writers over centuries of time attest to their authenticity.
Does the fact that the so called “bible” is a steaming mound of manure also “attest to their authenticity” in your opinion? Did I miss where you explained why your opinion in this matter, unlike all others, should be regarded as significant?
I don’t know why some get it and others don’t. 99% of Christendom don’t get it. They are what’s called enculturated Christians.
I have a great teacher. And, I continue to learn everyday. If you put a straight stick next to a crooked stick, you can tell the difference IF you are intellectually honest.
I have debunked all of your objections, so far. You are as crooked as they come, hermit.
You are a delusional nut, and practically everyone here is aware of it. You project a lot and have “debunked” nothing. So far all your bloviation has accomplished is to make you a laughingstock while showing that your goddities do not even deserve to be considered deities.
If there is a God, your opinion about “deserving” to be a deity just reveals how muddled your thinking is.
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Yes, I know that your opinions are based on regurgitations of fools like Harris and Dawkins.
My opinions are based upon my own research and the actual evidence that exists.
I leave it to lazy religionists to base their enslavement to lies upon the opinions and imagination of other people.
You appear to have chosen unwisely.
You just posted a meme from Sam Harris regurgitating Epicurus; therefore, you are a liar.
Thank you for demonstrating that you have no answer to, or refutation of, the wisdom of Epicurus and Sam Harris.
http://www.logicandlight.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Epicurus.jpg
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You are a liar because you claim that you think for yourself yet demonstrate routinely how indoctrinated you really are.
Harris like Epicurus start from false premises on the meaning of good and evil, then claim because God does not conform to their indefinite meanings of good and evil, God is either evil or not omnipotent. That premise false flat on its face.
The truth is:
Omnipotence means unlimited power.
God is omnipotent.
Good and evil are subjective value judgments.
If there is an objective meaning to a value judgment, it takes power to make it so. (Might makes Right).
Therefore, whatever God does is good.
How could any supposed ‘god’ be omnipotent if it cannot eradicate evil from the world?
Can you not read my post?
What do you mean by good and evil?
Your pathetic condition of indoctrination and denial is once again noted.
If your pathetic god exists, it will need to beg forgiveness it does not deserve.
Thank goodness such a vile, hate filled, cruel and murderous thing is only a figment of the imagination of idiots and barbarians.
Ha! Not one word of rebuttal…
What is good and evil?
It must be a figment of your imagination based upon your pathetic condition of indoctrination and denial.
You offer no evidence for rebuttal.
The poison of religion is being eradicated by the antidote of education and free, secular democracy.
Good is that which does no harm and evil is religion.
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You are a self evident fantasist and you lie when you claim to have debunked anything that has in fact debunked your bunkum.
Game set and match to the Hermit once again it appears…
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You are a self-evident nihilist who believes contradiction is the same as argument. Ha!
Oh dear. Is that the very best you have on offer?
You have demonstrated that you mistake opinion for evidence and recycled indoctrination for argument.
Denial is not rebuttal.
Error 1: Demanding scientific proof for the supernatural.
Error 2: Rejecting the written word.
Your errors prove that you are indoctrinated…
You major error is mistaking propaganda for evidence.
There is no evidence of the existence of “Jesus” or any of the content of the legends that were written by teams and generations of men starting centuries after the time in which those confused and contradictory legends are set.
Your blanket and mindless denial is pitiful and anything you write that does not begin with:
“Here is the evidence of the existence of “Jesus”…”
And include:
“… and here is the location within which that evidence is conserved…”
..is worthless recycled propaganda and pathetic denial.
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1) A common theme for most gods and many goddesses and nothing unique or original regarding the originally Canaanite god “Yahweh”. The men who invented the Judaeo-christian religions followed an well established format for the successful attainment of power of riches from the ignorant and the gullible. The significant differences between the oldest 4th century fabricated christian bibles (Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus) and between those early prototypes and later human authored bibles remain for all to observe and as a condemnation of the obscenely wealthy and corrupt institutions of religion that have profited so much from spreading the lies you so glibly recycle but cannot validate, justify or excuse.
2) There is evidence of the existence of a few messiahs (“christs” as the Greeks coined that word) between Circa 6BCE and Circa 140 CE. “Yeshua/Jesus” is not mentioned among them in any text, letter, inscription or graffito. The diverse and different, confused and contradictory later written legends of “Jesus” are pathetic in themselves.
You once again reference “The Bible” but do not reveal which version and upon what evidence you consider that version credible over all other different versions?
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The truth about faith defined: Faith is an ACTION based upon BELIEF and sustained by CONFIDENCE.
Given that definition, you can’t exist without faith. Your only choice is the object of your faith. When the object of your faith is God’s word, that is Christianity. Faith operates in spite of the circumstances. Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. When the thing hoped for becomes fact, faith is no longer in operation because that is truth.
I don’t care which version of the Bible you read. I say read them all. Because if you can’t “rightly divide” the word of God, you ain’t going to get it anyway. Jesus did not come to save the world. He came to provide the way to eternal life. Jesus is and has always been the way to eternal life. The choice is yours- believe or not believe. Without faith it is impossible to please God. God is calling some out of the world.
“Faith is an ACTION based upon BELIEF and sustained by CONFIDENCE”, you claim. but not a word about EVIDENCE!
‘Faith’ is a mindset, contingent upon indoctrination, such that the credulous, willing, ‘believer’ may be induced to believe anything, no matter how absurd, as you have abundantly illustrated.
You are standing at point A. You desire to get to point B. What do you call the act of getting in a car in the hope that you will reach your destination of point B? That is called faith, blockhead.
What exactly is absurd about hoping for an afterlife?
What is truly absurd is proclaiming that you know with 100% certainty that there is no afterlife.
Cars exist and no faith (imagination/indoctrination/brainwashing) is required for the expectation that a well maintained car will complete any particular journey.
You are the self evidently a simple minded and delusional “blockhead”.
Thank you!
Keep up the good work in attracting attention to the ridiculous nature or religion and the stupidity of religionists. You may be doing more that all the pedophile priests and dishonest sybaritic preachers in provoking folk to recognise the truth that already lead one third of the human demographic to atheism with more following every day.
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A wish is dreaming about winning the lottery.
A belief is the lottery will pay millions of dollars to the winner.
Faith is actually buying a ticket.
I don’t think you are smart enough to get it.
Logically, there can only be one All-Mighty Supreme Being. Just like the Bible proclaims.
So, I don’t concern myself with the many “false” gods, or the anthropomorphic gods of human fabrication, or the collective consciousness of those who wish to be a god.
But you have already proved, repeatedly, that your goddities are not actually omnipotent (in the form defined here as being capable of doing anything), and so are not qualified as god thingies by the one criteria you asserted for them. You have failed to provide any intersubjectively verifiable attributes for your goddities, despite repeated challenges. You have failed to show any entities possess the quality of omnipotence despite repeated challenges, and you have failed to provide any that your god thintersubjecively evidenceverifiable test that could support the idea of o nipotence as not being imaginary.
You also appear to be ignorant of Akhenaten who worshipped an worshiped only the sun god, Aten, an “All-Mighty Supreme Being” (with added kefalalia, just like your goddities), centuries before the Greeks persuaded the Hebrews to rewrite their scriptures with a single god thingie. By your argument, the existence of Attention precludes the Hebrew god thingie from existing in anything but imaginary form.
Finally, if logic, in the absence of evidence can be used to prove things, then the followings statement, true in all the logics capable of expressing it, leaves your goddities where they belong.
“If this sentence is true then all god thingies are imaginary.”
Faith is pretending to yourself that the expected value of buying a ticket in a lottery is greater than the cost of the ticket (it is not).
Faith is invariably pretending to know something that you do not or cannot know.
So cunning, hermit. You are not smart enough to get it.
Faith has nothing to do with the economy of the action. Faith is simply the action. For faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things unseen. Once the unseen hoped for thing becomes fact, faith ceases.
Still obviously pretending. Still obviously lying.
Religious faith is a delusion based upon indoctrination and sustained by myths and lies.
Thank you for so consistently confirming that already self evident fact.
Sorry, that is not a “self-evident fact”. It is merely your opinion based on indoctrination and caricatures and is devoid of reason.
If you do not seek, you will find nothing.
I have been a seeker for several decades and I have discovered (beyond much doubt) that there is really NOTHING to find.
Millions of undetected and undetectable nonexistent gods and goddesses.
Confused and contradictory fiction and fables supported by not one single shred of actual evidence.
Testimony of the indoctrinated that indicates only the fact of their indoctrination and nothing more.
Thank you for so consistently confirming these already self evident facts.
Your evidence free and reason devoid opinion is noted however…
What is truly unreasonable is your indoctrinated belief “that there is really NOTHING to find.” No intelligent person would say such a thing. You prove the statement that “only a fool says there is no God.”
The Bible is evidence of a Supreme All-Mighty Being. Even if there were no Bible, I would at least leave open the possibility of something beyond this material existence.
There have been an almost endless stream of diverse and very different human authored bibles that have been written by men since the prototypes (Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus) first appeared in the late 4th century.
All the different bibles are evidence only of the duplicity and imagination of men. Although we do not know the names of the four authors of the Codex Sinaiticus (published online since 2008) – we do know them by the different handwriting styles of the three principal scribes and the forth that added to and erased from their work and added some sections of his own.
All bibles are self evidently to work of delusional and/or dishonest MEN.
For those who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God, there are some very uncomfortable questions to answer. Codex Sinaiticus shows there have been thousands of alterations to today’s bible.
The Codex Sinaiticus is probably the oldest Bible. It also has books which are missing from the Authorised Version that most Christians are familiar with today – and it does not have crucial verses relating to the Resurrection.
In addition to the thousands of discrepancies, the Codex contains two extra books in the “New Testament”.
One is the little-known “Shepherd of Hermas”, the other, the Epistle of Barnabas. The prototype bible contains subsequently deleted anti-Semitic kindling ready to be lit. “His blood be upon us,” Barnabas has the Jews cry.
So WHICH version of human authored bible do you consider to be valid and upon what EVIDENCE do you claim it’s validity?
The proclamation that you personally buy into the garbage within one version of so many different versions of bible has no more validity than the fact that a rapidly declining number of similarly brainwashed folk share your belief in human contrived myths and legends.
“Even if there were no Bible, I would at least leave open the possibility of something beyond this material existence.?
Any and all of the millions of undetected and undetectable gods and goddesses among which yours is lost?
Leprechauns?
Ghosts?
Goblins?
Fairies?
Santa and the Tooth Fairy?
Have you no idea how ridiculous your claims appear?
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I do not practice bibliolatry. I do not believe that “the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God”. The King James was not handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai. However, I do believe that the Bible contains the word of God. The Bible is not an instruction manual. The Bible reveals God. So I compare scripture with scripture.
I don’t need to worry about all of these “other” deities. Because logically there can be only one All-Mighty Supreme Being. Just like the Bible proclaims.
There is nothing ‘logical’ about believing in any imaginary supernatural entity in the absence of any irrefutable evidence for its actual existence.
If you believe in just one supposed ‘god’, for example, what criteria do you use to deny the existence of all the others?
More tosh.
Given that we all know that fish, guests and corpses stink after three days, why would anyone consider an “afterlife” whatever you might imagine that to be? Any “educated person” should know that life is an energy dependent emergent process . When the body stops producing energy, the processes stop. When the cessation of the emergent processes of life is irreversible, then life has ended. Nothing to “wonder” about unless you are only half-educated and filled with delusional bronze age superstitions.
The so called “bible” is a book. That is actually what “bible” means. A book is only evidence that some human wrote something. For anything other than that, a book is not evidence. And the “bible” is full of half-baked idiocy.
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“And the “bible” is full of half-baked idiocy.” Can you please give us your best example?
The idea of supposedly all powerful ethical god thingies requiring a substitutionary human sacrifice in order to allow themselves to forgive the supposed descendants of imaginary ancestors set-up by the same god thingies so that it can love these humans so much that those that do not love them back can be tortured forever – in a finite universe.
One could go on, but that would be gilding the lilly.
what if the idea is a mentallity? Like you can either have a mind full of positive thoughts (or majority of positive thoughts) or a mind of negative thoughts. I personally do not recognize as heaven or hell as physical places but mental states
Like all religiots, you have invented a private interpretation, a little more select tive, a lot less literal, but still not founded in anything meaningful. When you take the next step and recognize that you’re making it all up as you go along anyway, so you might as well establish your own ethically based worldview that matches what we understand about the universe, you’ll find that you can abandon the bizarre trappings of ancient religions.
the idea of nothing becoming something is very mind boggling to me. It is a very strange phenomenon if proven to be true some day. I highly respect the words of wisdom the books provide. I enjoy taking a piece from all religions because they all tend to lead to the same source. A sense of moral values and the effort to keep your mind on the side of peace. Its quite powerful. Especially those who are mentally abused or suffering from childhood or adulthood experiences.
Nothing becomes something continuously everywhere . See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle.
I’m talking about “God”
Why on Earth would you be doing such a stupid thing? What is a “god” anyway? What intersubjectively verifiable attributes are sufficient and necessary to qualify a thing as a God thingie?
and you posted an article about something creating something. not nothing creating something. so you did a oopsy and accidently contradicted yourself
Creationists insist that nothing created something from nothing.
I did not address “creation”. I pointed out that your use of words you do not comprehend, is leading you to assume things not in evidence.
Lol but you did address creation by saying “nothing comes from something continuously” which makes absolutely zero logical sense
I responded to your assertion, “the idea of nothing becoming something is very mind boggling to me”, by pointing out that “Nothing becomes something continuously everywhere”. Let me try to simplify the underlying physics down to middle-school accessible words, so far as this is possible.
What is left when you remove everything, including space-time? “Nothing”. If “nothing” has any meaning at all, this is it. Absolute nothingness. This absolute nothingness would violate uncertainty, because the energy level of “nothing” would be absolutely known to be zero. So in this nothingness, particle-anti-particle pairs instantiate and self-immolate on a continuous basis. In some models of physics, this is known as the “flux”. The flux is not actually a thing and is not part of any universe. It is a necessary component of the background mathematical reality in which the multiverse exists, and which we perceive as uncertainty. Nevertheless, like much of modern physics, while outside day-to-day human experience, it was predicted by quantum physics, was modeled, searched for, finally detected and has now been measured and characterized using multiple indirect approaches. Sometimes, when particle-anti-particle pairs instantiate, these “virtual particles”, so called because they exist for a statistically indeterminate period usually less than Planck-time, meaning that they do not exist long enough to influence things around them, potentially last a little longer, which causes a gravitational fluctuation. In the absence of existing space-time this might result in the release of strain or vacuum energy, causing a big bang and the instantiation of a temporary phenomenon which we call a universe. When the energy released in its instantiation is completely redistributed, restoring the vacuum energy, the universe will evaporate, having leaving nothing behind, not even regrets, having used no net energy over its entire existence. Until then, parasitic noise can happen assisting entropy, and we perceive this as the beautiful complexity of galaxies, stars, planets, whales, petunias, people, viruses and quantum physics. Every particle ever examined, conforming to its Feynman integral of occupying all possible configuration,s in all possible locations, at all possible times, from infinite negative to infinite positive time, fully confirms this model.
No “creation” needed. No intent. No knowledge. No skill. No action. No position available for a “creator”, or indeed, for a “destroyer”. Simply a mathematical dance in at least 11 dimensions.
I’m prepared to make bets that it is beyond your understanding, but that doesn’t mean that it makes any sense to call this description of what, to the best of our ability to discern and describe underlies all experience everywhere, “god”, simply because you lack the mental capacity to follow those who do, anymore than it makes any sense to refer to those performing conjuring tricks at children’s parties sorcerers because you cannot understand how their tricks are performed, or to visualize hard-working, hammer-wielding, thunder-monsters simply because you can’t begin to understand the effects of lightning on the atmosphere. It just makes you look like an uneducated primitive mangling words and sense.
Grab a physics book and read instead. That way it will at least appear as if you are trying to wriggle out of intellectual squalor into the light. There are many great accessible works written for the general public. I recommend Krausse L.M. (2012).A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing; Hawking S. Mlodinow L. (2010) The Grand Design; Carroll S. (2016). The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself; and, Hawking S. (2018), Brief Answers to the Big Questions which, in addition to physics, cosmology and extinction, addresses the fact that “Belief in the afterlife is just wishful thinking,” and that there is “no possibility” of god thingies. So much for that.
I’m not claiming evidence. It is an observation. Something nobody is able to currently refute only debate
What “observation”?
An observation, if proximal and cogent may be “evidence”, and it is compelling evidence that makes debate superfluous. So far all I see is somebody waving their hands and waffling about a non-existent special kind of “nothing” not observed anywhere, and not apparently theoretically possible given our comprehensive understanding of physics based on observation at the human scale.
You might find that changing my mind is challenging in the absence of strong evidence.
If i were trying to change your mind I would be speaking to you in an entirely different way. Just seeing how much you really know. I like your information.
You said “Nothing becomes something continuously everywhere” . How does nothing create something. When nothing cannot create something because it doesnt exist. It has to be something creating something. And in the beginning nothing created something. Aka God or whatever it may be
I provided the supporting information. The flux continuously fluctuates. One way to regard this is as the continuous production of particles and antiparticles. We can (and have) observed this. The problem is not that this happens, and happens continuously (and can be responsible for the instantiation of universes), the problem is that you don’t comprehend that it is an unexeptional background process, and not “creation” which requires intent.
Correction: the problem is that flux is something and not nothing. So something came from something. Contradicting what you are saying to me. But that is some cool stuff to read. I like it
You are defining some kind of imaginary ideal Platonic “nothing” that does not exist, that has additional unspecified requirements beyond what remains when everything else is removed. That is up to you, but you should not expect the metaverse to comport to the limitations of your imagination or anyone else to respect your non-articulated, but apparently idiosyncratic ideation.
Addressed below.
The trouble remains that you do not understand “nothing”.
Just like quantum mechanics can not be explained using classical physics, yet, you insist that the supernatural must be explained by materialistic means. It is no wonder that the hermit is a pseudo-intellect- all superficial with no substance.
When all the humans who wrote the books of the Bible, wrote such things at different times and under different conditions, and they all focus in on the same thing -eternal life- an intelligent person investigates. The only intelligent conclusion is- there is a God-the All-Mighty Supreme Being.
The mind is a terrible thing to waste- hermit has wasted theirs.
The fact that you have no idea how you could determine if a thing were a god thingie, or even if a thing were one of your god thingies rather some other god thingies means that all your bloviation about your god thingies are as completely meaningless as your bloviation about me.
The fact that hermit has no idea why they exist, yet they think they exist, but maybe they are just a holograph that reverts back to meaningless non-existence…I tell you, it boggles the mind!
Ha!
I exist because I exist.
I think I exist because I can think.
Any Turing capable machine can perform any operation, including thinking, that can be performed by any Turing capable machine.
A cellular automaton is a Turing machine.
In any suitably complex environment, where self-organizing automata are possible, self-organizing automata will necessarily arise.
In the absence of evidence of contradiction, we cannot discriminate between models except on an aesthetic basis.
We have no evidence that we are not Turing machines.
You are still talking nonsense about things you do not begin to comprehend.
Now that is an example of tautology. Ha!
Yes, hermit, you are indeed a robot- programmed to compute and spew that which you have been fully indoctrinated in what to think.
However, you also fully lack the capacity in how to think, that is, to simply ask the question why? (By which you have so adroitly proclaimed, “philosophy is dead”. Ha!)
The nice thing about tautology is that tautologies are simply formula or assertions that are true in every possible interpretation. So a declaration like the above, of tautological propositional variables connected by logical connectives, can be constructed such that the accuracy of the overall proposition is provable (and in this case, evident). Which leaves you with nothing to do but wave your hands and demonstrate (again) your unfamiliarity with formal logic, by bleating. “tautology”, as if this were some kind of meaningful rebuttal.
Your vociferate spouting is contradicted by what others can perceive for themselves, again relegating you to the midden of muddled metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.
As far as philosophy is concerned, I simply passed on the joyous news, first introduced by Wittgenstein, upon which many others have propounded, that philosophy, is indubitably as dead as the god thingies addressed by Nietzsche. As with all your other foot-stamping, arm-waving performance art, you have utterly failed to support your objections. You are so reliable at this that I have no expectation you will ever change.
I think, therefore, I am.
Now that is a meaningful statement distinguished from your nonsense.
Philosophy is the study of meanings. To say that it is dead (something you probably misinterpreted) is to say that there is no meaning. How sad.
What strange punctuation!
‘Cogito ergo sum’ is the proper quote from Descartes. ‘Faceo ergo sum’ would have made more sense.
Although some philosophers have considered ‘thinking’ to be an action, nevertheless, any cabbage could sit in the corner cogitating without doing anything to confirm that he/she exists in the world in any meaningful way.
Do you realize, old man, that you have proffered absolutely nothing intelligent to any conversation that I have seen?
What a bunch of do-do.
P.S. All the above are tautologies, and vastly superior to “I think, therefore, I am”, which includes unstated assumptions.
I think you will find that most philosophers will continue to regard Wittgenstein as more significant and infinitely smarter than yourself, no matter how passionately you attempt to defend their long deceased field.
Again, I think that you have indeed misinterpreted Wittgenstein and philosophy.
Perhaps you should head Wittgenstein’s rebuke about ” the temptation to think of God’s existence as a matter of scientific evidence.”
What baffles me, hermit, is your zeal for ridicule and mockery about things you do not understand.
The thing is the mockery is attracted to ridiculous nonsense that we do understand.
https://godless.no/wp-content/uploads/Atheist.jpg
Oh, the irony- a nihilist trying to be a bully.
You appear to have nothing to say – but keep on saying it.
By all means get back to me if you ever have anything interesting, evidence supported and rational to offer.
Your childish garbage is further evidence of your ignorance and gullibility.
I have said more in one post than all of the garbage you have posted.
Your ignorance is only exceeded by your arrogance, Ed.
Your pathetic assumptions remain debunked bunkum.
It is you who is ignorant because you ignore the evidence before your eyes.
How strange for you to claim that any of it has been “debunked” since eternal life is yet to come.
Our hope is the eternal life yet to come. What is definite is death. Since you are so sure of and have settled for death means you are the arrogant one. We shall see, won’t we.
Please supply the ‘ignored evidence’ you refer to, and thus prove that you are not a deluded, superstitious, moron once and for all.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SLVOq77YxcI/WdD49ptS1SI/AAAAAAAAlOs/FqEnF3E72zoc4HIK4i_jqfQAVYLOGvclACJoC/w1435-h1221/20171001_101457.png
The last two are wrong.
Faith based on evidence is often not called faith; that is an inaccurate view. Every scientific theory is faith based on evidence. Any that is proved true is either called either “law” or “fact”. Some theories even contradict each other, but we still exercise faith in them. For instance, the quantum theory contradicts the theory of relativity, but we still exercise faith in both.
The fact that you don’t understand that theories have domains of applicability and require no “faith”, but either work (make competent predictions within their domains of applicability), or do not, once again highlights your total incompetence in anything related to science.
The only definition of “faith” that applies to all instances is that “faith is pretending to know things that you do not know, or even cannot know”. There is absolutely no exception where another word is not a better fit.
Got that wrong; there is more than one definition of faith. The definition I refer to amounts to “trust”. Check every dictionary and you will see “trust” as one of the definitions. Example : https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/faith
Now please explain why you imagine that substituting “pretending to know things that you do not know, or even cannot know” for “faith” will change the meaning of any sentence containing “faith”.
I’ll wait.
So, you are of the opinion that “trust” is also belief without any reason for that belief? Explain why.
I pointed out that “trust is earned, faith is not”, so this is your strawman.
You are deleting one of the definitions of faith. The faith I exercise is faith that is earned; the type of faith that amounts to trust.
You have yet to present a rational basis upon which this blind and unquestioning faith of yours could reasonably be based?
http://theatheistpig.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/image.jpeg
You simply chose to ignore all the evidence I have presented man many times.
To the best of my recollection, you rejected taking up my challenges (https://disqus.com/home/discussion/channel-disproofofunattributedgodthingies/the_easy_way_to_prove_the_bible_valid_and_god_thingies_exist/), proving that you don’t actually trust the lies in the so-called bible and invalidating your assertions of “faith”, but have so far proved utterly incapable of convincing anyone not vested in similar beliefs as yours that your “faith” is different in any way from pretending to know stuff you do not or cannot know. The good news is that this is your opportunity to provide the intersubjectively verifiable evidence supposedly supporting your “faIth”. I’m waiting.
I have only failed to convince those with prejudiced minds.
Looked at the link. Not a reasonable challenge. Had I been a prophet, then maybe. The challenge presupposes that all theists are prophets.
Why do I trust the bible? Simple, it contains stuff no human could possibly have known to be true at the time when it was written.
1. Genesis chapter one says that in its early days, the earth was a dark world completely enshrouded in water.
2. Genesis also shows that the last common male ancestor of mankind was not the husband of the last common female ancestor, and even suggests that she may well have lived generations before him.
3. Daniel chapters 7 and 8 (not in chronological order) predicted that the world power that took over the Greek empire would not fall to a world power that would take over its territory, but would instead disintegrate (into “ten kingdoms”) and that a kingdom that used to be an insignificant part of that former empire would deliver a humiliating defeat to three kingdoms that used to be part of the Roman Empire and rise to become a world power.
4. Job 26:7 says that the earth is suspended in space.
You once again demonstrate your ignorance of the huge difference between what non-scientists call a “theory” (actually a guess, hunch or hypothesis) and one of the rare and (in science) universally accepted scientific theories (like gravity and evolution etc) that are the cornerstones of science and upon which all scientific research relies.
When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection in 1859, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution’s truth beyond reasonable doubt. Since then nothing has overturned the theory of evolution by means of natural selection and that cornerstone of science has been endlessly reinforced as new evidence has confirmed and consolidated the details of the progress of 4,000,000,000 years of life on Earth.
Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty—above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is “a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.” No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution—or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter—they are not expressing reservations about its truth.
In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as “an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as ‘true.’” The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.
All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists’ conclusions less certain.
Your ignorance continues to be exposed and your assumptions and presumptions debunked my deluded and ignorant friend.
Just because you think the Scientific Theory of gravity is somehow only a hypothesis does not mean you will fly off into space any time.
I know what a scientific theory is and am very familiar with the process of how a hypothesis becomes a theory. When a hypothesis is supported by so much evidence that it is deemed reasonable to put trust in it (or unreasonable not to), it becomes a theory. It however, remains unproved. Also, two theories sometimes contradict each other, but there is so much evidence supporting each that both are trusted.
BTW, where did I say that the theory of Gravity is just an hypothesis? If you wish to criticize me then use my opinion that the theory of evolution is still in reality a hypothesis. I did not state that in this discussion, but I have stated exactly that in others.
Many theories are so well supported that they are considered by all who understand them to be fact. Evolution and gravity are two such Scientific Theories/Facts.
Which universally accepted Scientific Theories contradict each other?
No evidence suggests that evolution is losing adherents. Pick up any issue of a peer-reviewed biological journal, and you will find articles that support and extend evolutionary studies or that embrace evolution as a fundamental concept.
Conversely, serious scientific publications disputing evolution are all but nonexistent. In the mid-1990s George W. Gilchrist, then at the University of Washington, surveyed thousands of journals in the primary literature, seeking articles on intelligent design or creation science. Among those hundreds of thousands of scientific reports, he found none. Surveys done independently by Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University and Lawrence M. Krauss, now at Arizona State University, were similarly fruitless.
Creationists retort that a closed-minded scientific community rejects their evidence. Yet according to the editors of Nature, Science and other leading journals, few antievolution manuscripts are even submitted. Some antievolution authors have published papers in serious journals. Those papers, however, rarely attack evolution directly or advance creationist arguments; at best, they identify certain evolutionary problems as unsolved and difficult (which no one disputes). In short, creationists are not giving the scientific world good reason to take them seriously.
Evolutionary biologists passionately debate diverse topics: how speciation happens, the rates of evolutionary change, the ancestral relationships of birds and dinosaurs, whether Neandertals were a species apart from modern humans, and much more. These disputes are like those found in all other branches of science. Acceptance of evolution as a factual occurrence and a guiding principle is nonetheless universal in biology.
Unfortunately, dishonest creationists have shown a willingness to take scientists’ comments out of context to exaggerate and distort the disagreements. Anyone acquainted with the works of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University knows that in addition to co-authoring the punctuated-equilibrium model, Gould was one of the most eloquent defenders and articulators of evolution. (Punctuated equilibrium explains patterns in the fossil record by suggesting that most evolutionary changes occur within geologically brief intervals—which may nonetheless amount to hundreds of generations.) Yet creationists delight in dissecting out phrases from Gould’s voluminous prose to make him sound as though he had doubted evolution, and they present punctuated equilibrium as though it allows new species to materialize overnight or birds to be born from reptile eggs.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/scientificamericandebates1217-94-I41.jpg?w=&fit=bounds
Almost forgot: Many of those “creationists” are former atheists who abandoned atheism as a result of their own research. As for the fact that “few antievolution manuscripts are even submitted”, the reason is that the probability that they will be published is minuscule. The fact that the majority believe evolution actually proves nothing and should never be used as the basis for a belief. The evidence is what should be use; not the beliefs of experts. It is very well known that two experts with equal qualification and experience often examine the very same evidence and arrive at different conclusions. I have read many of those papers.
Any way, the major fault is that the theory assumes that there is no limit to how much change will be tolerated. That is taken as fact without evidence to support it. I have already read the evidence that clearly indicates that new species can be generated in a genus and it is extremely marginally possible to get new genera in the same family. The new species and genera can appear within as little a time as just a few generations. What they then do is to extrapolate and use that to say it can happen over the entire taxa, even though there is zero evidence to show that it can.
This and any further demonstrations confirming your ignorance and indoctrinated creationist condition are superfluous as you have already proved conclusively that you are not interested in the rebuttals that debunk your endlessly repeated bunkum.
Cutting and pasting lies from creationist lie factories is as unconvincing as the garbage within any and all the diverse and different, confused and contradictory, historically and scientifically unsupported and scientifically absurd versions of bibles.
Your dishonest garbage continues to stink.
http://www.godofevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nye-vs-Ham-cartoon-evidence.jpg
You need to catch up on your reading. Quantum theory contradicts the theory of relativity; that is why Prof. Stephen Hawking and others were/are searching for the “theory of everything”. Among the various evolution theories “gradualism” contradicts “punctuated equilibrium”.
You once again confuse the hypotheses of individual scientists with globally accepted Scientific Theories.
Its obviously too subtle for your limited intellect to grasp.
According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is; “A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.”
Where have I done so?
I well know that, a theory is “A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world
that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.” Yet it remains true that the quantum theory contradicts the theory of relativity, but each is “A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world
that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.”
Still confusing scientific theory with the hypotheses of individual scientists then…
So, it is a theory simply because the experts say it is or is it because the evidence back it up? You say I’m confusing them simply because I disagree with them. Quoting the opinion of experts is useless unless you also include the evidence they used.
Faith operates in spite of the circumstances.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.
The opposite of faith is fact.
Without faith it is impossible to please God.
Faith is an action based on belief sustained by confidence that when God says it, he does it.
So, once again, WE SHALL SEE, WON’T WE.
Pretty good explanation of Hebrews 11:1, but you should have expanded on it.
You cannot validate a human authored book of garbage by quoting some of that garbage, Dennis.
Please don’t keep insulting the intelligence of those of us who KNOW the garbage and KNOW its human origins.
The bible isn’t a human authored book. It contains stuff no human could possibly have known to be true at the time it was written.
You make yet another ridiculous and unsupported claim.
Your garbage remains unsupported and your bunkum remains debunked.
I have already stated the stuff in the bible that I refer to. You have chosen to ignore them. I see no counter from you.
Your previous bunkum is all debunked and your assumptions, presumptions and recycled creationist garbage all refuted.
The fact that you cling to all that garbage says all I need to know about your level of ignorance and gullibility.
Please don’t keep lying. Your lies always catch up with you.
till waiting to see the debunking you keep mentioning.
Was the earth a dark, water enshrouded planet in its early days? (Genesis chapter 1) Debunk even that one.
Since then was an amorphous seething ball of fire a “dark, water enshrouded planet”?
https://www.space.com/26685-early-earth-bombardment-water-oasis.html
https://img.purch.com/rc/300×200/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA0MS8wMTMvb3JpZ2luYWwvZWFybHktZWFydGgtbW9vbi1zeXN0ZW0tYXJ0LTEuanBn
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1DZVtK2I5wo/maxresdefault.jpg
I did expand up the thread. What these skeptics rely upon for their ridicule is some caricature they heard somewhere.
All too true. They also attempt to bully persons like us 😀
I see no evidence of bullying in the questions you fail to answer and the evidence you fail to present.
I do not recall you bullying me in any discussion. Regarding the evidence, I’ve presented them many times.
In a comment above, you claim that, “Religious faith is a delusion based upon indoctrination and sustained by myths and lies.” Had that been fact, then all theists would be persons who were raised that way; however, there are many (myself included) who were not raised theists. Some theists are persons who were raised atheists. Those of us who are now theists were convinced by evidence.
DNA does not form by natural causes, and it must coexist with its complex repair system or life will be impossible.
Cyanobacteria was teeming in our oceans almost as soon as we got an ocean.
The bible contains stuff no human could possibly have known to be true at the time it was written.
Thank you for once again merely confirming that the alternative to evolution is not creationism but ignorance, lies and superstition.
DNA evolved from RNA and RNA evolved from the most abundant chemical elements in the universe.
The pseudo science based creationist propaganda you buy into and mindlessly recycle remains debunked bunkum.
What is this magical knowledge you claim exists in your version of bible?
Show me the evidence on which the belief that DNA evolved from RNA is based. Dr. Stanley Miller (of the Miller/Urey experiments) himself was stymied by the fact that ribose is much too unstable for it to be reasonable to conclude that RNA was possible on the pre-biotic earth. Dr. Robert Shapiro added the evidence that cytosine and adenine are also way too unstable for it to be reasonable to conclude that either RNA or DNA were possible. His findings were so devastating that many have abandoned the RNA-first hypothesis and are searching for other types of nucleic acids; the interest is now concentrated on peptide nucleic acids, but so far, there is still zero evidence that life arose on this planet by natural causes.
Your belief is based on zero evidence and is even contra-indicated by current evidence.
I just presented evidence again. Ignore it or present counter arguments based on evidence, but do not accuse me of having beliefs based on no evidence.
Your recycled creationist garbage fails to validate or excuse your belief in magic and undetected and undetectable super-spooks.
Please get up to date with modern science and quit the straw men once and for all.
https://phys.org/news/2016-08-weve-wrong-life-years.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyhZcEY5PCQ
Oh dear, Ed.
Your bunkum is systematically debunked and your claims are demolished by the fact that you have nothing with which to justify or validate those claims.
You are a hollow caricature of recycled garbage you fail to understand and of which you are ignorant regarding the origins.
Don’t expand upon the garbage or the depth of your indoctrination within that garbage. That just makes you look ever more ridiculous. It is evidence that would carry the day but there is none.
http://theatheistpig.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/image.jpeg
Hey, I gave examples of the meaning of faith. Your problem is that you are really looking for proof of God. I have stated over and over that I can’t prove God exists any more than you can’t disprove God exists. The real question is why you out of hand deny the existence of God? If he stood in your presence, you would still deny him.
So you are a simple, unquestioning, lover of legends, myths, and regurgitated folklore!
Does that include a belief in unicorns, faeries, ghosts, Thor, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Osiris, etc., etc.? If not, why not?
If your god, or any of the other millions of undetected and undetectable gods provided incontrovertible evidence of their existence there would be no need for the kind of blind and unquestioning “faith” you express but can never validate or excuse. In the presence of empirical evidence we would all accept the existence of a god or the gods just as most educated and informed folk accept gravity and evolution based upon the incontrovertible evidence.
https://godless.no/wp-content/uploads/Atheist.jpg
The first step in any journey to discover truth is intellectual honesty. The fact that you refuse to correctly understand the meaning of faith tells me that you lie.
People accept gravity because they experience it. If a person existed in gravityless space, he would just have to take your word for it.
People accept evolution because it fits their world view of a godless universe. It certainly does not answer the question of the origin of energy, matter, and life.
Jesus came to his own and his own received him not. He walked and talked with people but the majority rejected him. Why? Because he did not fit their world view. If you are not looking to be saved from your impending death, you won’t find it. Faith is the most important word in the Bible. Learn it- Live it. Satan believes but he don’t faith.
Repeating your debunked bunkum wastes more of your time and only reveals the level of your indoctrination and the depths of your ignorance.
http://cf.mp-cdn.net/8e/f8/e9aa87d18709072db6e13e78fe43-of-course-so-many-issues-derive-from-religion.jpg
Thank you for apparently agreeing with the “Truth about faith”.
Believers in magic and super-spooks do so only because they have been indoctrinated with faith and have faith exclusively because they are brainwashed to believe.
I am not sure what and when you expect to “see” anything connected with religion – except that it is a fraud?
Maybe you are just not bright enough to recognize the subtle differences. You really should read my posts more carefully.
Faith is not merely belief. Faith is an action word. Faith is the act based on the belief.
You can believe you can drive your car from point A to point B. Faith is actually getting into the car and driving in spite of the possibility that your car may break down or you will get into an accident and never reach point B. Once you reach point B, you are no longer faithing because what you believed is now fact.
Are you 100% certain that there is no supernatural? That there is nothing beyond your carnal sensory?
We are certain there is no “supernatural” because if it existed, it would have to be as some immaterial form (by definition, as a material form would be “natural”) which would require energy not to dissipate against the background energy normally experienced. As we now have detectors that can easily detect energy levels far smaller than even the weak force, if it existed, “the supernatural” would require energy levels well within the ranges normally measured. As we have never detected such anomalous energy, we can safely conclude the supernatural does not exist except as an imaginary concept.
Supernatural simply means more natural.
Using your reasoning, I suppose you would also conclude as you have that the mind is not distinct from the body. That is a scary thought as well as dangerous (see where “dialectic materialism” leads the human race and your imaginary belief that people get along apart from force). Ha!
Of course, anything that can not be detected by the limited sensory apparatus of the material is indeed “imaginary”. It certainly does not mean that it could not exist. Man is not omniscient.
”
Please provide any intersubjectively verifiable attribute possessed by any “supernatural” phenomena which distingiushes it from imaginary.
The mind is absolutely embedded in the body. We understand the brain well enough at this point to identify exactly which parts of the brain are involved in every aspect of mind, and can both monitor perceptions and instill qualia through ditect brain interfaces. We have coupled the mind of one chimp to the body of another through internet connections by direct coupling to the brain, have performed successful brain transplants in dogs, pigs and apes, and expect to be doing this in humans within months.
You seem to be confusing words again. Dialectical and historical materialism simply comprise a scientific approach to the study of society and history as it evolves. I recommend that you find and read some books about our cousins the bonobo, who seem to do very well without force. Some human societies have managed to do the same.
You astonishing lack of awareness of basic science notwithstanding,”the laws underlying the physics of everyday life really are completely understood.” [Sean Carroll]
Disagree? Cite a single example where the laws of everyday experience are violated. I’ll wait.
You present no difference (subtle or otherwise) that contradicts my observation that: Believers in magic and super-spooks do so only because they have been indoctrinated with faith and have faith exclusively because they are brainwashed to believe.”
Your detour AWAY from the subject at hand regarding the expectation that a well maintained car will perform on almost all occasions is based upon the reality of the existence of that car and the knowledge that it is usually reliable.
There is no evidence of the existence of any of the millions of undetected and undetectable gods and goddesses. At this point your nonsense breaks down.
friend, I moved past the juvenile conclusions of a skeptic like yourself decades ago. I base my faith on logic and reason. Indoctrination has no effect on me.
What is fact and what no reasonable person can deny is death. Just look at any cemetery. The question is whether or not the mind and our personhood is a separate and distinct entity that exists outside our carnal bodies. Just what is that thing that distinguishes humans from other sentient beings- transcendence. For anyone to conclude that death is final to our personhood just tells me that they have wasted their mind.
Religion is the search for the meaning of this transcendence, that is, man’s search for God. Christianity, however, is God reconciling the world to himself. I find the Bible to be so compelling that I have devoted my life to its truth. For me, the choice is clear- believe God or believe NOTHING.
What you don’t understand, among many other things, is the meaning of FAITH. A grave error and improper interpretation of biblical meanings is equating ‘belief’ and ‘faith’. Faith is an action word. “Expectation” is nothing more than belief. Acting upon that expectation is faith. You could keep that perfectly maintained car and avoid all risk of accidents by keeping that car in the garage. Faith is actually taking the risk and driving.
You are not a “friend”. The primary definition of “friend” involves a bond of mutual affection, and the only person for whom you have affection is yourself. Which makes you a shifty-eyed liar, pretending friendship in order to try to weaken defenses against your specious and toxic beliefs.
“Logic and reason” are merely tools that can work on the imaginary, as well as on the more-than imaginary. When there is no underlying evidence, then “logic and reason”are working on the imaginary and any results of this process are also imaginary. When they are applied to the evidenced, the results may be imaginary or more than imaginary. The only way to differentiate between these results is to test them against evidence and evaluate whether they are sustained. In the absence of sustaining evidence, they remain imaginary.
We know that the mind is a function of the brain. When the brain ceases to function, so does the mind. You appear to be a case in point.
Your messing with words that have clear meanings, faith, “pretending to know stuff” and belief, “assigning a truth value in the face of the evidence (or sometimes in the absence of evidence), provides strong evidentiary support for the above conclusion
I was not responding to you, hermit, so “friend” was not directed at you per se, though it is quite evident you lack the imagination for sarcasm. You are clearly a robot.
Logic is the test of reason. Reason displays the mind. Pity, you have wasted your mind. Anyone can devise an experiment to prove just about anything. That is why there is so much junk science in this world. Much of the “science” upon which you rely is junk along with the many junk conclusions you draw.
I am using the term “faith” in the Biblical sense in an attempt to thwart yours and others’ desire to create caricatures to tear down. Faith requires trust fully applied which means risk is involved. The devil (your father) believes, but he don’t faith.
“Friend” was still a lie. There really is a difference between sarcasm and stupidity, even if it evades you.
Logic is a system to describe things. Reason is a method of applying logic. Contra your bloviation, the essence of the scientific method is to develop prediction making models based on observations which can be tested and interpersonal feedback used to reduce error over time. Again you prove that you lied when you claimed to be a scientist, while not knowing the first thing about science, logic or reason. In the absence of evidence the problems you mentioned almost always predominate, but that describes belief, not science.
Your “biblical sense” is nonsense. Your “faith” is indistinguishable from the definition I provided. Pretending to know that you can trust nonsensical words about imaginary things written by unknown idiots. Somebody as stupid as you trying to call other people names is asinine, Having no idea how cognitively challenged you and your beliefs appear to others displays a lack of self awareness that would make an echinodermata seem positively hyperoptic.
Poor hermit, all puffed up with no where to go.
I bet if you go to the doctor with a hurt finger, you tell them “my metacarpal hurts”.
That is why you are a pseudo-intellect. You try to compensate for your lack of understanding by using impressive language for your ridicule and mockery.
Nothing you said about logic and reason and the scientific method improves anything about what I said.
The fact that you refuse to understand the difference between faith and belief just tells me your desire to follow in the steps of your father who has already been judged. Be careful.
‘Faith’, semi-literacy, and imagination produce amazing results for you – mostly utter BS, unfortunately. Imagining that X is the case, and then believing X to really be the case in spite of the lack of evidence (and very often in spite of countervailing evidence) is so juvenile, don’t you think?
I note that you have so far failed to provide any irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence for the reality of your favourite supposed ‘god’. Why is that?
You retain my deep and sincere sympathy for the pathetic state of ignorance and hopelessness you express so clearly, Ed.
You believe in garbage, myths legends and lies in stead of enjoying the only life you will ever have between nonexistence and eternal nonexistence. The childish wishful thinking with which you have been brainwashed is slowly being eradicated through education.
Thank for once again demonstrating the puerile and risible level at which you (and most ignorant arrogant religionists) operate.
This further demonstration of the effect of indoctrination upon the ignorant and the gullible was superfluous as it has been evident within every meaningless and logic, reason and evidence devoid attempt at ad hominem against those who continually confuse, confound and humiliate you.
You are stuck in the twilight zone of indoctrination that blocks you from thinking at all about the garbage you recycle but can never validate, justify, defend or excuse.
Thanks also for the demonstration that it’s really beyond your capability to understand that there is no practical difference between an imaginary, undetected and undetectable being and a non-existent one.
Please keep up this pathetic behavior. You are probably doing as much good as Dawkins in attracting attention to the risible and pathetic nature of religionism.
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Aw, the great lie of the progressives: Sin is ignorance, and education is salvation! Ha!
Reality flash- there is no good in any man. Without God, death is all that awaits.
It is not religion that is the source of man’s evil. (You have fallen for the lies of your gurus- Dawkins, et.al.)
What makes you believe that I have no joy in this life? The afterlife is just a continuation of this life. The difference between you and me is that I VALUE all life. This life is not only about self-satisfaction.
It is really pitiful that the only meaning you seem to perceive in this life is to mock and ridicule that which would truly save you.
I pity you for this self loathing and hatred of all mankind.
Your ignorance, anti-humanitarianism and arrogance need no further demonstration.
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https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-iUIGzxa4EWQ/WdQVa-PhHxI/AAAAAAAABcQ/i3IUzFMnicMVWWz5nXU94tE6XIXFvshrQCJoC/w705-h960/at.jpg
You came to those conclusions by reading my posts?
Ha! You are an intellectual liar.
Pride is the greatest sin of all. Go ahead; have faith in your fellow man. Take away the Rule of Law, and see how quick your society breaks down. I bet you even leave your doors unlocked. Ha!
You are describing faith as a belief without a reason to believe. If you look at what he wrote with an objective mind, you will notice that he described faith based on a reason to believe (“the evidence of things not seen”). Ask him therefore for his reason to believe. If his answer is that he believes because of his upbringing, then you have a point. Don’t assume that he has no reason for his belief.
Faith is invariably pretending to know things you do not or cannot know. You can always substitute “pretending to know things” anywhere that “faith” is used without changing the meaning of the sentence.
“Things not seen” are not evidence., Evidence is always intersubjectively verifiable. So this statement is nonsense.
Belief is usually the assignment of a truth value in the face of compelling confounding intersubjectively verifiable evidence, or occasionally the assignment of a truth value in the absence of sufficient intersubjectively verifiable supporting evidence. When sufficient intersubjectively verifiable supporting evidence is present, belief is not required, merely observation, evaluation and acceptance of the preponderance of the evidence.
Got that wrong. You described “credulity” or “gullibility”. Every time we trust a theory, we are exercising faith. No theory has been proved true, and sometimes one theory even contradicts another. We trust them because of what the evidence shows. If a theory has been proved true, we call it a fact or a law.
I’ll give you an example:
If I go to a window and toss a ball up into the air, I will have faith that it fell to the ground even if I turn and walk away while it is still rising. I need not observe it fall.
One problem is that “trust” is earned, faith is not, which is why, should you write to the editors of the OED suggesting that they remove “faith” as spurious, they will likely decline your suggestion. Another problem you have is that as science and economics acknowledge, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” There is always a possibility that you have misunderstood something, and that that which worked one way yesterday is not going to happen the same way today.
In other words, you are still “pretending to know something you do not or cannot know” life you vest belief in something, even something as reliable as Ohm’s law. Negative resistance is, after all, a thing,, and all competent theories have domins of application, even if religiots would like to pretend this is not the case, in order to attempt to equivocate their gormless beliefs with more rational ideation.
Trust is indeed earned, but then so is faith based on evidence. “Trust” is one of the definitions of faith in every dictionary I checked, so why should I request that anybody delete “trust” as one of the definitions?
“”Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” I already am well aware of that, but past performance is what earns trust, so faith is also based on past performance.
I am not the one displaying “negative resistance”.
I accept that “all competent theories have domains of application”. The difference between you and I is which are “competent theories”.
P.S. Modern science does not do “laws”. “Scientific laws” are an anachronism, as they merely describe practical conclusions not intended to be laden with ontological commitments or even statements of logical absolutes.
You present no difference (subtle or otherwise) that contradicts my observation that: Believers in magic and super-spooks do so only because they have been indoctrinated with faith and have faith exclusively because they are brainwashed to believe.”
https://godless.no/wp-content/uploads/Atheist.jpg
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https://sacerdotus.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/harris-impotent-evil-or-imaginary-600×435.jpg?w=1400
You and I both agree that, “Believers in magic and super-spooks do so only because they have been indoctrinated with faith and have faith exclusively because they are brainwashed to believe”. That however does not apply to all theists. Some of us base our beliefs on actual evidence. Many of us theists started out as something else. I started out agnostic, simply because atheism required me to believe stuff for which there was zero evidence (eg: there is zero evidence that life on earth came about by natural causes.
My studies in biology was what made me become deist. DNA and RNA do not form unless deliberately generated. I became a theist without a religion when I accidentally came across confirmation that some of the stuff in the bible are stuff no human could possibly have known to be true at the time it was written. I chose a religion when I noticed that one of them was teaching what was actually written in the bible.
I am not a Christian because of my upbringing.
“Some of us base our beliefs on actual evidence.”
This puerile claim appears to be invalid as you cannot present a single shred of actual tangible, empirical evidence.
Your dishonesty in denial is once again noted.
You keep ignoring the fact that I have presented the evidence, but still await the rebuttals.
You claim to have presented evidence but there is only opinion, mythology and propaganda within any of your entries.
Your bunkum remains debunked.
http://www.godofevolution.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nye-vs-Ham-cartoon-evidence.jpg
Duplicate
only Marcionites claim the God of the OT is not the same God of the NT.
(in other words: your meme is mistaken.)
The cross clearly brings these two paradoxes of the OT together (justice & mercy).
are you denying the reality of justice?
or just arguing that God (as the Author of life) does not have the right to take it?
There are no paradoxes.
What wonderful news.
If this sentence is true, then all god thingies are imaginary.
Only if you have a prejudiced mind.
It doesn’t require anything beyond the ability to parse a logical statement, and assess that it is a well formed true statement. The paradox is that anything can be proved this way in any system in which such a statement can be formulated, highlighting the danger of logic in the absence of evidence
You do in fact have a remarkable ability “to parse a logical statement, and assess that it is a well formed true statement” but like all humans you filter the information you will process, plus what you already hold to be true affects you perception of arguments and evidence presented. This is not a criticism, but merely a statement that applies to everybody, including me.
Regarding the phrase “logic in the absence of evidence”. I see that you also hold beliefs that are contradicted by evidence. One is that life arose on this planet by natural causes. That belief in contradicted by the observations that ribose, deoxyribose, cytosine, uracil and adenine are so unstable that it in unreasonable to conclude that either RNA or DNA was possible on the prebiotic earth. It is also contradicted by the fact that a life form as complex as cyanobacteria (which uses RNA and DNA) was teeming in the ocean almost as soon as we got an ocean.
What is “justice” outside of a necessarily poorly defined imaginary concept?
What are the intersubjectively verifiable attributes of your god thingies necessary and sufficient to show that ithey qualify as good thingies and what intersubjectovely verifiable evidence did you evaluate to determine that they exist as more than imaginary thingies and possess those attributes?
What intersubjectively verifiable evidence have you evaluated to determine that there is an “author of life”?
What intersubjectively verifiable evidence have you evaluated to determine that there is not more than one “author of life”?
What intersubjectovely verifiable evidence do you have that your god thingies are “the author of life” identified above?
What grounds do you imagine you have for thinking that “the author of life” (whatever you mean by that, and assuming there is one), has the right, let alone the capability, to take lives?
Simple answer: The bible contains things no man knew to be true at the time it was written.
Example plus the evidence showing it was “unknown at the time it was written”. I look forward to your explanation that somebody could write something without knowing it, unless perhaps you mean that they just made it up, in which case it sounds like a good explanation of a lot of the crap that made its way into the Bible.
Genesis 1 shows that in its early days, the earth was a dark planet completely covered by water. Job 26:7 says that the earth is suspended in space, Daniel predicted that the world power that took over from the Greek empire would not be defeated by another power that would take over its territory, but would instead disintegrate into “ten kingdoms” and that an insignificant kingdom that used to be part of that Roman empire would rise to become a world power and deliver a humiliating defeat to three kingdoms that used to be part of the Roman empire.
According to most of the diverse and very different, confused and contradictory legends of the god-man “Jesus” – he did not die but merely gave up one weekend for sins he did not redeem.
If not the mythology of a god becoming human to sacrifice himself to himself is bizarre beyond belief and not believed by a growing majority of educated citizens of the western developed world. A real sacrifice for an honest and significant deity would be to die and become dead for all eternity. But of course a god and/or god-man would need to have actually existed to cease too exist and there has been no evidence of the existence of any of the millions of undetected and undetectable gods and goddesses.
It’s all such obvious nonsense that it’s no wonder only the ignorant and the gullible still buy into such garbage.
You are merely repeating clergy manure; the manure they spew at their congregation at every service. The Jesus you described never existed and is not the one spoken of in the bible.
http://theatheistpig.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/image.jpeg
I love this cartoon 😀
Anyway, Jesus is mentioned in historical records. Trouble is that in every case the atheists simply claims that the reference was a forgery.
Now all you need to do is reference one single authentic and original document that originates from within the time in which the legends of “Jesus” are set, and the location/institution in which it is conserved, to indicate that you are not the naive and delusional liar you appear to be, Dennis.
Your continual recycled garbage is beginning to stink this column up!
Show me the document on which you base your belief that Pontius Pilate existed and I’ll demonstrate how you simply “cherry pick” what you will accept. In ever case, where Jesus is mentioned, you bring up that argument, but when the issue does not involve Jesus, you do not use the excuse that the document is not an authentic and original document that originates from within the time in which the person mentioned existed.
The stench you mention comes from your prejudiced “cherry picking”. If Jesus is mentioned, the document is a forgery; if Jesus is not mentioned, no such claim is made.
What dishonest nonsense you do offer in place of evidence supported argument!?
Is there no end to your dishonesty??
What is this side issue of Pontius Pilate you attempt to introduce to distract from the total, absolute and complete absence of a single item of evidence of the existence of “Jesus”?
If you do not believe that Pilate existed – it is of no interest to me or consequence to the issue of the fictional nature of “Jesus”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/historical-notes-pontius-pilate-a-name-set-in-stone-1084786.html
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/pilate_recon.jpg
Is that stone the document you refer to? Did you all not believe that Pontius Pilate existed until you saw this stone? Notice that because Jesus is not mentioned, you do not claim it was forgery? However because Flavius Josephus mentioned both of them, Jesus was added, but Pilate was not. My point is that when Jesus is mentioned, you all call it forgery, but if he is not mentioned, the documents validity is unquestioned. The Annals by Tacitus are also a forgery for that very same reason
There is not one single word written by Josephus that has survived and the texts written centuries after his death by anonymous authors have nothing that can validate their content and much indicates the interpolation of references to “Jesus” by those who rewrote the later texts they merely attribute to Josephus.
The remains not one single item of tangible, authentic, original, 1st century originated historical evidence of the existence of “Jesus”.
I have no interest in your red herring references to Pilate.
We also have no original works of Tacitus so the texts written by anonymous scribes employed by the church have little credibility as anything but propaganda.
There is nothing that originated within the 1st century that references of confirms the existence of “Jesus”. NOTHING.
And you reveal your prejudice again. Tell me, do you use this same criterion for every historical figure, or do you only apply it to Jesus? By that criterion, Gamaliel never existed, and neither did Tacitus. I also would need to doubt that Pliny ever existed.
You are certainly lining up your straw men for me to burn my delusional and dishonest friend.
I have nothing to say regarding the existence of any actual historically referenced person. I merely point out that there is no extant texts written by the persons you name and no evidence at all of the existence of “Jesus”.
Your straw man burns ever more brightly.
http://www.amerika.org/wp-content/uploads/burning_man1.jpg
Still haven’t answered whether or not you apply the same criterion to all the persons you believe existed in the past. Do their names have to be carved in stone, or are written reports acceptable? None of those written reports are originals.
Any form of tangible evidence that is contemporaneous to the time in which any person is claimed to have lived can be assessed for validity.
There is no evidence of the existence of “Jesus” from within the time within which his confused and contradictory legends are set or from any time within the whole 1st century.
There is no historical trace of “Jesus” at all.
https://religionpoisons.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/480034_342051569209203_1479475788_n.jpg?w=640&h=427
Same is true for lots of those who you believe existed. Is the name Cestius Gallus carved in stone? How about the others, Tacitus, Josephus and many others too numerous to list? I every case the surviving document is a copy of the original.
you said: “According to most of the diverse and very different, confused and contradictory legends of the god-man “Jesus” – he did not die but merely gave up one weekend for sins he did not redeem.”
if you’re going to criticize Christians genuinely, i would hope you would want to do it accurately. for example, over 98% of self-described Christian denominations affirm the Apostles’ Creed as a summary of core Christian beliefs. Nothing in your comment above addresses that vast majority of shared belief.
That is the fallacy of the Argumentum ad Populum. Everyone believing that the earth was flat, did not make the earth flatten, even by one centimetre?
It is flat; I’m looking at it right now 😀
Nope, nope, I live in the hills. I just noticed that the world is shaped like a crumpled piece of paper. (A very wet crumpled piece of paper)
Anyway, the bible said that the earth is suspended on “nothing”. (Job 26:7) That is a very accurate statement
The Earth is not “suspended” at all.
It “hangs” upon the gravity of our star (“Sol” or “the Sun”) which in turn “hangs” upon the gravity of the “black hole” around which all the stars in our galaxy revolve.
Your childlike ignorance and simplistic recycling of religiot and creationist garbage would be cute in someone much, much younger, but such profound and willful ignorance in an adult is shameful when the means to cure that ignorance is available to you.
Here is how the bible claims the Earth to be-
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iTqTrRFUEqk/V09IpQbXdyI/AAAAAAAABJQ/f_EfuNKEyWo_BbY7YA7iZDxRgJ7LTOKbwCLcB/s1600/enclosed2.jpg
So, the bible is correct. The earth is suspended in space.
That illustration is based on clergy garbage. Ignore the clergy garbage and you just might see what the bible actually says.
No! The Earth is not suspended in space. As Galileo murmured as he was led into home arrest to contemplate the murder of all his assistants and pupils – “..and yet it moves
The Earth and the whole bundle of local galaxies is hurtling through space at around 600kms (kilometers per second).
The massive stretch to interpret any of the confused and contradictory, scientifically absurd content of any of the dozens of diverse and different versions of bibles remains as ridiculous as your puerile and risible claims, Dennis.
Your ignorance remains exposed and you gullibility confirmed my delusional friend.
All diverse and different versions of bibles are human written garbage.
No, it is not. Argumentum ad Populum seeks to prove the argument in question is true by numbers (e.g., “because 2 billion believe in Xnty, it’s true”)… that is NOT what I was doing in the above remark.
Note: “Rational” was claiming Christians are “different, confused and contradictory.” I pointed out their mathematical UNITY (by percentage) on the central tenets of the faith. In other words, I gave mathematical evidence to refute his claim of widespread difference on central tenets.
To be pointed: your critique only applies if I was proselytizing for Christianity by citing numbers. But the debate was about *current* adherents’ beliefs, not winning new adherents by popularity.
More tosh of the finest water. What people choose to vest belief in speaks only to the delusions to which they were exposed and cannot speak at all to the underlying reality., Only evidence can do that. The evidence is that christers simply project their own preferences onto their god thingies. Which is why the only thing limiting the number of sects is the fact that their beliefs are not nearly as important as you appear to imagine to the vast majority of christers.
you said: “What people choose to vest belief in speaks only to the delusions to which they were exposed…”
“suppose we concede that if I had been born of Muslim parents in Morocco rather than Christian parents in Michigan, my beliefs would have been quite different. The same goes for the pluralist. Pluralism isn’t and hasn’t been widely popular in the world at large; if the pluralist had been born in Madagascar, or medieval France, he probably wouldn’t have been a pluralist. Does it follow that he shouldn’t be a pluralist or that his pluralist beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process? I doubt it.”
– Alvin Plantinga
you said: “the only thing limiting the number of sects…”
as I said elsewhere here, the high number of denominations only highlights the surprising unity. there are over 40,000 different Christian denominations – yet over 98% agree on as complex a statement of faith as the Apostles’ Creed. You do not have to agree with that Creed to recognize that is an exceedingly high percentage of unity on the central tenets of the faith. and that would rather defeat your claim that it is not as important to most.
Nothing in your comment validates, justifies or excuses the beliefs of a shrinking minority in the free, educated and now predominantly secular western world.
It is clear to the third largest and fastest growing human demographic of godless / non-believers that the garbage of religion is unworthy of further consideration.
You’ve moved the goal posts.
You claimed Christians are confused and contradictory – yet I pointed out unity across a wide swath of denominations with a complex set of beliefs (the Apostles’ Creed). That directly refutes your claim – regardless of whether one believes in Christianity or not.
Your inability to read and understand my evidence supported observations is once again evident here.
As I actually reported- it is all the diverse and different versions of bibles that are confused and contradictory. Although if the broad agreement you claim existed, why are there so many different Christian cults and sects and such a history of animosity and violence between them.
I suggest you read and digest the entries you respond to and try to engage such limited intellect as you possess before banging out garbage in these columns.
a) we have the Greek & Hebrew manuscripts. “all the diverse and different versions” are translating into the vernacular. but even for your claim of “different”, most very much agree on ALL the essentials. to that point…
b) yes, there are over 40,000 Christian denominations – across over 2 billion people. and YET (my point before) over 98% of those denominations agree on the central tenets found in the Apostles’ Creed (thereby defeating your point).
point being: the very fact you cite to mock Christian unity actually only heightens it.
have their been harsh disagreements and failures? yes. (something our own standards call us to admit – and most do!) but do we STILL share those convictions even while disagreeing on other (lesser) tenets? Yes, we do.
as for your last comment: for lack of a substantive argument, sling pejoratives, eh? why not engage the actual content rather than obfuscate through bully tactics?
a) Where are these authentic and original, 1st century originated “Greek & Hebrew manuscripts” you claim exist and if they did exist, why are there thousands of differences and discrepancies within and between all the versions of bibles fabricated by men since the first prototypes were cobbled together in the late 4th century?
b) The fact that the delusional and declining population of religiots believe in one particular tenet of religion fails to validate or excuse that belief. Your bunkum REMAINS debunked.
I guess that your mockery of all the gods and all the religions in which you have not been indoctrinated to believe must strengthen them also?
Christians are often baffled how atheists could deny the existence of their originally Canaanite god, Yahweh and/or Roman god-man “Yeshua/Jesus”. But they shouldn’t be. Christians deny thousands of the same gods that atheists deny. Atheists just deny one more god than Christians do (or is that three, maybe).
Some of my favorites? Zeus, Odin, Ganesha, Quetzalcoatl, Pratibhanapratisamvit, (Buddhist goddess of context analysis), Acat, (Mayan god of tattoo artists) and Tsa’qamae, north american god of salmon migration.
Your ridiculous, undetected and undetectable god(s) show no difference from any of the millions of others.
Your inability to validate, justify or excuse your bunkum is obvious to all who continue to read these columns.
http://www.ancientpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ganeshagod14.jpg
a) here’s a brief primer on NT scholarship. Note well the “embarrassment of riches” available to NT scholars – directly contrary to your claim.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/an-interview-with-daniel-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts/
b) you’re moving the goalposts again. the debate was not over whether or not the Creeds (by themselves) warrant belief, but over whether or not Christians are united. you repeatedly claimed they are not – and i gave you numerical evidence to the contrary. now you want to move the goalposts.
c) you said: “…your mockery of all the gods and all the religions in which you have not been indoctrinated…”
read the Plantinga quote I gave you above again. you’re falling right back into his philosophical critique.
d) invoking the classic meme “atheists just believe in one less god” is problematic at best.
i) are you purposefully admitting you do have metaphysical “beliefs”/convictions?
ii) are you criticizing Christianity’s claims on the grounds that it is exclusivist, only to admit your position is *more* exclusive?
iii) do you recognize that saying one’s beliefs are “ridiculous & undetected” equally applies to the philosophical naturalism to which most atheists adhere? mocking another’s so-called ‘leap of faith’ while failing to recognize you are making your own is self-refuting.
The unity (or otherwise!) of all the many diverse and significantly different cults and sects of christianity has never been my subject for debate. It has always been the lack of validity and historical support for the 4th century founded Roman institution they called “christianity” and the total, utter and complete absence of any 1st century originated historical evidence supporting the existence of “Yeshua/Jesus” or supporting any of the confused and contradictory legends of “Jesus” that originated centuries after the time in which they are merely set.
a)https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/an-interview-with-daniel-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts/ This opinion piece includes the admission that no authenticated “original” of any of the centuries later written legends exists. The diversity and differences between the later written fictional accounts presents nothing that provides credibility to any version of that fiction. The differences between the two oldest bibles (Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus) are compounded by the difference between those two barbaric and confused human authored books and later human written versions of that fiction that lead to the very different bibles in circulation today. Thank you for confirming my observation that no historical evidence exists of the existence or legends of “Jesus”.
b) Please cease this pointless and failed attempt to divert attention away from your abject failure to validate, defend or excuse the fraudulent 4th century founded Roman religion they called “christianity”. United or divided and killing each other (as has often been the case) – deluded religionists have not and never can justify, defend or excuse the origin and content of their fraudulent claims and dishonest institutions. You continually prove this point!
c) Your failure to defend your beliefs and claims and the obfuscation you fail to get away with is further noted.Your dishonesty is only exceeded by your ignorance and egotism.
d) Thank you for recognising that the self evident fact that there are millions of gods and goddesses in fiction and the problem this causes those indoctrinated into belief in any one of them or collection of them. It appears that this evidence of the ridiculous nature of all religion and all fictional deities is unanswerable for most religionists – including you.
i) No!
ii) No. All religions are similar and equally ridiculous. There is little that is unique or original within the 4th century founded Roman religion they called “christianity” but which was cobbled together from mostly “pagan” components and exclusively “pagan” feast days and festivals. Only the brainwashed egotism of the indoctrinated religionists would have it otherwise but be unable to present evidence of that.
iii) Your attempt to deflect attention away from your failure to validate or defend the nonsense you present is once again noted – but fails in that respect. I recognise no “philosophical naturalism” as a requirement or feature of simple non belief in magic and all the millions of super-spook “gods” and “goddesses” invented by ignorant and gullible men.
Your pathetic religion is identical to all other religions in that it crumbles under the weight of two simple words:
PROVE IT!?
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SLVOq77YxcI/WdD49ptS1SI/AAAAAAAAlOs/FqEnF3E72zoc4HIK4i_jqfQAVYLOGvclACJoC/w1435-h1221/20171001_101457.png
Do you intentionally toss out most of ancient history? I assume you believe Plato existed and wrote the Republic… and yet we have many, MANY more extant versions of the NT, much, much closer to the source. How about Tacitus or Hippocrates, for that matter?
You have left yourself with no legs to stand upon. In your attempt to dismiss the NT, you have dismissed the whole discipline of archeology and history.
as if that wasn’t enough, you dismiss the vast majority of the humanity as ignorant (“All religions are similar and equally ridiculous”). majority does not make right, but a) failing to recognize clear distinctions & b) wholesale dismissals of all but the smallest fragment of society… should give one occasion to pause and have some humility.
and to be clear, I wasn’t offering for you to ‘recognize philosophical naturalism’ for humanity. I was pointing out your apparent metaphysical convictions. dismissing the term while embracing/asserting the meaning is self-refuting – much less when there are devastating (long-standing) philosophical critiques of your position… from atheists & theists alike. “prove it”? you are hoist by your own petard.
The “Apostles Creed” is yet another meaningless fourth century mishmash of no worth outside of denoting “US” and “THEM”.
Again, it would help if you actually engaged the scholarship.
a) the Apostles’ Creed dates from the late 2nd century.
b) in the 2nd century, when Christians were actively being persecuted, your “us-them” narrative has the opposite meaning and intent (instead of drawing lines for political power, it’s “here’s what we’re dying for”).
Check out Rodney’s Stark’s book: “The Rise of Christianity” for a more thorough treatment of the pre-Constantinian period.
a) Where is the authenticated and original, 2nd century originated “apostle’s creed?
b) Where is the authenticated and original, (1st or) 2nd century originated evidence of any messianic cult following a god-man named “Yeshua/Jesus”?
The oldest fragment of an “apostle’s creed” dates from the 6th century.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Rylands_Nicene_Creed_papyrus.jpg/220px-Rylands_Nicene_Creed_papyrus.jpg
The Church agrees, saying:
“Our documentary sources of knowledge about the origins of Christianity and its earliest development are chiefly the New Testament Scriptures, the authenticity of which we must, to a great extent, take for granted.”
(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. iii, p. 712)
The Church makes extraordinary admissions about its New Testament. For example, when discussing the origin of those writings,
“the most distinguished body of academic opinion ever assembled” (Catholic Encyclopedias, Preface) admits that the Gospels “do not go back to the first century of the Christian era”
(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, p. 137, pp. 655-6).
This statement conflicts with priesthood assertions that the earliest Gospels were progressively written during the decades following the death of the Gospel Jesus Christ.
In a remarkable aside, the Church further admits that,
“the earliest of the extant manuscripts [of the New Testament], it is true, do not date back beyond the middle of the fourth century AD”
(Catholic Encyclopedia, op. cit., pp. 656-7).
Why do you continually reference myths and legends that cannot be dated back to the time in which they are merely set?
http://www.ancientpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/oldestbiblelent3.jpg
a) i’m not substituting the Apostles’ Creed for the Scriptures. at no point have i made that argument. The AC was & continues to function as a summary of the central tenets of the Christian faith AS FOUND IN the New Testament.
i’m guessing you’re only doing google research on the AC, and that’s why you continue to protest a scholarly given (namely, that the AC dates to the 2nd century). why? because of corroborating quotes from contemporary 2nd c authors. pointing out we don’t have *extant* manuscripts fails to acknowledge other historical evidence. or do you believe 2nd century authors somehow foresaw a document not written (according to you) for another 200 years?
See JND Kelly’s, “Early Christian Doctrines & Creeds”, p.101.
b) your question here is frankly laughable. the NT itself is written in the 1st century, a fact readily acknowledged even by the most critical scholars (who might place *some* of the NT later). for example, few contest Paul wrote Galatians, Philippians or 1 Corinthians – all of which teach the doctrines found summarized in the AC.
Case in point: most date 1 Corinthians as early 50s AD, if not before. That’s within the lifetime of potential eyewitnesses to Jesus; and in 1 Cor.15:1-8, Paul actually names names. Consider what Paul is doing. It’s the pax Romana. Plenty of Jews would pilgrimage back to Jerusalem, if not write one another throughout the Hellenized world. He’s inviting his hearers to check his sources. Again, that’s within the lifetime of many eyewitnesses of Christ – which poses a serious problem to your “legends” argument (especially when literary scholars note that legends normally arise 100s of years later, mostly devoid of historical content).
As one Oxford literary scholar on myths said it:
“I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage – though it may no doubt contain errors – pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors, or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read. I would recommend him to read Auerbach.”
– CS Lewis, “Fern Seeds & Elephants”
you go on to press that we do not have *whole* manuscripts dating prior to the 4th century, as though that’s a smoking gun. but AGAIN, that fails to understand the scholarship. we have tons of fragments prior – virtually ALL of which corroborate the same content, including letters from early Christian pastors quoting the NT. and when compared with contemporary ancient pieces
if you want actually to engage the scholarship, as I linked above, here’s a quick primer (and note well the “embarrassment of riches” he cites as available to NT scholars, even if you only take the time to glance at the numeric charts):
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/an-interview-with-daniel-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts/
You once again present a whole pile of lies!
You accept that there is no historical evidence of the existence Jesus but continue to reference myths, legends and lies plus OPINION and propaganda regarding those myths, legends and lies.
The biggest lie you recycle is – “…the NT itself is written in the 1st century..” You are proved a liar by the absolute and unchallenged fact that there is not one single item of tangible, 1st century originated evidence of the existence of “Jesus” and no trace of the legends that appear in prototype in the oldest 4th century fabricated bibles.
The comprehensive nature of your indoctrination has already been demonstrated ad nauseum by you.
Your inability to validate, justify or excuse the lies you offer and the lies you recycle is proved beyond all doubt.
Your bunkum remains debunked and your humiliation appears to be complete? However – by all means continue with your diatribes of pathetic and evidence devoid denial is you masochism is such that you enjoy humiliation.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SLVOq77YxcI/WdD49ptS1SI/AAAAAAAAlOs/FqEnF3E72zoc4HIK4i_jqfQAVYLOGvclACJoC/w1435-h1221/20171001_101457.png
If there is any NT scholar who might be most inclined to agree with you, it is Bart Ehrman (a self-proclaimed agnostic with atheistic tendencies). I personally disagree with him on most matters. He is on the far left fringe of NT scholarship, and yet even he has written rather definitively that Jesus of Nazareth “did exist, and we can say a few things, with relative certainty, about him.”
Here’s the introduction to his book, “Did Jesus Exist?” (it’ll take 90 seconds to read):
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-historical-evidence-of-the-existence-of-jesus-of-nazareth/
What are the intersubjectively verifiable attributes necessary and sufficient to qualify a thing as a god thingie?
“Justice” is an imaginary concept.
What life was allegedly taken? Jesus is mythical. Most god thingies are supposedly immortal. And medically speaking, death is the irreversible cessation of the emergent attributes of life; so anything displaying any signs of life has never been dead.
Why would you regard things that allegedly could not forgive imaginary people for a situation supposedly caused by the things themselves without a human sacrifice as a god thingie?
you said: ” ‘Justice’ is an imaginary concept.”
Somehow I doubt that’s your position when you’ve been injured or wronged.
you said: “What life was allegedly taken? Jesus is mythical.”
a) that begs the question
b) historically orthodox Christian belief states that Jesus was fully God and fully human. He died a fully human death.
you said: “anything displaying any signs of life has never been dead”
a) even biologists (literally: those who study ‘life’) admit they struggle to define life apart from merely naming attributes they associate with it… in other words, any definition of life quickly appeals to metaphysics
b) you begin by assuming death always trumps life… which is a significant problem for the existence of life, especially if one presupposes life came about from nothing
your final question:
a) is an unrecognizable caricature of those with whom you disagree (i.e., a purposeful misrepresentation?)
b) begins by assuming the matter under debate is already settled. again, that’s begging the question.
You forgot to establish the intersubjectively verifiable attributes necessary and sufficient to qualify a thing as a god thingie?
Until you do that the assumption that you can have a meaningful discussion, let alone a debate, about undefined imaginary god thingies is incoherent as well as unsupported – and begging the question,.
Do you imagine justice is concrete? The opposite. Justice is a badly defined idea. To imagine otherwise is insanity. None of the senses can detect “justice” meaning that it is not a word describing something that can be pointed to, putting it outside the intersubjectively verified. And you know what TLP said about that.
a) Outside of the question of what intersubjectively verifiable attributes are necessary and sufficient to qualify a thing as a god thingie, which is waiting on your answer, what question is begged? How do you “take the life” of a myth, and why should “taking the life” (of a human except for self defense) be anything other than unethical?
b) And if you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
a) The definition I gave is the definition used in medicine and biology in the USSR, Federal Republic of Germany, Israel, Georgia and United States. Perhaps it is different where you live. Life is emergent and is identified as present when an organization displays the emergent attributes of life, homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, autonomy, adaptation, respiration, response to stimuli, reproduction and signalling (HOMGAARRRS is a good mnemonic to remember it by). Metaphysics is totally defunct, and has been for almost a century.
b) ? Whatever you meant to say did not convey anything to me. Do you imagine that, despite the evidence, that “life” has always existed? If not, why do you imagine that it is a problem?
a) Is an accurate synopsis of what is said in the bible. The fact that some people “believe” differently is neither here not there. Some religiots are nuitty enough to imagine that they are choo-choo trains. Not even that can change one word. But if you take issue with my articulation, please explain where, how and with what you disagree.
b) What is the matter supposedly under debate and what “assumptions” are made about it?
again… if justice is not concrete, why is it the first thing anyone oppressed or injured cries out to have? when you are wronged, you don’t struggle with it as an abstract concept.
it is begging the question (by definition) to attempt to settle the debate by assuming the thing under debate is already settled (i.e., “Jesus is mythical”) – never mind the virtual unanimity among all biblical scholars (from atheists to Christians) that Jesus was most certainly an historical figure.
look at any introductory book on biology and note well that p.1 normally admits biology itself is limited. it cannot define life… and thereby attempts to substitute a pragmatically-based “definition.” to claim to the contrary is to fail to acknowledge that science BEGINS with “methodological naturalism” – purposefully avoiding the philosophical naturalism you are asserting. That is precisely because to do so is to make a metaphysical leap of faith (as it appears you are doing) that moves from observable science to philosophy. it conflates the two.
i do not imagine “life” (as science appraises it) has always existed – but existence ITSELF poses a significant problem for metaphysical naturalism. and if life can never come from death, i.e., non-life (as you’ve stated above), how do we exist?
and finally, claiming you have an “accurate” synopsis of the bible, when you demonstrate virtually NO awareness of the scholarship is self-refuting. as i said before, you’ve delivered a caricature (not just of fundamentalists, but also of secular scholars who do not believe the faith). that is better befitting your pejorative “choo-choo train” childish dismissals of the most read, most scrutinized book in history. one does not need to agree with Christianity to recognize an out-of-hand dismissal fails to give due weight to the largest human movement in history.
You have a very strange idea of “concrete”. I suggest you invest in a dictionary, so that you can communicate effectively with others.
This is not “justice”. Concrete, “”existing in a material or physical form; real or solid; not abstract.” Justice is a “mass noun” (i.e. refers to uncountable things), With the primary definitions being “Just behaviour or treatment.” and ” The quality of being fair and reasonable.” Neither refers to anything concrete, only to imaginary notions supported by evaluation modules common to at least the apes and monkeys.
You need to answer a few questions, please begin by establishing the intersubjectively verifiable attributes necessary and sufficient to qualify a thing as a god thingie?
What many people assert is not evidence. It is a fallacy. No atheist (or even “sane biblical scholar”) imagines that the fourth century myths about somebody being born of a virgin wandering around blaspheming by claiming to be an avatar or son of a god thingie, letalone and performing miracles – and surviving – in first century Palestine, or sixth century fables about him talking about people without sin casting the first stone, or even borrowed stories about “after three days rise” are anything but mythical. So whether there were prototypes (sure there were, just as there were prototypes for other mythical people like Moses, Enkhdu, Gilgamesh or Gretir) is irrelevant to determining that the biblical stories are myths.
If you want to discuss the prototypes, a good place to begin would be my monograph, “On ‘Jesus’ and the so-called ‘New Testament’” which addresses this.
I disagree with your simplistic assertions. Within biology we discuss many types of “life”. For each we have emergent criteria sufficient to discriminate between “alive” (exhibiting the emergent attributes of life) or dead (permanently incapable of exhibiting such attributes). If we are discussing human life, we all share the emergent attributes above, and the permanent absence of the attributes, established through well defined tests, enables a reliable diagnosis of death.
Philosophy is dead. Science builds models that work. Your resort to the complicated phrasing of the 19th century demonstrates only your confused thinking. If something cannot be communicated through intersubjectively verifiable models it falls into the realm of ‘Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent’ (TLP).
If you call a dog’s tail a leg, the dog still has four legs, because a leg is not a tail, no matter what you call it.
Life has not always existed. Like all the other universes in the metaverse, our universe instantiated, structures of various sorts, some of which we describe as living, evolved within it, and eventually the universe will evaporate, the strain energy cancelling out, leaving nothing behind. I did not say “life can never come from death” I said that anything that is alive has ever been dead. That is definitional and the gulf is vast. Other things can live on dead things. Other things can use the atoms from dead things. After all, in six months time, not one atom of your soft tissue will be the same as it is now, and six weeks after you have died, if your body is left to decay naturally, a few of your cells will still remain alive, although most will be in the process of digestion by the flora and fauna that outnumbers your cells in your body some 10 to 1. Nevertheless, within one and 20 hours post mortem (allowing for death at low temperatures), all of the charges that make up most of what “you” are will have dissipated when the processes which refresh those charges is interrupted, and once your brain decays, none of what you are will be able to be recreated, although I might be able to reconstruct your DNA sufficiently to clone you from surviving DNA, even centuries after you have died. However a clone is not you anymore than an identical twin would be you. That is because everything that makes you, you is stored in your brain and is lost with death.
As for your babble about the bible, the bible is absolute rubbish. A pile of fatuous platitudes and nonsense all mixed together into an almost perfect noise source. All the meaning people imagine they obtain from it is projection, obtained by filtering noise, and telling us more about the people than the contents, because for any word in the bible many others have been used over time, and for practically every idea you for which you can claim to find support, somebody else has found support for an opposite idea. The New Testament is one of the nastiest works ever produced, and has resulted in millions of deaths since its invention, first as a brutal messianic Hebraic religion, and then reinvented as a brutal antisemitic work Having actually wasted my time studying this turgid mess at length along with those of many other religions, even studying the source languages to ensure i was not missing something, I can think of no other work that I despise more than the bible, no other work which is a greater waste of time, and no other work that promotes more vile ethics. I know that you have never tried to understand the words in the bible, because if you had you would not try to persuade others of its goodness.
You might try Eichenwald K. (2014-12-23). The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin. Newsweek. Retrieved https://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats-not-what-bible-says-294018.html 2018-09-30 for nice accessible explanation of why your ideas on the “bible” and “scholarship”.are as delusional as those you hold about your belief.
if someone injures you (e.g., a punch in the face), does anyone claim that’s “abstract”? likewise with the your so-called “just behavior or treatment” in response… no, your argument here is merely an attempt to dodge through sophistry. justice applied is very much concrete.
you said: “What many people assert is not evidence.”
here again, you dismiss (secular & Christian) scholarship in favor of your own internet-credentialed assertions. it is self-defeating to begin by dismissing all known scholarship out-of-hand. (for example, several of your “givens” above are preposterous for any biblical scholar, including the most ardent critics.) at least if you engaged the scholarly discussion you’d have *some* level of substance.
you said: “Philosophy is dead.”
again, this is self-defeating. even if you only look to scientists, consider the wide-spread criticism of Hawking’s “Grand Design” (by scientists & philosophers alike) for its failed foray into philosophy, if not outright conflating the two. Hawking was a genius as a scientist, but an abysmal novice as a philosopher.
and note well: science itself *admits* its own limitations. look up “methodological naturalism.” it’s a foundational distinction for all scientific inquiry. you are conflating it with philosophical naturalism even by pitting science against philosophy (as you do repeatedly above). there is no science without its own admitted points of departure.
as Nietzsche wrote: “Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as science ‘without any presuppositions’; this thought does not bear thinking through; it is paralogical: a philosophy, a ‘faith’, must always be there first of all, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist.”
No such thing as science without presuppositions…
case in point, you said: “Like all the other universes in the metaverse…”
what do you call this? this is not observable science in any form. your metaphysical underpinnings (though you deny they exist) are showing. again, you are conflating science & philosophy.
you end with a pejorative-laden tirade about the Bible, utterly devoid of scholarship… which again, presses my point. this is not science – as much as you claim you want to live by it. (note well: science has no ability to appraise good or evil, including claims about ethics.) you clearly *have* strong metaphysical convictions – but you seem unaware that they are metaphysical & not scientific. as a result, you’re asking science to carry freight it cannot – doing philosophy and calling it ‘science’ while simultaneously saying “philosophy is dead.” it is self-refuting from the outset.
as for your Newsweek cited article, the author jettisons many basic realities of NT scholarship (note: the author is a journalist, and not a biblical scholar, and it shows).
to the point, here’s a peer-reviewed NT scholar responding to the claims of that article:
https://danielbwallace.com/tag/the-bible-so-misunderstood-its-a-sin/
his conclusion:
“I applaud Kurt Eichenwald for stirring up Christians to think about what he has written and to reexamine their beliefs and attitudes. But his numerous factual errors and misleading statements, his lack of concern for any semblance of objectivity, his apparent disdain for and lack of interaction with genuine evangelical scholarship, and his über-confidence about more than a few suspect viewpoints, makes me wonder. I wonder why he really wrote this essay, and I wonder what he hoped to accomplish. The article reads like it was written by a political pundit who thought he might try something clever: If he could just link conservative Christianity with conservative politics, and show that Christians’ smugness about being Bible-based believers was both incorrect exegetically and had a poor, self-contradictory foundation (since the Bible is full of errors and contradictions), he could thereby deal a deathblow to both conservative Christianity and conservative politics. I do not wish to defend conservative politics, but simply point out that evangelicals do not fit lock, stock, and barrel under just one ideological tent. Eichenwald’s grasp of conservative Christianity in America as well as his grasp of genuine biblical scholarship are, at best, subpar. And this article is an embarrassment to Newsweek—or should be!”
So now the Evangelical Widuran has accused me of having sex with my own children.
There’s no low that they won’t stoop to go to and no lie they won’t spread.
And they wonder why they’re hated.
Report him. That’s an Immediate Ban.
How?
Flag him to the Mods here, and if that doesn’t work, you can go to his profile (even if it’s set to Private) and click on the three dots (“…”) next to their username. You’ll be given an option there to report the user to Disqus and explain the reason for reporting them.
Widuran has now gone – I suspect he was one of Larry’s many sock-puppet accounts.
Hes back as The Destroyer.
I was wrong he isn’t ‘Larry’, he has been known under many names in the past – Snoring/Narudiw/Lord Betram and a couple of others. He’s a know troll.
He never stays away long. You’d think he’d get the message.
Well he didn’t go for me, as Larry always does?
Hi Bernard, it’s because he isn’t Larry – I should have worked it out sooner. Widuran is narudiw backwards. It’s Snoring/Narudiw/Lord Bertram
aha! that makes sense.
That makes more sense. Can’t say I miss him/her/it?
The Gospel is wonderful news for everyone.
John 3:16-18
16 “For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
I pray we all believe in the risen God Jesus Christ and that we believe him, follow him and are saved through and by him.
Except the world in John = Judaism.
Ffs do some study.
Yes they were Jews. And?
So its not the whole world then.
Sort of makes a bit of difference to the intent of the verse.
no, ‘world’ (kosmos) in John does not = Judaism.
that requires a very reductionist view of Jesus’ enormously megalomaniacal claims.
note well: Jn.4:42 (“Savior of the world”, stated by a Samaritan)
as well as: Jn.1:10 (the “world” was made through him)
‘world’ can function in multiple ways in John, but here primarily means his enemies.
Jesus died for his enemies (all who stood against him).
Rom.5:8-10 comes to mind, as does Jn.15:18f.
That’s why the Gospel is “Good News” for all who are at odds with God.
Not everyone.
There have been millions of people harmed or killed by those promoting the so called “gospel”.
And even if you actually read it, you will discover that your murderous god thingies are going to keep have people tortured in their presence forever …”they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever.”
Sounds like hell to me, so I am rather glad it is all imaginary.
It is DEATH, and that, my friend, is very real.
Death is simply the irreversible cessation of the emergent attributes of life. HOMGAARRRS (Homeostasis, Organization, Metabolism, Growth, Autonomy, Adaptation, Response to stimuli, Respiration, Reproduction, Signaling). What we are is determined by our brain and sustained by these emergent attributes. When we die the energy needed to sustain the signals stored in the brain dissipate within hours, and depending on the disposal method, the structures used for long term storage are also lost as the tissues of the brain die and decay. At which point we are no more. There is absolutely no way that anything that could conceivably described of as embodying any aspect of you could be described as surviving after death, except as memories, writings, recordings and other physical evidence left while you were alive.
As I said before, your so called “bible” is imaginary. Nothing more. Be relieved.
Oh, I am relieved because I have been promised eternal life. I fear not death, and I absolutely do not fear the second death. There is a soul and a spirit of which science can not speak. Just like science can not explain why this physical world behaves like it does.
Amen Ed!
Amen
“Just like science can not explain why this physical world behaves like it does.”
lol…like gravity, tides, weather, climate, tectonic plate shift………
I said WHY not HOW, bonehead.
Lol…..why do we have gravity, moron?
A high school student can tell you why.
Why do we have tides?
An elementary student can tell you that, idiot.
Why do we have earthquakes?
Once again a year 3 student can tell you why.
No surprise you’re pretty dumb.
Your problem is you think like a middle school student.
lol
Lol….my kids in grade 5 know why we have earthquakes
A shame you’re dumber than a fifth grader.
Cheer-up. If we live that long, it seems that your condition will eventually be curable.
https://www.medicaldaily.com/directing-magnetic-energy-brain-can-reduce-belief-god-prejudice-toward-immigrants-357194
Very interesting, athelphi.
Pos pairnai ta xronia
Good catch.
The article is from 2015. The article was published on-line ahead of press, 04 September 2015. 🙂
This is the paper
Holbrook C, Izuma K, Deblieck C, Fessler D. M. T., Iacoboni M (2015-09-04). Neuromodulation of group prejudice and religious belief.Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Volume 11, Issue 3, 1 March 2016, Pages 387–394, https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsv107. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/3/387/2375059 Accessed 2018-09-01
Here is a press release on the on-line publication:
University of York. “Belief in God and prejudice reduced by directing magnetic energy into the brain.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 October 2015. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151014084955.htm.
Much appreciated.
You have no idea what my “condition” is. You have offered what is best described as junk science. Academia is under so much pressure to publish that they often come up with anything to satisfy that need. It is one of the reasons I found my experience at the University so underwhelming.
1. Undergraduates know squat and even less about there own identity. They are at this stage very malleable.
2. Anyone who inflicts electromagnetic stimulation to such persons should have their ethics examined.
Given you dont even understand the bible, i doubt were going to be worried about your understanding of science.
Your “condition” presents as the inability to differentiate between the imaginary and the more than imaginary, which is precisely the definition of a psychosis. A great deal of research has been done confirming that this condition can be established through the deliberate indoctrination of religious psychoses in children and that the impact is long lasting. For example, Corriveau KH, Chen EE, Harris PL (2014). Judgments About Fact and Fiction by Children From Religious and Nonreligious Backgrounds. Cognitive Science (2014) 1–30 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12138. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/learninglab/files/2012/05/Corriveau-Chen-Harris-in-press.pdf Accessed 2018-09-01.
LOL junk science I like that
HAve you thought about what eternal life means? Are you sure you want to be a disembodied spirit for the rest of time? What’s so great about that?
We will have a body. It just won’t be the decaying body we have now.
And, as I said before, the first thing I will do when I step into eternity is rejoice because everything I had hoped for in this life will be true.
No Revelation talks about a second death. I believe Hell is a final destruction in the end.
This is the pit that Death and Hades are thrown into?
Both of which are non-entities. You cant kill death – its a state of non-living.
What you believe stands in sharp contrast to what the bible says, which is “for ever and ever” (“εἰς αἰῶνας αἰώνων”). That isn’t very unusual with christers. It is why atheists are far better at reading their scriptures, because they don’t need to suppress all the self-contradictions or contradictions with their own beliefs.
Jesus is not the only Son of God. The Bible is clear that we are all sons (and daughters) of God (or reality). Indeed ‘All things come from God’ and the first verses of Genesis actually describe a female Spirit hovering over her birth mat, and screaming everything into being, just as any human female would. Also there are many passages, which explain that God birthing of any ‘new’ thing is like a woman in agonising labour. How do Christians miss that? Creation is ‘costly and risky’, even for God.
Jesus is the son of God and is God.
You are completely wrong about the first verses of Genesis. God is male. Always was and always will be
Does God have a penis then?
And XY chromosomes…..
And in whose image were women created?
I am not sure why you are asking this question.
Well you consider god to be a man.
In what way is god a man?
Does he have a penis?
And whats wrong with god being a woman?
Spare ribs? Lol.
Are you totally ignorant of the Hebrew language and what your Bible actually says? Spirit, rush or reach are female (ah, or ach). The verb in Hebrew, changes according to the gender of the doer. Hence, the female spirit, hovers in a womanly way. At his baptism, the words from the sky, “you are my son …”, come from the psalms and were part of the coronation of kings! They still are, all around the world? Just as the Romans believed their emperors were sons of God. Your Bible affirms all of this! The psalms also insist that all Jewish males are sons of God! Go find.
This is what happens when you only learn the verses which back up your prejudices.
What you say is complete codswallop and the fact end your post with a personal attacks shows you have no real argument.
Personal attack? Really? Did you find the many verses which speak of ‘sons of God in the old testament? In which it is claimed, we are ‘all’ God’s children? Given the first few verses which speak clearly (in the Hebrew), of God’s (female) Spirit hovering over the chaos and bringing all things to birth. Jews saw themselves as sons of God, as have many other groupings around the world and throughout history.
Jesus’ God is ‘our’ father and as a Jew he would say that. He does not say he is ‘the’ Son of God. And claims often and quite specifically, to be ‘the Son of man’, or a human being? You and others might like to set him up as ‘The’ son, just as the Romans set up their own emperors. Part of the early Christian propaganda, was that Jesus was ‘the’ son of God, in defiance of Rome. But Jesus did not. I have no doubt that Jesus is God’s son and the Messiah. But will not say more than he did.
John 5:18
Therefore the Jews k sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, l making Himself equal with God.
He made himself equal with God. There is only one God therefore he says he is God.
John 10:30
I and the Father are one. – Jesus claiming he is God
John 8:58
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up
He is before Abraham ie he is God
Thomas calling Jesus God. Jesus did not correct him
John 20:28
28 Thomas answered him, s“My Lord and my God!”
It seems you do not even believe the Christian basics of the Trinity. God in three persons. Father Son and Holy Spirit. I urge you to reconsider your position and believe the truth.
As for the personal attack. You called me prejudice. This is a personal attack.
Yes, John’s Gospel? A very highly developed work, which goes way beyond the other gospels and of course anything Jesus may have said? That is simple fact which anyone with a spec of integrity and discrimination will acknowledge?
And the ‘I AM’ sayings are important, but are almost certainly not saying what you seem to believe and want. No where else in the gospels is Jesu so bold. And since no other apostle uses these words and these ideas, yo would do well to remember that this gospel struggled to get into the canon, because it is really quite gnostic. Not that I would reject it on those grounds. But what is reflected here is a theme in some other religions? That God is the big I AM. (EGO EIMI) and our poor egos, are ‘mini-me’, the masks and disguises we put on to hide our fear and shame. It is the modern idea of ego of psycho therapy? And we need to undergo the way of the cross, or metanoia, in which our ego is shrink so the True Self, can be revealed in our heart and soul. All humans have these and ‘God’ dwells at our heart, just waiting to be found. For some it just happens, for others like me, it takes a violent and traumatic experience of God to crack the heart open. A symbol Jesu uses often to describe the process.
The you oppose evil with your enmity, you only multiply the evil, yo do not destroy it. You can’t. Jesus spoke to this delusion often. Read the sermon on the mount carefully.
Those verses arent evidence of a Trinity.
He makes the same case for you? Where he speaks for himself, he is not claiming ‘any’ precedence for himself at all. This is primarily the role of the rabbi. His father is God, he is your father in faith and one day you will be father to others. Some understanding of Judaism, would help you. In several of these verses he is not speaking for himself. It is the ‘later’ church, promoting him after his death, It is pure propaganda, to counter the worship of he emperor. It is about ‘selling’ the new faith to the Roman Empire. Everyone has prejudices, so it is hardly personal, and we all have to allow them to be challenged an due ten to grow into a bigger faith. Observe in the Gospels, how Jesus the Rabbi, challenges the prejudices of his own disciples? That is his job and it is mine too. Your faith is to ‘personal’ and too tribal. Think again!
Jesus does not call himself God. He does not claim to be ‘the’ son. His humility means that he can reflect God supremely. He tells you to do the same. “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” The word doesn’t men perfect, just come to ‘your’ fullest maturity. Bonus! It is all grace.
Jesus does call himself God. I have pointed this out but it is clear you do not believe what the Bible says here. Sorry billions of true Christians disagree with you
There is no authentic and original, 1st century originated historical evidence of the existence of “Jesus”.
Everything you reference was fabricated by men centuries after the time in which the myths and legends of “Jesus” are set.
What do you want? Photographs? You have four of them in the Gospels (canonical) and more beyond that. That they are all different in detail and expressed by real human beings, is encouraging really in the black and white, true-false mono-culture we existing now.
The only evidence for a risen Christ/living reality/God in every generation is that of people who have ‘met’ it. I’m sorry you haven’t. So what is the point of your post any way? Who denies the presence of a mouse on the stair, apart from the one who didn’t see it and doesn’t want to see it?
Reason isn’t the only gift you have is it? And without employing your eyes and other gifts you never will ‘know’ anything.
Still, the moths are being drawn to the light and a conversation is gathering. Welcome!
Calling me prejudice is a personal attack.
Calling yourself a true believer and others, ‘false’ is no different? The difference is that I am just speaking the truth, backed up by scholarship and more importantly, experience of the reality you call God. Your responses to serious questions, is just more prejudice. Give answers, or stop wasting my time.
And it isn’t as if you have been able to make any real ‘argument’ to refute my claims Mr ‘Destroyer’. Nice name for a Christian. When did Jesus suggest it? Prejudice comes out in so many ways, as your ego subverts the gospel.
I am glad you asked that name. I am a Christian who joins the other Christian soldiers who follow Christ to DESTROY evil and sinful practices within the teachings of Christ.
It is interesting that you claim to be a ‘soldier’ who follows “…Christ to DESTROY evil and sinful practices within the teachings of Christ”. So, JC is in self destruct mode, as far as you are concerned! What christian ‘evil and sinful practices’ do you have in mind?
You could start by destroying hateful religion ie start with destroying yourself.
Like your previous posts were destroyed.
Hi Widuran, you wanker.
What are you talking about?
Noo wonder you were banned.
Cant keep yourself away hey?
Lol…..this is how others see the destroyer…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHnRIAVXTMQ
‘within the teaching of Christ?’ what do you think is evil and sinful in Christs teachings?
Nothing is evil and sinful within Christs teachings.
I think he has difficulty with, loving his neighbour, never mind enemies. Turning the other cheek, or forgiving anyone one 70 times seven times, without complaint. That’s only a guess of course. LOL.
Then you’d better come up with some arguments then? So far, nothing but ego. Time for some reasoned responses.
Arguments for what?
Just done
I have as yet seen no reasoned response from you to me, or anyone else. Try harder.
It’s never easy to say ‘I’m wrong’ – but you are completely wrong here. God created mankind – male and female – in his image; Jesus was not afraid to compare himself to a mother hen; and Bernard Joy is absolutely right about the word used for Spirit.
No Bernard Joy is completely wrong. God is not female. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Male and female are human forms. This does not mean God is female. It does not mean he is male and female. Otherwise we would not call him Father. Jesus Christ who is God would not call him Father. Trinity. God in three persons.
The Hebrew word used in Genesis 1 to refer to the Spirit is “Ruach”. In both Hebraic and Aramaic, this is a feminine word. The spirit in Genesis 1 is female.
God is both male and female as Gen 1:27 tells us “So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” – the Female image is just a part of God as is the Male image. Man and Woman were created as equals.
There are number of places in the Bible where God is referred to as, or compared to a mother.
There are some minor exceptions when female language is used.
I believe in Isaiah God presents himself as a mother. Jesus did describe God as a mother looking for a coin. In Genesis it talks about both male and female as you imply
However most of the descriptions of God are male and Jesus prayed to his Father and told us to do the same. So God is male and I pray to him as Jesus Christ taught.
What do you think about Yahweh’s consort/wife Ashera (“god the mother”)?
God is male.
Gods and goddesses are imaginary.
Why can’t you answer any questions?
@elizabethwhitehouse:disqus @disqus_iz5fcdqSyS:disqus @Meepestos:disqus
@rationalobservations:disqus
New version bookified now.
Hermit’s Religious Writings Canonical URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GM_2-gvG9ENVhblSmr_YPC5miJciyM98PtmsrMnyQ0E/ (Short URL: https://goo.gl/nx9tv9)
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/50cc8c99ea413977376c4736c85a14adcd43cce296cc494f08faac425578d93f.png
Efharisto para poli, athelphi.
I’ll check it out over the weekend.
Thank you Hermit. I am out of my home country currently but look forward to reading your blog when I return to a laptop and WiFi.
My pleasure.
It is more of a book than a blog.
If you are ever stupid enough to visit the US Midwest, please let me know.
I give you answers and you do not like them.
You reveal your indoctrinated delusions through evidence devoid recycled myths, legends and lies.
Unsupported responses to specific questions do not represent answers.
Here’s a repeat of the most recent question you ignored:
What is your opinion of Ashera, Yahweh’s wife / consort and “god the mother”?
More rubbish and indoctrinated theories from you oh wrong one.
“Ruach” isn’t one of those exceptions. ‘Ruach’ is feminine in both Hebraic and Aramaic.
You have to remember the Bible was written by people living in a very patriarchal culture and when he was on Earth Jesus lived in a patriarchal culture and would have used language and titles appropriate to that culture.
God presents himself as Mother in more places than just Isaiah.
I cannot see God presenting himself as Mother in more places than Isaiah and I have read the old and New Testaments a few times now.
God is described as being a Mother twice in Hosea. He’s compared to a mother Eagle in Deuteronomy as well as being labelled as the one who gave birth to us (last time I checked a man can’t give birth).
Psalm 131 compares our relationship with God as being that between a child and mother.
Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 both liken God to a Mother Hen.
The truth is God is neither Male or Female. The titles used int the Bible represent the Patriarchal culture and world view of those who wrote it.
The Matthew Luke verse likens God to a mother but Christ is definitely not calling God a he.
Jesus called him Father. He. As do I
Jesus referred to him as ‘Father’ because that was what was culturally acceptable.
There’s nothing wrong with calling God ‘Father’, if that’s what makes you feel comfortable. The Bible does through refer to God and the Spirit in the feminine, we can’t ignore that. God created man and woman as equals, we can’t ignore that.
Because it’s important for you for God to have a penis.
I think that actually says a lot about you.
Gods are mythical. Always were and always will be.
Not to billions who believe the truth.
“Truths” are proved, not “believed”. How do you prove that what “billions believe” is not wrong. After all, “Belief is usually the assignment of a truth value in the face of compelling confounding intersubjectively verifiable evidence, or occasionally the assignment of a truth value in the absence of sufficient intersubjectively verifiable supporting evidence. When sufficient intersubjectively verifiable supporting evidence is present, belief is not required, merely observation, evaluation and acceptance of the preponderance of the evidence.”
I know it is true and so many others. That is all I care about and if I can help reveal this truth to others then praise be the the Lord of the angel armies!
You don’t know anything. This is proved by the fact that you can’t support your assertions and don’t dare think about questions. Outside of simplistic closed systems of limited applicability, there are no “truths”, Only things which are imaginary, like the nonsense you spout, and things for which there exists intersubjectively verifiable evidence showing that they are more than imaginary, like scientific theories.
No I know enough to know you have faith in science which is not proven. This is no better then believing in God.
ISIS claim the same.
So do Scientologists and the millions of Hindus in India.
Billions claim the quran is true because they ‘know’ it is.
You’re not much of a destroyer – more of a dumbarse.
If you cared about Truth which you clearly don’t you would care about evidence.
Only to the declining number of the deluded who need to believe lies.
The number is growing in China, Korea, Muslim countries but is declining in the west due to atheism. But whatever the number. Truth is truth.
Truth is verifiable. Your recycled lies have never been verified, justified or even excused.
Education and free secular democracy has already been proved to be the antidote to the ridiculous and dishonest vile poison of religion.
The third largest and fastest growing human cohort are non-religious. The world’s most peaceful nations are also non-religious.
Your anti-humanitarian garbage is dying out.
No lies at all
Billions?
No one knows how few still believe in ancient myths and legends, but if everyone believed the same lies as you, they would remain lies.
I do not believe any lies.
That is clearly a lie itself.
You not only believe lies but you recycle old lies and tell new ones of your own fabrication.
Shame on you for your corruption and dishonesty!
Ah so you have argument so you falsely accuse. Good tactic. ROFL
You clearly do……You’ve called Obama a Muslim sympathiser while the current president is spending more on arming extremist Muslims than any other president in history. And he’s bragging about it.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba5eb983461d3b62773946b129e7a02f5cd64fff026e6c1362729c8e20a2e6fa.jpg
What’s up destroyer, too scared of me???
You should just call yourself ‘the pussy’.
You once again prove beyond all doubt that prayer (talking to yourself) is a total waste of time.
Judicial Watch: New HHS Documents Reveal that ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ Processed During Obama Years Included Violent Criminals, Drug Smugglers, and Human Traffickers
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-hhs-documents-reveal-that-unaccompanied-alien-children-processed-during-obama-years-included-violent-criminals-drug-smugglers-and-human-traffickers/
The ‘children’ were violent criminals, drug smugglers and human traffickers? Really?
Read the definition of ‘children’ or ‘minors’…
Your post spoke only of children?
Imagine that! DNA tests conducted at the border are coming up negative.
Government’s DNA testing turns up surprises in family reunification process
http://12160.info/page/2649739:Page:1795814
It’s no surprise that Christian Truth is tied up in government propaganda.
Thank you Dr. Corey for speaking prophetic truth, no matter how outrageoulsy offensive it is to White Evangelicals still defending Trump’s hate-filled gospel with predicable deflection, obfuscation, and derailment as is evidenced right here in the comment section.
U.S. Evangelicals who have cemented themslves to Trump will not be raptured, but will live the remainder of their years attempting to justify their unjustifiable alliance:
“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” – John Stuart Mill
My reply to the writer “Christian Truth” unfortunately seems to have hit a spam filter, so I am posting it in the general response section. My response was to his quote from Saint Paul’s Letter to the church in Rome:
You need to be careful not to fall for the old exegetical error of “proof-texting” – not to extract a scripture from it’s context and broader theological meaning (and God’s command to love our neighbour, the widow, the orphan, the stranger is the broader meaning here!). This passage has been callously misused to justify submission to unjust authorities and laws throughout the ages, to the eternal shame of Christendom. Here I include the US Jim Crow laws and Segregation, the Nazi regime (where so many christians used this passage of scripture to justify their silence in the face of the deportation and persecution of Jews, gypsies, intellectuals, the disabled and homosexuals), and in the case of Apartheid South Africa to name but three. Thank God there were Christians who understood that Christ’s command to love requires that we be courageous in standing up against evil. The Apartheid regime forcibly removed over 3 million men, women and children, declaring such removals “legal”, rubber-stamped by the government and a state church which largely looked the other way (see Cosmas Desmond: “The Discarded People”). When we argue for the submission to laws which offend against Christ we are on profoundly dangerous ground which incurs Judgement. Be aware too that to hide behind false exegesis like this runs counter to the noble Christian tradition of speaking truth to power and sacrificing for it: read “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
So Jesus would have tried to enter a country illegally or would he have wanted his followers to join him in disobedience to the laws of the land? So God did not establish the authority in the US?
I believe that justly established governments are a gift of God to us. Laws and order are good things, assuming they are just. I don’t think there’s anything inherently unjust about immigration laws. I don’t think Jesus would have encouraged people to blithely disregard them. But in certain cases I think it is better to let the law slide in order to treat people humanely.
Justly established governments are a figment of your imagination. No state has ever been ruled on moral principles, but are all based on the initiation of force against the innocent. Our immigration laws don’t differ much from the Fugitive Slave Acts ethically.
Put down the Dave Barton garbage and read some actual history by professional historians. It’ll do you a world of good.
I remember something about baby Jesus, Joseph, and Mary fleeing to Egypt….
Jesus—the dark-complected Middle Eastern refugee crossing borders with no English, no birth certificate, no citizenship, and without the slightest shred of nationalism—is outrageously offensive to U.S. White Evangelicals still defending Trump, as this comment section clearly illustrates.
And he was conceived out of wedlock too. And that whole lamebegotten thing.
And no birth certificate. And no English. And no Christianity. “Lock Him Up” the Evangelicals cry! Plenty of room in the detention centers at the U.S./Mexico border, just where Evangelicals want him.
For years my family actively attended a small rural SBC church. Some friends told me of their visit to a sweet older couple who attended the church. We did the church visitation thing. At any rate, the lady happened to mention that someone told her the oddest thing – that Jesus wasn’t white. So my friends kind of awkwardly stammered. So the lady then says, “Well he was white, wasn’t he?” So at this point my friends had to tell her that, no, Jesus wasn’t white. They told me later that all the blood pretty much drained out of her face LOL. I remember once telling my poor mom (God rest her soul) that Jesus didn’t speak the King’s English like her KJV bible quoted him. She was visibly shaken.
Ron – When people say Jesus wasn’t “white” what do they mean? Do they mean he just wasn’t of European ancestry? That shouldn’t shock anybody, unless they know nothing of geography. If not white, what race was Jesus?
Human. (And also divine, yes, but in his human aspect, he was a member of the human race. It’s the only race humans can belong to. The subdivisions we hear all the time are not actually races, though some have called them so.)
JC is a mythological figure, and thus does not, and never did, exist.
Well put. If more people left it at that, it would be fine with me!
Well, you may not like this follow up as much . Since there is a wide range of human skin tones, it is at least not totally absurd to speculate on what Jesus’s skin tone might have been. Not totally absurd … but probably not very smart either.
I am a fan of Alfred Burt’s take on this (“Some Children See Him”), PROVIDED that no one gets the idea that what they see is right and everyone else is wrong. Unfortunately, that’s a huge “provided.” Some people don’t even grasp the concept or possibility that they may be in error.
I agree that it’s not totally absurd to speculate. But to wield a sense of certainly about what his skin-tone was or wasn’t (supposedly) to score political/cultural points is absurd.
Thanks for the recommendation on Alfred Burt. I’ll have to do some googling on him.
On a side note, I wish you would not encourage otrotierra in her accusations towards me of “bullying” and that I’m trying to silence people. I’m certainly not. I’d like to think that people can disagree, ask questions of others, and criticize the positions others have taken without being accused of “bullying.” Your endorsement of her behavior is not helpful.
If JC ever existed (there is no written, or archaeological evidence for this supposed person), then he would have been a Middle Eastern Jew, not a WASP.
David – No one was alleging Jesus was a WASP. And yes, Jesus was Jewish and he lived in the Middle East. Establishing these things doesn’t get us any closer to the crux of the issue – what does it mean to be “white,” and if not “white” what race was Jesus?
The crux of the matter is whether JC actually existed in the first place. Do you have any evidence that such a person ever did exist?
Particularly in some (certainly not all) of the rural, segregated, uber fundamentalists churches in the Bible Belt, their view of Jesus comes from the portrait of American Jesus on the wall of their Sunday school class. That’s what they know and faith is filtered through that limited context. That’s often why people in those settings believe the KJV somehow fell out of the sky being the very word of God. There’s no thought whatever of the reality of original manuscripts written in Hebrew and Greek assembled over time, and that Jesus was middle eastern. I’m not making this up lol.
You don’t think people in these churches know that Jesus was born, lived, and died in the Middle East? Surely they know where Israel is, right?
What do you think your friends meant when they said Jesus wasn’t white? What race are people from the eastern Mediterranean? Obviously, none of us know what Jesus’ exact skin tone was. Racial classification is not exactly science-based.
I’m not trying to be pedantic here, but your anecdote reeks of smugness, as in “tee hee, those rural, fundamentalist rubes…they don’t even know that Jesus wasn’t white. My friends sure taught them a thing or two!” When it reality, racial classification is incredibly imprecise and beyond trying to do very basic things like label someone native to subSaharan Africa as “black” and someone native to Eurasia as “white” and someone from China/Japan/Korea as “Asian,” is pretty pointless. Poking fun at people for thinking that Jesus was white, when in reality the skin tone of people from his region of the world is much closer to white than black or Asian doesn’t make any sense to me. And when it’s coupled with bolstering one’s own sense of righteousness, it’s unbecoming.
“…your anecdote reeks of smugness, as in “tee hee, those rural, fundamentalist rubes…they don’t even know that Jesus wasn’t white. My friends sure taught them a thing or two.”
I was a member of that same church for almost 4 decades and served in active leadership roles there as well. The point you’re missing here is that a large part of this church would have been mortified if black people started infiltrating their house of worship. That’s the issue! The discussion with them had nothing to do with imprecise racial classifications or the scientific method best used for determining race.
“Poking fun at people for thinking that Jesus was white, when in reality the skin tone of people from his region of the world is much closer to white than black or Asian doesn’t make any sense to me. And when it’s coupled with bolstering one’s own sense of righteousness, it’s unbecoming.”
Thanks for the reprimand there, but I literally have no idea why you believe my sharing that anecdote somehow bolsters my own sense of righteousness. It has nothing to do with righteousness. I love these people but I won’t excuse unapologetic racism borne from ignorance no matter who it is. If that somehow causes you to believe I get some sort of perverted sense of self-righteousness from it, then ok whatever.
Methinks you doth protest too much…
Ha!
Hey Ron – If the issue is that the people at this church hold racial prejudices then, by all means, point that out. But you didn’t share an anecdote about their racial prejudices, but about their disbelief about Jesus’ supposedly not being white as if this was some sort of “gotcha.” “The blood drained from her face, LOL.”
I’ve tried to point out that it’s actually not that illogical to group people from Jesus’ part of the world in with white people, if one wants to engage in racial classification. Thinking of Jesus as “white” isn’t racial prejudice, but actually quite logical (again, if one wants to even bother trying to classify people by race) . It certainly seemed like you were using this story as a way to show how backwards and uneducated the people in this church were. If that wasn’t the point, my apologies. Based on otrotierra’s response to your comments, it’s pretty clear she took it the same way I did.
Here’s the thing Sam. If one were to say to these folks, “no, Jesus was black” (I’m not saying he was), the response would not have been, “oh my mistake, I misclassified his race” as in “I was technically incorrect.” No, the horror would have been that a black man was the savior of the world.
The look of shock on her face was a fear that these folks were going to tell her that he was black (which they didn’t). Instead they responded that his skin tone may have been a darker color (as in he didn’t look like the white people in our church). Yeah, this was about race. And yes, it is borne from ignorance as well. It doesn’t matter a hill of beans to me what race Jesus could have been. Unfortunately, it matters a hell of a lot to many others.
Ron,
I’ll take you at your word that your sharing of this story wasn’t to mock these people for thinking that Jesus was white. Peace.
Ron, just an FYI in case you are targeted: A fraudulent Disqus account impersonating me has again resurfaced. This is the 6th occurance of such harrassing behavior.
While the Evangelical troll can steal my username and avatar, he can’t steal my profile history. My Disqus account was opened in 2011, remains public, with 4,779 comments and 14,158 upvotes. The abuser’s fraudulent account is set to private, of course, and was opened in June 2018:
https://disqus.com/by/disqus_n7HXeYjpge/
Evangelical trolls sure have earned their abusive reputations.
Yep, as it turns out, I’ve been targeted lol. Thanks again for the warning.
How serious is this targeting? Should I be on the lookout?
I received a couple of replies (on this thread) that I could tell wasn’t the real Otro. I clicked on the profile and sure enough, it wasn’t. Same avatar even
Thanks for the heads up!
You are reaching levels of color-blindness and progressiveness never seen before in a White male!
Thank you Ron for hating your own race.
Your wife’s children must really look up to you!
Thank you Ron for continuing to testify truth. SamHamilton will not bully us into silence.
Why are you being such a drama queen? You’re like Sarah Bernhardt. I’m not bullying anyone, and my objective is certainly not to silence anyone. In fact, I’d like it if you’d respond to my questions. You’re choosing silence (and passive-aggressive responses and accusation about me to other people). Your behavior should be embarrassing.
I personally don´t think there is any way of knowing precisely Jesus´ skin tone, nor do I think it matters.
I will say, however, that I spent a fair amount of time in America´s Bible Belt as a fundamentalist Christian. All Roman Catholics are going to hell, Tim LaHaye is the king of end times eschatology, The KJV is the only inspired translation and yes … I think many would have been offended if someone came into the church on Sunday morning saying Jesus did not have white skin color (I am aware, SamHamilton, that you were making a different point (I think)).
I will qualify this by saying not everyone who lives in the world of American Bible Belt Christianity thinks like this … but many do and I think we have to, humbly, come against this kind of ignorant thinking.
So much, really, is at stake.
Totally agree
In an era when U.S. White Evangelicals are openly applauding and defending the illegal kidnapping and imprisonment of refugee children, SamHamilton decides to invest his energy attacking you for merely speaking the truth about your family’s valid experience with U.S. White Evangelical culture. Yet another sad example of Evangelical bullying.
Evangelical Bullies will not silence us. We will continue to speak truth without apology, no matter how clearly upsetting it is to SamHamilton.
I wasn’t “attacking” anyone. I was asking Ron questions and pointing out that thinking of Jesus as white isn’t that nutty. I’m not sure why you consider this “evangelical bullying.” Your smugness does not reflect well on you.
I wish you would address your comments about me to me rather than other people. I’ve asked you to do this many times, yet you continue with this passive-aggressive behavior. What’s wrong with you? Is this how you behave offline too?
Perhaps you’ll be willing to address my questions about Jesus’ racial classification since you seem pretty adamant that to think of Jesus as white is some sort of grave offensive. When you say Jesus wasn’t “white” what do you mean? Do you mean he just wasn’t of European ancestry? If you mean something more than that, if not white, what race was Jesus?
Let me know when you’re ready to stop your passive-aggressive behavior and engage in discussion…
Arguing over the skin colour of someone for whom there is no evidence, whether written or archaeological, is a complete waste of time, don’t you think.
I was not arguing over Jesus’ skin tone. His skin tone is not as important to me. Ron, to his credit, doesn’t seem to care that much about what Jesus’ skin tone was either. Our discussion was about the propriety of judging other people on their opinion on the matter.
Over half a century ago MLK said, “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” It’s so true even today.
I too shake my head when I go by some Black Baptist churches and don’t see a single White person. It’s as if culturally many people just want to be with their own.
Ron, you always share the best anecdotes. What you describe is certainly a shared experience within contemporary U.S. White Evangelical communities, SBC and others.
Jesus certainly is not white; and he is currently imprisoned in a cage at the border with dark-complected children separated from their refugee families.
What you describe is certainly a shared experience within contemporary U.S. White Evangelical communities, SBC and others.
How do you know this? Don’t you live in Canada? How many American evangelicals or members of the SBC do you encounter regularly in order to come to this opinion?
Yes, Jesus would have disobeyed the laws of the land if they were being used to harm children, were being used to cruelly take children away from their parents and imprison the children.
No, God didn’t establish any government, certainly not the U.S. Government to do wrong, to harm children, to do unjust actions.
How is holding children in a facility harming them when the majority are not with their parents. Again this is a human trafficking issue.
See my previous comment. I’ve not read your claim in any news in the U.S., or the Israeli news, or the BBC.
Where did you read that the kids aren’t entering with their parents?
Then are you stating that the 4 First Ladies are incorrect, that John McCain is incorrect, that World Vision, that Amnesty International, that 2 Republican governors and other leaders who have opposed the imprisoning of these kids are all incorrect in their views?
It’s only bad news for them in the short term. Long term, it really is good for them too. Their purifying process may just sting a bit more.
Do you believe in some sort of afterlife purgatory, Chuck McKnight? Are you the same
guy who read something about the invisible man at a Keith Giles seminar?? I don´t remember
the analogy exactly, but I think it was a good one 🙂
Hey, Matthew. Yes, that’s me. This is the original post for that allegory: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hippieheretic/2017/06/invisible-man-and-his-shadow-allegory.html
I don’t use the term purgatory myself, because it has pretty strong connotations from the Catholic version that I don’t agree with. But I do believe that God’s love extends beyond the grave, and that God will never stop seeking the ultimate good of every individual.
How does God seek the ultimate good of every individual beyond the grave? By a burning purgation? Greg Boyd gave a recent sermon on this subject. I don´t think I agree with him, though I may not be understanding his points clearly … or yours for that matter 🙁
I won’t pretend to know the details of how God intends to bring it about, but I believe both from scripture and from my own experience with God that he seeks the reconciliation of all. At the resurrection, I believe he will allow those who reject him to go their own way. But just as he pursues us with non-coersive love in this life, I believe he will continue the same in the next. And I have hope that God’s love will win everyone over in the end.
I agree with your first sentence. And, for a short time (weeks, maybe a couple of months) I would have agreed with the rest of what you say. But whether you call it purgatory or find some other name for it, how can “purgation” do for you what Jesus’s death and resurrection can’t?
Thanks so much. Where do we go after death and before the resurrection?
What price resurrection if one has been consumed by a flock of vultures? In any case, the atoms that we are made of have been in use by other beings, or plants, etc., from time immemorial.
Hello David.
That’s a great question. Part of me leans toward soul sleep. And the other part of me leans toward some sort of conscious place of rest with God. But I don’t have a strong opinion in either direction. Scripture would seem to lean more toward the former. Church tradition would seem to lean more toward the latter.
What do you think about Jesus´ statement … “Today you will be with me in paradise.”?
https://godfatherpolitics.com/liberal-hypocrites-worry-about-detained-children-but-not-about-murdering-babies/
Yawn. Pot meet kettle.
There are progressive pro-life people out there Christian Truth.
There are different interpretations regarding LGBTQ issues and
the scriptural arguments surrounding them. Why is the conservative
interpretation the only valid one?
While I don´t think Jesus was an advocate of any particular economic
“ism” that exists, it does seem to me that the Kingdom of God which Jesus
both proclaimed and manifested does indeed include the fair and just
allocation and distribution of resources — most notably between brothers
and sisters in Christ. Galatians 6:10 comes immediately to mind.
[Edited]
So punish the law abiding citizens who’ve gone through the process legally? This isn’t a wealth redistribution issue; this is a safety issue as so many of our state facilities are shut down trying to accommodate illegals (many of which continue in illegal activity).We are stretched beyond capacity. The biggest opponent of this are those who HAVE obeyed the law only to have to turn around & pay for those who do not.All those who want open borders please go try to enter another country illegally & see where it gets you. If you REALLY believe it’s the heart of God to go against laws designed to protect us then one has to question this roller coaster morality. And please tell this to families that have had loved ones killed, raped & harmed by the actions of those here illegally.
“So punish the law abiding citizens who’ve gone through the process legally? This isn’t a wealth redistribution issue; this is a safety issue”
Some German guy, circa 1939
Seriously, though, congrats on further tarnishing your religion’s reputation. No wonder it is dying so fast.
Someone’s always got to drag Hitler or Nazis into any debate at some point. Well done. You win the peanut.
Hey its not my fault that American conservatives have gone straight fascist.
Indeed, it is deeply offensive to them that U.S. Evangelicals still defending Trump have earned their own reputations all on their own. They must accept “personal responsibility” for their own behavior.
Stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution. The purpose of discussion, which is what comment sections are for, is to discern truth together. Calling people Nazis isn’t going to help anyone discern the truth.
So first it was just “Christian Truth” and now it’s all “American conservatives.” You get four peanuts now. Well done. When everyone to the right of you is a fascist, no one is and the word loses its meaning.
Definition of fascist: n, someone on the right whose views I disagree with.
“Some German guy, circa 1939”
What? You do realize that Hitler WAS punishing law-abiding citizens, right? CT’s, question was, obviously, in bewilderment that this would be Corey’s (and perhaps yours) stance.
For the record, Hitler was ethnically German and natively Austro-Hungarian.
Never heard of the Nuremberg laws? The Jews were by definition not citizens. So a German Jewish lawyer was a criminal for existing, not “law abiding.” Kind of like how a family crossing the border seeking asylum is “illegal.” Everything the Nazis did was “legal.” (In fact they consciously based their racial laws on those of the American South. Fun fact.)
I wasn’t actually referring to Hitler, but the random right wing a-hole who made up a large percentage of the German public in 1939. And Hitler was a German Citizen, so you weren’t really making a point anyways.
The only issue here is that we have a policy that is unreasonably and unnecessarily cruel. And CT, Mr. “Christian Truth” is such a heartless, un-compassionate son of a bitch that he feels the need to defend this policy. Proof positive that you can be both a professing christian and a moral monster.
So yeah, I think Ben and my positions are the same here. Why is it that the loudest conservative Christians are so damn cruel?
“The Jews were by definition not citizens.”
Except that they were, until they were declared not. Immigration, however, is not the same thing.
“Kind of like how a family crossing the border seeking asylum is “illegal.””
No, it’s not the same thing, because they’re not citizens declared non-citizens; they are, at the beginning, non-citizens and only made citizens as the government decrees.
They weren’t citizens who were declared non-citizens.
“Everything the Nazis did was “legal.””
That’s not the point; stay focused.
It wasn’t the Jews who went to foreign government; the government made the Jews foreigners in their own land.
“And Hitler was a German Citizen, so you weren’t really making a point anyways.”
I’m merely pointing out your ambiguity.
“but the random right wing a-hole who made up a large percentage of the German public in 1939.”
Might not wanna use right-wing all willy-nilly; they were, as their party declared, socialists.
“So yeah, I think Ben and my positions are the same here.”
Of this I have no doubt.
“Why is it that the loudest conservative Christians are so damn cruel?”
Because so are the loudest progressive Christians. After all, Benjamin Corey did bear false witness in this article; now that’s pretty cruel.
Hahaha okay, I get it, you are a right wing a-hole too.
The point is, why be needlessly cruel to children? Any answer other than “we shouldn’t be” is unacceptable. Only a person of low moral character like yourself and CT can take that position. “Its fine to be needlessly cruel to children because X” is probably something Jesus would never say. But you and CT just have.
You weren’t trying to point out my ambiguity, you were trying to make make yourself look smart. (You failed at that by the way. Everyone knows Hitler was born in Austria, and it was completely irrelevant.)
Fascism in all places has been a conservative movement, and almost always a Christian one too. (The Nazi’s being a quazi exemption here, but see fascist Spain, Itally, Croatia, Portugal etc. Even so 98% of the German population were Christians. ) To make the “the Nazi’s were leftists!” argument just shows you are either stupid, historically illiterate, or intentionally dishonest.
Feel free to respond, but know I won’t. I don’t have time to argue about why we should have compassion towards one another.
“Only a person of low moral character like yourself and CT can take that position.”
I didn’t, but I can see where you’re not interested in honest conversation with this statement.
“You weren’t trying to point out my ambiguity, you were trying to make make yourself look smart.”
No, I was just poking fun at your ambiguity while showing your argument as ridiculous.
“Everyone knows Hitler was born in Austria, and it was completely irrelevant.”
How dare you; some people have never heard of Hitler or Austria!
“Fascism in all places has been a conservative movement”
Define conservative, please.
I think you’re creating a false dichotomy that pits “open borders” against separating children from their parents. You can enforce the law while still keeping family units intact, even if the eventual result is sending them back to their home country…together.
That’s what they’re trying to do. Even going so far as administering DNA tests to make sure many of the kids are not being forced against their will.
“This is what they are trying to do.”
Really?
Just saw a piece on CBS news about a detention center in New York. Over 200 kids separated from their parents since May 10. They focused on one child whose mother has already been deported back to Guatemala. I suspect there are others. They are attempting to place these kids in foster homes. A person who used to work at the center took the video. It seems the government is attempting to squelch any reporting that shows this environment and this type of result. This is despicable.
What do your comments have to do with the U.S. Government taking away children from their parents?
The U.S. Government could instead hold families including children on the border until their refugee status has been determined.
They are not taking them away from their families as most enter with strangers.
The children wouldn’t cry pitifully if they were being taken away from strangers or traffickers.
Yet they do.
Please give me the source of your statement. I’ve been reading about the policy of the U.S. taking away children from their parents for many days in various places in the U.S. news, and have read of this in Israeli news and the BBC, etc.
No where have I read that most of the children are coming to the U.S. with strangers.
I would like to read the documentation on such a claim.
See this news story which disagrees with your claim:
“In March, John Kelly, then the homeland security secretary, expressed his belief that separating migrant families – forcibly taking children away from their parents in this country and at the US-Mexican border – would serve as an effective deterrent to undocumented immigration….more than 700 children seized from their parents during the previous six months, more than 100 were under the age of four.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/03/immigrant-children-parents-families-protest
And even if the kids are entering with strangers, that is NOT a reason to imprison the kids. They need to be treated as Jesus or Martin Luther King or any caring parent would treat them.
ALL of these kids are as inherently valuable as my own kids and my own grandkids.
If the kids are being used human traffikers, then the latter ought to be turned over to the Mexican police,
AND THE KIDS OUGHT TO BE FOUND HOMES FOR IN THE U.S. until we can find their actual parents.
There is no need to imprison kidnapped children!
From your comments I assume I’m meant to understand “Christian Truth” as a euphemism for lies. If that’s not your intent, you probably should stop lying.
DHS secretary essentially revealed today that almost all of the children who were “separated” from the adult they were with were being trafficked. They weren’t even with their parents. Human trafficking IS the issue here! Get your heads out of the sand! Like I said before one has to question the motives of the heart for wanting to cross ILLEGALLY in the first place. Try to cross from South American into Mexico & u are shot down. . http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/dhs-secretary-essentially-revealed-today-that-almost-all-of-the-children-who-were-separated-from-the-adult-they-were-with-were-being-trafficked-they-werent-even-with-their-parents/
Christian Truth – Here’s the transcript of what the DHS Secretary said: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/dhs-kirstjen-nielsen-families-separated-border-transcript.html
What she says about trafficking is that “we have a 314 percent increase in adults and children arriving at the border fraudulently, claiming to be a family unit.” She does not say that “almost all” of the children who were separated from the adult they were with were being trafficked. As Andrew Egger at the Weekly Standard pointed out regarding this statistic…
…without knowing the scale of the problem, it doesn’t tell you much. According to DHS’s own data the increase represents an uptick from 46 cases of fraud in fiscal year 2017 to 191 so far in fiscal year 2018. Even now, at the height of that “staggering increase,” only one half of one percent of immigrant groups claiming family status have been accused of fraud.
https://www.weeklystandard.com/andrew-egger/trumps-dhs-puts-out-fake-news-propaganda-about-family-separations-on-the-border
Perhaps you’re referring to a different statement from the DHS secretary though. If so, can you pass it along?
http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/dhs-secretary-essentially-revealed-today-that-almost-all-of-the-children-who-were-separated-from-the-adult-they-were-with-were-being-trafficked-they-werent-even-with-their-parents/
Listen for yourself
Thanks. Honestly, I don’t have time to watch a 36 minute video. Can you pull a quote or cite a time on the video where she says what you say she said? I couldn’t find it in the transcript I posted earlier, but it’s certainly possible I missed it.
Wow. You’ll swallow anything, won’t you.
Now that it’s very clear that this was happening during Obama administration as admitted by an illegal immigration attorney your comment holds no validity.
As has been pointed out countless times, you can only get here by playing deeply dishonest games with what “this” is; starting with ignoring the difference between last resort and blanket policy, then by lying about whether the children in these recent cases are actually accompanied by parents, then by pretending that nothing has changed when several administration officials have admitted by this point that this was a deliberate policy change.
Since you are willing to peddle knowingly dishonest garbage, it is unclear why you think anyone should take anything you say on the matter with any credibility or validity.
The blatant dishonesty and deception from Mr. “Christian Truth” is quite revealing. One must wonder, why is bearing false witness so important to him?
I don’t know, but it is creepy. It’s like people like this believe if only they repeat the lies often enough and believe in them hard enough they will become real. Like Pinnochio, only with ideological garbage.
This is a well-documented pattern. When they are confronted with their lies and deception, they respond with more lies and deception. Which gospel are they following? Not that of Jesus.
mostly trump’s flaccid junk though.
Contrary to what DHS secretary and Christian Truth said, here is what the U.S. Immigration said:
“At least 2,300 children have been taken from more than 2,200 parents since 5 May, according to US immigration officials.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44559008
Christian Truth didn’t say it…I simply gave link to DHS response.
I know that. I thought you agreed and stated along with the DHS secretary that U.S. Immigration hadn’t taken hundreds of children away from their parents. Read your comment again where you refer to her views.
That’s their FACTS. They are trying to determine if adult with minors was a relative & according to their ‘FACTS’ the majority are NOT a parent. It wasn’t her views if u would listen to the WH briefing http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/dhs-secretary-essentially-revealed-today-that-almost-all-of-the-children-who-were-separated-from-the-adult-they-were-with-were-being-trafficked-they-werent-even-with-their-parents/
And the current change in law, apparently, doesn´t address the issue of children already separated from their parents 🙁
So tragic.
Thank you for this powerful reminder. God’s grace is available for anyone and God loves even those who separate children from their parents, but Jesus certainly has harsh words of judgment for those who would do such a thing. There are humane ways of implementing an immigration policy that keep children with their parents. Congress needs to act to ensure that parents and children are not separated at the border. If they need to be detained, fine…detain them together. And if they need to be sent back to their country of origin, fine, but send them back together.
Although your point is well made, I don’t think Matthew 25 represents a “final” judgment.
https://godfatherpolitics.com/immigration-lawyer-reminds-everyone-that-obama-purposely-separated-illegal-immigrant-families/
IMMIGRATION LAWYER REMINDS EVERYONE THAT OBAMA PURPOSELY SEPARATED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT FAMILIES
So which is it? The previous administration “purposely separated illegal immigrant families,” like this lawyer claims, or they failed to “enforce the law” as Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed?
This is not new to any administration…but the purpose is beyond our understanding. After 9/11 it was crucial to protect our borders…however the drug running, weapons running & human trafficking issue has commanded that we separate in order to verify legitimacy versus criminal activity. Again God gave us this government to protect us. I believe they’re doing the best they can do to determine motives of those entering illegally. It’s not a ‘let’s be cruel & separate kids from parents’ issue as the MSM has made it. I find it ironic though when they can’t report on huge accomplishments like North Korea so they start throwing dirt. It’s constant negativity to divide the masses & the Enemy loves making it an “us vs. them” when the Bible clearly states the battle is NOT against flesh & blood. If there are wrong motives in our government then PRAY for them…pray for God’s goodness upon them that leads to repentance. But let God be the judge instead of being so quick to rush to judgement & may mercy rule our hearts.
Delusions die hard. The attacks were from within and our borders are only overzealously secure if you are a citizen.
Bless you, pray you find the truth before the chance has passes.
I KNOW the attacks were from within but how does that lessen the fact that we have a humane way of determining children being trafficked or seeking asylum. I can’t imagine a better way to throw a wrench in human trafficking than to have these facilities that separate the child from the adult companion they entered with to find if the child is being manipulated against his/her will or abused so that they CAN be protected. Upping our border security & making it harder to come in unnoticed will lower the criminal elements trying to encroach this nation & protect citizens & those innocent persons truly wanting a better life. That’s my point.
Putting aside a particular understanding of Matthew, I fully agree. And I dont think all judgement will be left to the afterlife.
David Frum has a thought provoking article in The Atlantic. See here: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/need-for-immigration-control/563261/
He writes:
It is disgusting and wrong to equate human beings with insects and animals, as Trump so disgracefully does. Illegal immigrants are committing no moral wrong. They are doing what we might do in their place—as we, by defending borders, are doing what they would do if they were in ours. Like so many human institutions, borders are both arbitrary and indispensable. Without them, there are no nations. Without nations, there can be no democracy and no liberalism. John Lennon may imagine that without nations there will be only humanity. More likely, without nations there will only be tribes.
I recommend the entire thing and I’d be interested in people’s thoughts.
It’s only wrong to equate humans with animals if you use that as an excuse to ill-treat them, as you also shouldn’t ill-treat an animal.
Okay… Do you have any other thoughts on the substance of Frum’s article?
“More likely, without nations there will only be tribes.”
What’s the problem with this?
Tribal conflicts and killings are rife in African states as we speak, and to be utterly deplored. Of course, corrupt leaders, and imported religions do not help to keep the peace, quite the opposite in many cases.
I guess it all depends on what one’s definition of “tribe” or “tribalism” is. My view of a world of tribes is people forming into groups based on ethnicity, religion, culture, etc. and their identity is strongly formed by who’s in and who’s out. They have a higher barrier to entry and high cost of leaving and revolve around a strong leader who demands fealty. The worst thing you could do is betray your tribe. The only thing governing the behavior of tribes is the threat of violent force from another tribe. This is obviously a negative view of tribes.
I think tribalism in small doses is a positive thing…it gives people a sense of community and purpose. But I’m also glad we have civil governments outside of our tribes that mediate things.
I don’t know what Mr. Frum’s view of tribes is, but it’s obviously a negative one as well.
Is there a positive spin on tribes that you envision?
Hey Sam,
Thanks for asking honest questions.
“Is there a positive spin on tribes that you envision?”
Well, I think it’s pretty clear that Christianity itself is tribal. Their identity if based on their religion, but, perhaps more appropriately, by their actions of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Outside the New Jerusalem “are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”
Our natural tendency is to say “tribes are bad”, because we are pessimistic about anything good coming from them (probably because we are pessimistic about the individual human). So, as you say, “we have civil governments outside of our tribes that mediate things.” Yet, in the midst of our civil governments we have growth in tribalism (and this is largely probably due to the civil government). So I don’t think they are doing too great a job of mediating things, because our government is prone to favoring tribes–this is pandering, and a plague of democracy (whose politicians only care about short term wins, so they seek after votes–and identity politics).
“Is there a positive spin on tribes that you envision?”
I think tribalism is both good and bad, and I think it’s ultimately good. Why do we have tribalism now under our civil government? Well, the government itself in its efforts to placate tribes in the U.S. and Europe has become uncivil (the bakeshop case as an example, the welfare state as an example, the anti-wealth creators as an example). They force their will through aggression like taxation or even anti-discrimination clauses.
The way tribalism is good, however, is due to the voluntary nature of it outside of government. Think about it like this: if two tribes don’t like the way each is living, they don’t have to do business together. YET, if they may not like it but they produce different things that each wants, they have reason to trade AND, because these products are products of their culture, they slowly assimilate eachother’s culture. The problem, however, is when forced assimilation occurs (like war and enslavement and rule by people that the populace doesn’t want to rule them.
Suffice it to say, I think tribalism is inevitable; there will be those who love “this” group and those that hate “this” group. What’s optional, however, is nations which force assimilation.
Thanks for your thoughts Josh. I think we’re both agreed that tribalism has good aspects and bad. You seem to think that having government institutions as a forum or cushion between tribes is worse than no cushion, while I tend to think the cushion is, in general, a good thing. Do you think this is a good summation of where we agree and part ways?
This is just a meaningless word salad.
Oh well; can’t please people who don’t want to be pleased.
Why would anyone be ‘pleased’ to read incomprehensible, semiliterate, nonsense?
I don’t presume that you would speak for everyone, but maybe all the “frumpies”.
When you work for the government you follow rules and regulations.
Why these rule and these regulations were what they were is the question.
Mr. Corey, you seem rather judgemental in your sending those who did these things into the eternal fires of perdition.
It was wrong what happened, it borders on evil, but the wheels of government don’t care about mercy – just rules and regulations.
Sometimes a comment embodies the concern and lack of justice described in the article. I believe your comment is one of those.
If you and I don’t tell these people that not soothing and hugging a child in distress is child abuse, who will?
The Bible has never been good news for all. It is fraught with maiming, murder, jealousy, rape, adultery, hubris and immorality. Each of these attributes has been used to justify our treatment of our fellow human beings.
Jesus, however, was very, very clear regarding the treatment of children. Judgment day is going to be ugly for everyone complicit in the abuse of these children. From the President to his minions to the to the 30% of American who make with their bizarre justifications to the overseers walking by crying children and offering no comfort. Ugly, indeed.
Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Roberta Joan,
What did you want the employees to do ?
Not everyone can afford to lose their jobs and they were told not to interact with the kids.
I will leave it to God to judge.
The road is narrow because it is *hard*. Our instinct is to be selfish and self-preserving. Stepping outside of that, like Jesus commanded us, is difficult. Still….we have to stand for those who cannot stand for themselves. This is the Good Samaritan. This is Christ.
wullaj,
As you know in America, the Law is our sacred scripture, it should not be, but it is.
Those people who work there as guards just followed the law, as most of us do.
Think about – why do we speed down the highway at 65 mph, which is far too fast, far too dangerous and if we get into an accident
most likely to kill and maim people for life.
Because the speed limit is 65 mph.
If I drove at a sensible speed of 35 mph, I would either get rear ended or given a citation.
And if I kept driving at 35 mph on the freeways, I would eventually lose my license.
How many American die every year on our roads and are maimed for life – hundreds of thousands
it is a war out there yet no one seems to mind and finds it immoral to drive so fast.
I don’t pledge allegiance to America and its laws, I pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ. Everything else is secondary, at least. If something I do is something Christ commanded us to do and it breaks a law, so be it.
Wullaj,
I don’t say the pledge, I would rather not pay taxes as abortion on demand is an abomindation.
Federal funds haven’t paid for abortions since 1976.
Incorrect.
Planned Parenthood gets money from the Government
and that funding helps their Abortion Clinics stay open
and provide Abortions on demand.
Nope! This is incorrect conservative rhetoric. Read something besides Breitbart.
I don’t read Breitbart.
Is it or is it not a fact that Planned Parenthood gets money from the Government.
Yes or No ?
Yes.
Yes, it allows PP to open its “Clinics”.
Does PP peform Abortions there ?
Yes or No ?
Yes`.
And so PP runs Clinics funded by the Government that gives it
places to perform Abortions.
Funding goes to Planned Parenthood which allow them to
operate clinics where Abortions take place, non-medical abortions.
This is simply not true. To have fealty to Rule of Law is not and has never been to silence the individual conscience. It only formalizes the cost of obeying it. You seem, here, to be awfully comfortable with the position that one’s moral sense should be sacrificed on the altar of the daily bread.
Let’s put it this way: If your job was to caretake children and your boss told you could not comfort or hug them under any circumstances, would you obey?
3lemenope,
It is true, one’s conscience is not inherently expected in America.
Go and read up to what happened to Pacifists in World War I.
The Colorado baker was forces by a silly law in Colorado to lose 40 % of his business, and it is not clear that the Supreme Court
would support his conscience should another Same Gender couple file a law suit against him.
The guards are doing what they were told to do. I don’t praise them, no do I condemn them, as they have to make up their own mind.
If you wish to condemn someone, condemn those who wrote the rules and regulations.
It is my understanding that many elementary school teachers no longer hug the kids as they fear lawsuits.
That just makes you out to be confused. A person, knowing what is wrong, choosing what is wrong nonetheless, is blameworthy.
How about both?
I didn’t ask what other people have done, I asked what would you do?
3le,
Why such arrogance.
You do not know what you would do in the actual situation,
you have a belief, from outside the situation what you would do.
If you were truly that concerned you would go and get yourself hired as a guard and then see if you would do as you say.
If you want to condemn people, condemn yourself.
If someone ordered me not to hug a crying child and attempted to enforce it, I very much do know that I would ignore the order. If you don’t know of yourself–if you harbor significant doubt–that you would sacrifice your comfort in order to comfort a child, you–chances are pretty effing good–are a bad person.
You don’t need to go undercover as a child concentration camp guard to know this, for certain.
No, I’m going to condemn those who give that order and those who follow it. If your callow and fragile moral sense can’t muster the courage to do so, it doesn’t speak highly of you.
Yeah, you can in fact judge concentration camp guards without being one. Duh.
3le,
You do not know.
You only assume, you have never been in that situation.
Suppose you are taking care of your grandmother, you child has a disease that requires expensive medicines
and you are up to your neck in bills. If you lose your job – what then ?
How old are you ? You seem to be lacking in significant life experience.
Those are not concentration camps, you never saw a concentration camp in your life – I did.
By condemning others, you condemn yourself.
You are coming across as modern Pharisee.
I can only suggest you apply fo the position at one of those facilities and go ahead and hug and see what happens.
The Nazis tried to use the excuse ‘I was only following orders’ when being tried for their crimes at Nuremburg, so I think that excuse has had its day! Can you really see anyone in one of Trump’s child prison camps being prosecuted for comforting a distressed child, in spite of orders not to?
David,
Soldiers follow orders all day long.
They kill people in wars.
People they never met.
Civilians and children.
Are they prosectued for those crimes that arise from following orders ?
What makes one person a civilian and another a soldier.
If I work in a factory producing bombs am I not just as guilty of the death of a child that is killed by that bomb as the bombadier who dropped the bomb as the navigator who steered the bomber to that town and the pilot who flew it there and the Wing Commander who ordered them to fly and guide and drop bombs from that plane as the Air Force commander who ordered that Wing to carry out the mission as the President who
carries out the war on behalf of the people who elected him ?
Were not LeMay and McNamara and Harris guilty of massive bombings
of Japan and Germany. LeMay said as the war came to and end had
the Japanese won, he and McNamamar would have been tried as war criminals.
Those who broke rules and regulations would probably be written up
and either fired or transferred. Interactions between guards and prisoners in the Federal System is very regulated, that does not those
rules are not violated, but one is punished for such violations.
The guards did not order the children to be put in camps.
They cannot release the children from the camps.
They are not directly torturing the children, they are guarding them.
If you wish to hold someone responsible then speak to the Judges,
Prosectutors, Bureaucrats and Politicians who implemented this policy.
If the guard cannot afford to lose his job – what would you have him do, it is not as if they cannot get another guard the next day.
Perhaps if the guards all went on strike and called in the media two months ago – their jobs would, as a whole, be safe.
Any person who has actually seen concentration camps would not beg indulgence of evil as you repeatedly have done in this thread. Therefore, much like your cheap skepticism of my life experience, I’m gonna go ahead and doubt you’ve seen any concentration camp closer than your television screen.
You are coming across as an ethical imbecile, incapable of even condemning disgusting bad acts and desperately seeking instead to excuse and exonerate them.
3le,
How old are you ? I am probably three times you age.
I saw the camps after they were liberated, some of us were alive before World War II.
Being held in detention is not a concentration camp.
Being held in detention is not evil, it is highly unpleasant but not evil.
Why you insult those who disagree wtih your ethical judgements based on your lack of experience is a question you should probably ask yourself.
If you actually had the life experiences you claim, you seem to have learned nothing from them.
Age without wisdom is just spent entropy.
3le,
More insults.
How old are you ?
What wisdom do you have ?
It was Neuengamme near Bremen.
You rely on your age as a substitute for having basic moral sense. So, whatever amount of time I have lived, I feel confident in saying that I’ve managed to figure out more basic moral wisdom that you have, even with the benefit you claim to have had of seeing the apogee of man’s inhumanity to man.
I really don’t understand why you keep bringing up your age and experience, when it doesn’t seem like you’ve actually grown as a person from either of them. Am I supposed to be impressed that you managed to go through such an experience and still seek to excuse evil? That you seek to excuse brutality and cruelty to children? Please tell me, what part of seeing the liberated camps tells you that that is something worth doing. Because that’s all you’ve offered: that you’re old, and you’ve seen stuff, and therefore you are right and I should shut up.
A lazy, empty argument if ever there was one.
3le,
So how old are you ?
You have not figured out basic moral wisdom, as there is no such thing and no has ever figured it out.
You have no knowledge of what you would do in an extreme moral situation – no one does.
I do not excuse evil, but evil is not putting people in dentention centers, is is unfortunate for them, but it is not evil.
What brutality and cruelty has been done to these children ? Who has hit them, denied them food/shelter ?
Their parents illegally entered the country, so just as any criminal is separated from their children while in dentention,
they were separated from their chidlren, now if you are opposed to that type of separation,
then get the laws changed for everyone who is arrested and has children under the age of 18.
But don’t go around acting as if you are shocked that this goes on when it has been going on since you were alive.
Again insults, which is odd from a perso who holds themself to be a moral paragon.
Thirty-seven. So, when you insultingly estimated that you were three times my age, you were claiming that you were one-hundred-and-eleven.
Everyone has figured out “don’t abuse children”. Except you, apparently.
Look at you, again, thinking you know anything of my life.
You don’t.
Yes. yes, you do. The fact that you do not recognize it as evil makes the whole thing sad, on top of terrible.
No, it is wantonly and unnecessarily separating parent from child, denying said children comfort or succor or solace, orphaning them in a strange land with the only adults around often not even speaking their language. That’s evil.
Is that your definition of inhumane treatment? You reveal yourself with each passing comment as a less and less pleasant person. Hopefully no children depend upon your care.
….nothing. So, nothing. The prior system worked fine without separation as necessary policy. If you’re worried about people showing up for hearings, give them ankle bracelets. The policy change was motivated by cruelty, and yielded horror. And for running interference for it, you are suborning cruelty, and excusing horror.
Hypocrite. Between calling me too young to have an opinion and calling me a “modern Pharisee”, you are full of insults, both literal and passive-aggressive. Projection is an illness of the guilty mind. All I have said is that your age buys you nothing, and your experiences clearly haven’t taught you right from wrong, and you’re busy making excuses for oppressors rather than standing with the oppressed. I call that moral cowardice, but you can call it what you like.
You are being too hard on poor Henry (not), since he seems to be a true follower of the Great Orange maggot, who is only attempting to make America great again, and using much the same tactics as did Hitler for Germany in the 1930s. What’s not to like?
David,
I did not vote for Trump, I would have wanted Bernie over
either Trump or Hillary, why I might have even voted for you…
Why you insult me, I don’t know.
I do not approve of how the children were separated from their
parent(s), relatives but it is not the guard’s fault.
If you think you can do a better job, go apply to be a guard.
3le,
37 is old enough to know that you do know what is morally wise, if you are unaware of that, then it would explain your responses.
You call it abuse, is it not abuse for parents to bring their children on such dangerous journeys ?
It is not knowing your life, it is knowing the human condition, humans are capable of anything – as such we should not suppose that
we would not do what you call evil things – in any given situation.
No, I do not excuse evil, but what you call evil is not evil, if you cannot see that, then you need to open your eyes to how evil this world can be.
What happened and is happening to the children is un-necessary and does not help the children, but they are alive and they will be re-united wiht
their parents, it is painful, it may harm some of them, but it is not evil.
Why do my having diffrences with you automatically make me a less and less pleasant person ?
If I were a lawyer I would have filed suit on behalf of the children.
The prior system did separate the children, either at the border or later on if the parents were picked up by ICE.
If the parents were released and told to show up at an Immigration Hearing then they were free to re-unite with their children.
The new rules/regulations/policies made entering the country in an illegal manner a criminal charge and so, just as any charged with
a crime who does not make bail, they are likely to be separated from their underage children – that has been going on before you were
born, why were you not shocked by such evil back then ?
Now you call me a hypocrite, why because I point out that you are fond of going around and condemning people ?
That I dare to question your Moral Profundity ?
You call the guards – oppressors – you don’t even know them.
As I said, if you truly feel you are right then go apply to be a guard and show everyone how to be a moral guard.
No, because you are a hypocrite. You complain about being insulted while being insulting.
….were made without necessity, which is what makes them evil. Necessity is a thing that can excuse quite a bit, but the administration in this case made an unforced move to be more cruel than the status quo ante. That’s evil, and if you can’t figure that out, there isn’t much hope for you ever figuring out anything regarding morality.
As someone else pointed out to you, you are so obsessed with empathizing with the oppressor that you are willing to eliminate the victim from your mind. There have always been victims, you argue, so spare a thought for the tough spot that the guard is in.
That is so morally ugly it defies even the semblance of a polite description.
3le,
You blatantly insult me and yet you call it insulting because I question your moral condemnations of people you have never met
and call them and anyone who disagrees with you – evil.
You don’t really know what the word hypocrite means.
In their eyes this was the way to control the border.
In their eyes anyone who is an illegal immigrant is a criminal and the rules of holding them for trial
are to be carried out, if these people brought children, it is the parents fault for doing so.
That is how they see the situation, I do not agree with them and as I have said I would not separate the families.
What you might ask is why this took two months to make it into the media and the reason is because the Obama/Bush Adminstrations
did similar things to apprehended un-documented immigrants and their children, the present administration just made all un-documented
immigration a criminal offence.
[ You don’t have to say ‘ante” along with status quo as it is understood that a change has taken place. ]
That is not evil, that may be immoral, unkind, uncharitable, un-warranted but it is not evil.
You may have lived a charmed life and so you think you know what evil is, but you don’t if you think the detentions are evil.
As for the guards, you never responded on what a guard is to do if he needs the job, if someone in his family will die if he loses his job.
Nor do you allow that the typical human response is to follow orders.
As I said – why don’t you apply to be a guard so you can alleviate this “evil”, in fact are you not morally obliged to drop all that
you are doing and go and be a guard to help end this evil ?
And when did you become annointed as the Moral Aesthetician of the 21st century ?
March 15th, 1939, is a day of evil, I was alive then, were you ?
Why don’t you examine what happened then if you want to see what governments can do,
so that you can gain some perspective on what is evil and what is not.
People who wantonly abuse children are evil.
People who order the wanton abuse of children are evil.
People who make excuses for either of those two groups are evil.
You’re in that third category.
You can spin out all the excuses for your behavior or theirs that you want, it changes nothing. Go appeal the judgment to someone who isn’t tired of your excuses. Maybe on some prior day, you were a decent person, but today, you stand with ghastly perversions of justice. Yesterday, you might have been a hero, but today, you are most definitely a coward.
3le,
What do mean wanton ?
None of the children have been abused by their captors have they ?
You will have to talk to those in the government about their rules and regulations.
I do not make excuses, not do I justify the separating of parents from children.
I told you, were I a lawyer, that I would have filed a lawsuit.
What are you going to do about the fact that Judges have not ruled on this case and may have even ruled against your viewpoint.
The ICE has a quasi-constituional status/exemption – they can ask you do provide information at the Border Crossing that
Policemen cannnot ask and their standare of reasonable suspicion is much lower than that of the Law Enforcement.
Coward, what is your defintion of a coward ?
Again, you really don’t know what evil is.
Leaving aside your stilted sense of what constitutes abuse, yes, there have been numerous reports of abuse, including sexual assault (and blackmail in an attempt to cover it up), drugging children without medical necessity and against their will, inadequate medical care generally, and insufficient supervision leading to children predating upon one another.
Not that you give a damn. You’re too concerned about how hard it must be for the guards.
You normally in the business of kissing the government’s arse? Or is this only for when you want to defend cruelty against children? And what rock have you been living under, that you think folks all over aren’t “talking to those in the government” about this hideous policy?
A person who hides from the demands of conscience. A person who sides reflexively with the powerful against the powerless. A person who accepts stories and anecdata that supports their blindness, and ignores that which might challenge their comfort. A person who leans on privilege, such as age or status, to dismiss challenge and criticism.
You know.
You.
Today.
A coward.
Again, you don’t know me, so you have no foundation for this statement. At worst you might say that I include lesser forms of evil in the operative definition; so it is restricted not just to malefactors but also the bootlickers like yourself that cover for them. I certainly don’t think that making excuses for viciousness on an Internet blog is the same in severity as being a guard patrolling young children in cages/cells or being a policymaker ordering it to be so.
On the other hand, we can be reasonably sure that you don’t recognize evil when it’s staring you in the face, since you’ve spent the last several hours cowering in its sight. And like I said, maybe on any other day and on any other subject, you are the paragon of virtue, but that still wouldn’t bear upon what an utter moral moron you are on this matter. When it comes to this, here, you are a coward, properly called.
3le,
Again you condemn any and all you dare to disagree with you.
And again, more insults.
When you apply to work with those children, then I will find some personal validity in what you say.
Otherwise you are just preening in a moralistic manner.
No. Plenty of people disagree with me and I do not condemn them.
I just condemn those who argue in favor of brutalizing children. Like you.
Evangelicals offended by those who speak out against chlid abuse sure are earning a reputation for themselves.
3le,
I took the time to read you comments to others who disagreed with you and you condemn them.
As I said, prove your moral worth and go and apply to be a guard,
perhaps your witnessing will help change the situation.
I am against what happened but I am not going to call the guards
evil.
The only people I can remember “condemning” lately (and my, but you are the drama queen, aren’t you) are just the three people on this thread who decided that justifying child mistreatment was the hill they want to die on.
Hey, if you’re so confident in your own righteousness, you wouldn’t waste your time with me here. The real problem is that you know, deep down, that you are busy defending the indefensible. Leading to such pristine idiocy as arguing that in order to be a righteous critic of concentration camp bullshit, a person must first be a concentration camp guard. And then when called on that, you’d split how many hairs to find some moral distance between concentration camps and infant jails? This is the behavior of a person deeply uncomfortable with finding themselves on the very wrong side of things but holds too much pride or ignorance or cynicism to come around.
I “condemn” you, because insofar as your opinions and words here, you are a contemptible person, on the side of evil, making excuses for evil acts and covering for evil people. Cry a river about how you are being judged; I suspect you aren’t called to account by many people in your life, since you can always run to your age or the experiences you’ve had as a refuge from facing what you’re doing now. It takes some jerk on the Internet to call you out for indulging your worst instincts.
Considering the effort you’ve gone through to try to find excuses for why guards can’t comfort children and how understanding we should be of the guards in that situation, and how you’ve ignored all evidence of actual abuse, I don’t believe you. You are a liar. If you were against what is happening, you’d be singing a different tune.
3le,
Well you own words convict you:
“It takes some jerk on the Internet…”
So as it stand you did not apply to be one of the guards, but you condemn them anyway as evil.
And so you do condemn those who disagree with you.
I never said I was righteous, you make that claim about yourself is you so wish, but you are not, just a friendly reminder.
Again, you were not there, you cannot judge, you cannot put yourself in the ethical situation of the guards – you do not know what you would do.
I made no excuses for evil acts, because the acts were not evil.
You remain your own judge and excutioner.
Yes, as it stands, one does not have to participate in evil to condemn it, your tiresome whinging on behalf of evil notwithstanding.
Mostly just you.
One does not have to participate in evil to condemn it.
————————————————
But of course none of that matters, because your two-faced hypocrisy is revealed thus:
So *I* can’t judge whether or not they were evil acts because I didn’t participate, but *you* can judge whether or not they were evil acts because…?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. You claim that judgment is impossible and then make judgments. You complain about being insulted and then insult. Your position is garbage and the smell from that position clings to you closely.
3le,
You labeling so many things as evil, only demonstrates you don’t know what evil is.
No, not just me, just about anyone who dares to disagree with you.
You were not there, you don’t what the guards did or not did, you cannot judge them and
after all, if you truly thought it was evil, you would be applying to be a guard so you can do anything to allieviate the ongoing evils…
Two Faced Hypocrisy is not possible, check your metaphors at the door, please.
I did not say jugements are not possible, only that you are not in the position to make such judgements,
you clearly don’t know what evil is and you were not one of the guards, so you speak of what you do not know.
You have been hoisted on the petard of your own egotistical morality – time to send that application in and do what is right.
Look at you so desperate to leave open the door to your own moral cowardice.
Wait, what? We should walk a mile in the oppressors shoes. What about the victim?
You loathsome shitbag.
Hi Cake,
Nice to meet you.
No one knows what they would do in any situation.
You can tell yourself you would this or that, but who can say until it happens.
I was suggesting to 3le, if they really that hugs should be given, go be employed there and give hugs.
The Victim – well what would you do with people who cross the borders – illegally
What is your solution ?
Please keep your insults to yourself.
Thank You.
TL;DR
Cake,
Why not spell out what you wish to say ?
What does TL;DR mean?
TL;DR is Internet shorthand for “Too Long; Didn’t Read”
Thanks. Henry’s oblivious odiousness had me in such a sorts I could have only respond to David with a undeserving Let Me Google That For You animated link. So I just let it be.
Many thanks. I must try to remember that!
Thanks. I’ve seen people write that before and have never known what’s meant. It seems weird to write that in response to Henry, as his post wasn’t any longer than anything Cake had written. In this case, it sounds like just a giant middle finger.
Well, God is lost to us. Good excited the scene long ago.
You hug and hold those kids and make sure the Press knows about ICE’s utter lack of humanity and inability to know how to take care of children. Stop making excuses for evil. Just stop!
I do not make excuses for ICE.
I only pointed out that people do what they are told in their jobs.
Some people cannot afford to quite their jobs.
If you are adamant about what you say then apply for
an ICE job and treat those being held in the way you want them
to be held and if fired, file a Federal Lawsuit so the reality is
made known to the world.
Roberta,
It is not evil, but it is terribly unfortunate.
ICE does not have an “utter lack of humanity”
but the rules and regulations limit what the employees can do.
This author is an emoticon with no common sense or authentic sense of compassion. Not one thing written here has any truth to it. First this immigration policy was completely a leftist policy instituted by Clinton in 1998 and enforce by Obama for 8 years. This makes the statement “Trumps administration’s practice of separating family…”, a lie. So the Author is also a liar. Second, the ONLY people responsible are the Parents and the dishonest media (like this author) who push for this child abuse for revenue. Victim mongering is so passé these days. To the point, the Gospel is good news for everyone. It shows the way these negligent parents may be absolved of their sins of child abuse, and given the chance to be made whole again. It also gives the false witness media the opportunity to repent and absolve themselves too. And this is particularly true for this False Witness author. That is good news for them all. But only if they take advantage of the gift.
I totally agree…one must have the facts BEFORE ranting and one should PRAYERFULLY consider where the real war is fought & won. It ain’t via spouting off but it IS fought on our faces seeking Him.
Apparently the 40 plus times we are told not to judge are jyst a few of the verses you ignore while cherry picking.
Right is right, wrong is wrong.
And there is little difference in our politics, it’s mostly wrong enabled by the team pickers.
Bless you.
Unlabeled, you are also Unlearned. Christ was all about judgement and atonement. Why do you think he came to “save” us. Why do you think he was merciless crucified? If there was no ‘judgement’ there would be no need for salvation. Judgement is a very, very good thing. It is necessary. It discerns between ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’, ‘good’ and ‘bad, ‘evil’ and ‘virtue’, ‘liars’ and ‘Truth’ seekers. Not to judge is simply gross negligence. A way for the wicked to get away with their follies. Unlearned, learn your Faith. He (Christ) was The Truth. One who doesn’t discern and make judgements is careless of the Truth. And it logically follows, careless for Christ. But you’re in luck. The Good News is for everyone! Repent and believe and you can be be saved from judgement.
“If there was no ‘judgement’ there would be no need for salvation. Judgement is a very, very good thing. It is necessary. It discerns between ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’, ‘good’ and ‘bad, ‘evil’ and ‘virtue’, ‘liars’ and ‘Truth’ seekers. Not to judge is simply gross negligence. A way for the wicked to get away with their follies.”
I suppose it depends on who is doing the judging. You stated that the author has no “authentic sense of compassion.” Obviously you are not aware of the author’s own life story. So right off the bat you judged wrongly. But aside from that, you posted this from another site:
“It’s time everyone over 14 learn to use a gun and carry. They got rid of the Rifle Team every high school had in 1979. A Progressive idea, not a conservative one. Time to stop making pussies (and targets) out of our kids.”
The way of Jesus is not about falling in line with some American conservative agenda – political, religious, or otherwise. It was not an eye for an eye, nor was it to pick up a sword and fight. Instead, the invitation is to pick up one’s cross and follow him showing love, mercy, and compassion, even for one’s enemies. It was especially about loving the excluded, the least of these.
I don’t discount the atonement and it’s implications. But the gospel (at least the gospel Jesus preached recorded in the Synoptics) emphasized love for God and neighbor in the here and now.
Peace
I appreciate your thoughts. But disagree that it depends on Who’s doing the judging. Every being has a right and a duty to judge, to discerning good from evil, truth from fiction, etc. This emasculated idea that we can’t judge is foolish and anti-Christ. Christ, Good trees, he says, produce good fruit and bad trees produce bad fruit. The call to differentiate good from evil is to judge, to discern correctly. And all of us have a duty to do so. Jesus most misquoted directive “Judge not lest ye be judged” was a call not to condemn, it was not a call to be non-judgemental. Only we can condemn ourselves, God just obliges us our sentence.
Thanks for reposting that old post about Rifle Teams, is was a good phrase.
Peace!
It’s a sad state of American Christendom when the Jesus of the bible looks like a ‘pussy’. I imagine their view of Jesus is like this:
http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/files/2014/02/jesusRambo_540-boykin.jpg
LOLOL!!!
Oh my. Enjoy your coming Apocalypse.
You read the church’s words and ignore Jesus’s actual deeds and words
I have a deeply personal relationship with Jesus, your perverted interpretation just makes me so sad.
Love to you. May you someday find the place Jesus is leading me
You are so blinded by indoctrination, and your credulous nature, that you fail to see that your supposed ‘Jesus’ is leading you up the garden path!
The author seems to have no real grasp of scripture, or of the judgments. Matthew 25? That is the judgment of the nations after believers have been with Christ and returned with Him at Armageddon That is not the “final Judgment”, that occurs in Revelation 20, after the Millennium. Those judged by works in Matthew 25 are the remaining nations who are on earth after Armageddon. Degree’s in Theology? What?
Um, you realize that not every “theology degree” has it’s background in the doctrine you espouse here, right? Far from it.
I understand that, but someone with a theology background would hopefully understand the nature of the Kingdom of God, the new birth, salvation, and judgment. These are basic Christian doctrines. Nationalism and public policy has nothing to do with the gospel. There is no biblical instruction or command in the new testament to start a Christian nation, our Kingdom is not of this world.
“someone with a theology background would hopefully understand the nature of the Kingdom of God, the new birth, salvation, and judgment.”
I believe he does.
“Nationalism and public policy has nothing to do with the gospel.”
Well, the author has written numerous pieces against Christian nationalism so sounds like you are agreeing with him.
I think youre being unfair to Ben. Many, many respected scholars disagree with each other on the correct understanding of Matthew 25, and Revelation. I think Matthew refers to how people have treated believers rather than people in general, thus showing their allegiance. In the same way Jesus here closely identifies with His ‘brothers’, so He closely identified with believers whom Saul/Paul was persecuting – even though Saul was persecuting the followers of Jesus, by extension he was persecuting Jesus. Your view also seems to be premillenial, with a literal rapture of believers occurring before the Tribulation and a literal 1000 years reign. Many Christians would disagree with you on that. Too many Christians insist on understanding Revelation literalistically, in the same way they treat the first chapters of the Bible.
This is what I wrote on my facebook page as I held my breath (because I didn’t want to smell the original writing) and “shared” this monstrosity: Excuse me; I’m still throwing up. This is close to the most asinine, ridiculous, gospel-ignorant piece of writing I’ve EVER read. Do NOT comment unless you read the whole thing. It matters not what I think (or you, frankly) about the mess he is keying off on…but if you read this with the intelligence and commitment to Biblical truth – in its entirety – and concur with the author; do us a favor and unfriend me. Seriously. This is pathetic patheos at its worst (why do you read patheos then, Jack? For the same reason we analyzed the marijuana the VietCong were smoking in ’68-’69; the same reason we interrogated (not with hugs) captured vc and nva, the same reason we monitored their radio traffic (and ours)…”know your enemy.” Now I’m going to build a bunker so I can avoid the incoming tirades of some of my mostly millenial “I love Jesus but I hate the church” “red letter ‘christian”, God wins, universalist Rob Bell loving crowd. Do I sound irate? Very perceptive.
No thanks, I’ll stick with what Jesus said.
You should have a lie down.
Jack must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Either that, or someone peed in his Cheerios.
‘someone peed in his Cheerios.’
– too much information!
Ok. Someone must have peed instead in his Corn Flakes then.
I prefer semi-skimmed milk and a little sugar. But each to their own. Good to see you’re advertising different suppliers lol.
The gospel is a massive fraud. It makes sense that the fraudulent U.S. Administration should use it to justify its evil, heartless policies.
Why do you think the gospel is a fraud?
It would help to dispel the idea that the business of Christianity is a fraud if believing christers were able to adduce the irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence that shows their favourite supposed ‘god’ actually exists.
Because none of it is true.
You couldnt possibly know that. You have simply decided it is not true.
Do you have any irrefutable. falsifiable, evidence that your favourite supposed ‘god’ actually exists? There certainly is no evidence, whether written or archaeological, that any man-god named JC ever existed.
Research the history of the so-called ‘bible’ and find out for yourself that it is a syncretic concoction of pre-existing myths, legends, and folklore, mainly of Pagan origins. When you have completed that with all due diligence, and an open mind, get back to me.
If thats what you really think, theres little point in conversing with you. So Jesus of Nazareth never existed? Right lol.
Where is the irrefutable. falsifiable, evidence that your favourite supposed ‘god’ actually exists, was the question. So what is your answer?
You are oblivious to the history of the so-called ‘bible’, but then, you are not interested, I suppose, since it would probably blow your tiny mind if you discovered the truth for yourself!
When religions start taking the holy and sacred passages of their foundational texts in a literal way, they forfeit the epic claims and hope of their faith.
Divinity can be expressed in myth and metaphor. Ordinary literal and linear language cannot do the job.
After the Enlightenment, the modern world began to think that ancient peoples (those “other” peoples) told dumb, literal stories that we were now smart enough to recognize as such.
Not quite.
Those ancient people told smart, profoundly metaphorical stories that we were now dumb enough to take literally.
Jesus offered the Good News for everyone: the Kingdom of God “ON EARTH.”
Grace is available to all.
Knock on the door and it shall be opened. Then you are on your own to make your own best choice.
The word “gospel” means “Good News.”
The word “Good” is always an interpretation. What one person or group believes is good might not be the belief of other people or groups. It depends on the historical context and the religious and political matrix that is the environment of different people and communities.
The word “news” must be constantly updated for it to remain news. It’s not “old news!”
The news throughout the gospels was updated to meet the particular community of believers’ concerns.
***Mark was written during the devastating Roman/Jewish war. That’s why Jesus’ last words were “Why hast Thou forsaken me?”
***Later, the Luke whose concern for the outcasts had Jesus say “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”
***And the Gospel of John, which caricatures Jesus as some mystic philosopher, declares that the tragedy and shame of the cross was a necessary event, for Jesus [in total control] declares simply “It is finished.”
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’
‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’
‘Then why,’ asked the Inuit earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’
~ Annie Dillard
You took your time coming to the conclusion that ‘the gospel is not good news for everyone’, when it is obvious from the history of Christianity that it has been very bad news for just about everyone that has had the misfortune to come into contact with it! Better late than never, I suppose.
Like who?
Like everyone espousing any other belief including marginally different christer beliefs. This should not come as a shock. Religion is a social phenomenon almost certainly evolved to make wars larger, nastier and more decisive. Religion does not address questions or provide answers outside of answering the question, is that person part of US or part of THEM, by evaluating whether the person vests belief in the same ridiculous things as you, and if not, to depersonalize the THEM, depressing empathy in order to make THEM easier to abuse or kill.
History proves that religion is ridiculously better at this job than any of the other tools we have evolved for this purpose and that the Abrahamic religions are ridiculously better at this job than any other religions. So far the christers have killed more people for socio-religious reasons, both in actual and percentage of population terms than any other group. This includes the 21st Century during which we have been responsible for far more deaths than any other group, though Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians is set to compete with that.
“So far the christers have killed more people for socio-religious reasons, both in actual and percentage of population terms than any other group.”
Islam is hands down the deadliest religion.
Then there are far eastern religions that have done much murdering
Whatever religions the totalitarians may have had in the 20th century, it likely wasn’t Christianity.
Stalin was “Christian” by family, not by creed–he was an avowed atheist.
Mao abandoned Buddhism–likely an atheist.
Hitler didn’t believe in a divine Jesus.
Christianity is probably not in the top 3 deadliest, by a long shot.
Much of the deathtoll attributed to Christianity came via the Crusades period, which REALLY began in the 600’s as soon as Islam moved West. However, if you look at a map of Christendom, it RARELY spread the Roman Empire, and generally only in areas after provocation of a conquering Islam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y
Just look at the map of the numbers of wars every 20 years.
Islam is hands down the deadliest religion.”
Your evidence?
“Then there are far eastern religions that have done much murdering”
Tu quoque is not a defense but a fallacy, and “:much” is not “more”.
“Stalin was “Christian” by family, not by creed–he was an avowed atheist.”
Stalin was raised by orthodox monks to become a priest. It was only when they ejected him from their seminary for failing to come-up with the examination fees that he went off to become a revolutionary instead. He seems to have exemplified the life-lessons taught him by his care-givers, including the fact that religion is useful to the ruler. However, given that you agree that Stalin was an “avowed atheist” (whatever you imagine you mean by that) makes any inflated mortality data you are referencing irrelevant, as atheism, is a personal stance, not a source of socio-religious motivation.
Mao spoke frequently of the gods and heavens, e.g.
. Which suggests that he was not as much of an atheist as you appear to assume. However your contention that he was an atheist would obviate any claims that his motivation was socio-religious.
The primary source for Hitler rejecting christianity is the deliberately corrupted “Table Talk” produced by the Catholic, antiquarian and prolific forger, Francois Genoud, promoted by the self-servingly dishonest Trevor-Roper (See e.g. Carter, V. (2017-08-30). “Genoud, Heim & Picker’s “Table Talk”: A Study in Academic Fraud & Scandal”, Inconvenient History, Vol 9. No. 3. Accessed 2018-06-25 at https://www.inconvenienthistory.com/9/3/4880) and repeatedly contradicted by Hitler himself. For example, “Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.” [Hitler, Speech made during the negotiations for the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933 quoted in Helmreich, Ernst (1979). The German Churches Under Hitler. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. 241.], “My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian, I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.” [Hitler, Speech delivered at Munich 12 April 1922; from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1942). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 19.] and even, “Only He can relieve me of this duty Who called me to it. It was in the hand of Providence to snuff me out by the bomb that exploded only one and a half meters from me on July 20, and thus to terminate my life’s work. That the Almighty protected me on that day I consider a renewed affirmation of the task entrusted to me. In the years to come I shall continue on this road, uncompromisingly safeguarding my people’s interests, oblivious to all misery and danger, and filled with the holy conviction that God the Almighty will not abandon him who, during all his life, had no desire but to save his people from a fate it had never deserved, neither by virtue of its number nor by way of its importance.” [Hitler. Radio address, 30 January 1945; from Franklin Watts, ed. (1945). Voices of History. New York: Franklin Watts, Inc., p. 49.]
“Christianity is probably not in the top 3 deadliest, by a long shot.”
Funny you claim that. Do you have any evidence you imagine supports your position?
Most of the deaths attributable to christers came long after the so-called crusades. For example, the invasion of the Americas by Europeans involved significantly over 100 million deaths even before the process of colonization
Please don’t use videos as a source of data. I do not have the time or inclination to dredge through them to attempt to find what you imagine comprises evidence, even when they are not the work of ignorant and bigotted religious fanatics.
???
Of whom are you talking that it has been bad news?
Did anyone else see this Economist/YouGov poll?
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/rbrysksiud/econTabReport.pdf
It found that given a choice about to how deal with families without proper documentation showing up at the U.S. border, a plurality of Americans (44%) said the parents and children should be detained together until an immigration hearing can be scheduled. 49% of Democrats support this proposal, as do 47% of Republicans. 48% of Hispanics support this proposal.
20% of all respondents support the (former) Trump policy of arresting the parents and holding the children separately, and 19% support the pre-Trump Administration policy of releasing immigrants into the country and hoping they’ll appear at an immigration proceeding in the future.
Ironically, the proposal that gains the most support (holding families together to await a hearing) is the one policy the President cannot implement on his own, from what I’ve read. So in order for the American people’s favored proposal to be put in place, we need Congress to legislate. Unfortunately, the chance of Congress legislating successfully on this is slim. Legislating a solution would remove the ability for Democrats to demagogue the issue, and Republican legislators would have to fear a primary challenger backed by the 38% of Republicans who actually want families separated.
This blog has fallen into the idolatry of human intellect over seeking first His kingdom. No eternal impact is made when man’s wisdom has taken precedence over RELATIONSHIP with the Living God. I am reminded that in Matthew 6:6 seeking the Father when no one is looking is what brings reward. I have lived this in my own life & seen the power of God in ways human words cannot explain. So I bless each & every person on this blog & I pray that you may KNOW the love of Christ. We don’t have all the answers but the last thing a person should do is turn his/her back on the God who created them & loves them more than anyone ever could.
You and the “Progressives” deserve each other.
“…the idolatry of human intellect over seeking first His kingdom”. What a pity it is, then, that religiots have never been able to supply the incontrovertible, falsifiable, evidence that their favourite supposed ‘god’ actually exists. One might as well worship an imaginary ‘queen of the fairies’, or the monarch of the glen (at least stags do exist)!
David,
Time for an update, Popper and “Falsifiable” evidence has been refuted.
Time to look for new criteria.
How about just stop wasting your time on fairy tales?
Ivan,
Are you speakng about evidence and falifiability ?
No. Just fairy tales.
ITE,
Well that clears things up.
Thank you, Jesus!
Don’t mock your Saviour, Ivan.
Thank you, Hay-Zeus!
IVT,
Try to be good.
IVT,
Don’t make matters worse.
How would you feel if your supposed ‘god’ turns out to be a black lesbian?
As long as She is the Creator of the World and Loves and Forgives us all
would not bother me in the least.
Perhaps you should know that I am part African-American and have a Lesbian Aunt who is 3/4ths African American
who helped to raise me.
Given I have a relative who is, fine by me.
No one said believing would be easy.
I could say the same thing about scrubbing Route 95 from Maine to Miami with a toothbrush-not easy. But still a waste of time, trouble, and energy.
If that is what it takes for you to get to Heaven, it is worth it.
I thought we couldn’t ‘earn’ our way to heaven?
You have to co-operate with Grace.
Again-proof?????
The proof is written on your soul and will one day be revealed to you in your heart.
You don;t, but you have to co-operate with grace.
Grace who? Slick? Jones? Kelly?
Ivan,
Such fallow humor,
or an attempt at humor.
One day you will beg for Grace and
the Holy Spirit will be compassionate enough
to send it to you.
Grace, just Grace.
In your case, abject deluded gullibility, and the curse of an indoctrinated/induced lack of critical thinking, of course.
Your diversionary tactics are to no avail, and you still have not provided the irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence required to substantiate that your supposed ‘god’ (or any other supernatural entity) actually exists.
David,
You exist, and your existence demonstrates that a Creator exists.
David,
You hold yourself up too highly and think too much of yourself, just bein honest here.
Falsifiable is not something you can prove or demand to be proved. Popper is out of date.
Irrefutable – and how can you show anything is irrefutable – who is to be appointed the impartial judge of whether that condition has been met or not ?
Evidence – what counts as evidence – again who is to be the impartial judge ?
Whether God exists or not, is not up for you to decide.
Whether you believe that God exists or not is a choice you do get to make, but not impose on anyone else.
Since they are not fairy tales, it is not a waste of time
but the most important use of your time.
You can’t prove that they are-until you can prove it, it’s a fairy tale.
You can’t prove it is a fairy tale, so why make the assumption.
I can’t prove that the Moon isn’t made of green cheese, either, but I’m not going to plan all my meals based on the assumption that it is.
What a pathetic counter-‘argument’; no wonder churches are shrinking faster than the polar ice caps!
IVE,
You should just admit that you can’t prove your claims.
Can you?
No, I cannot prove your claims, that is why I do not hold them.
Ivan,
It is very naive to think that anything outside an axiomatic system can be proved.
Churches are not shrinking as fast as you think and if the Ice Caps melt there may be a lot more people in Church.
Because religions depend on fear to get people to stop using their brains?
Yeah, I’d pretty much already noticed that.
You are not as intelligent as Aquinas, or Leibniz, or Newton or Augustine or Origen. They used their brains as grace gave them the wisdom to do so.
No, but I still know more than any of them do on a number of important subjects: genetics, biology, chemistry, medicine…..
You made the claim, if you can’t prove it, why make it ?
A rather weak form of an argument.
Can you, David Cromie, prove that God doesn´t exist?
While, outside of trivial logical systems of limited applicability, “proof” is a miasma, evidential support that in a universe comprising all things imaginary and non-imaginary that can be experienced, all god thingies are purely imaginary is overwhelming and provided by religiots. Not a single religiot can articulate the agreed intersubjectively verifiable attributes necessary and sufficient to identify any thing as a god thingie. This relegates all asserted god thingies to the realms of the purely imaginary, where they can safely be ignored.
Are you watching the World Cup, Hermit?
Nope. No time for that said Gandalf.
Ah … come on … said Frodo 🙂
The “Ah” is spurious. And you should always provide sufficiently complete quotations for them to be comprehended in context. For example, “Come on, Sam. Remember what Bilbo used to say: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
I don’t plan to be swept off to anywhere – let alone somewhere dangerous 🙂
No, and nor can anyone else, since it is not possible, logically, to prove a negative (can you prove unicorns do not exist?). On the other hand, the onus is on the believer to provide the evidence that their claims are not deluded (and particularly so when the punishment for disbelief is eternal punishment in a lake of fire, apparently).
Not precisely accurate. Nothing can be proved in finite time, but somethings can be disproved. For example, a 6kg ball of weapon’s grade plutonium 239 or a 18kg ball of uranium 235 cannot exist, they would fission. In a world where at least one black swan exists, the statement, “All swans are pink” is necessarily false. But truth, proof and disproof are not particularly useful concepts in a universe like ours. See “On Truth and Models”. Direct link “https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FkJCpjgH35PpZELoIl0fDcg2HcKutQDqwtnfUsnjrvw”.
Fortunately the statistical evidence that god thingies are purely imaginary is compelling, so they may be safely ignored as artifacts of psychotic ideation.
What statistical evidence do you have Hermit?
The evidence that no religiot I have met in over 20 years and challenged (and that is now well over over 13,000), has been able to articulate the intersubjectively verifiable attributes necessary and sufficient to qualify a thing as a god thingie, meaning that, even if some thing that they considered a god thingie were to exist, that they could not discriminate between that thing or any other supposed god thingie, or provide intersubjectively verifiable evidence qualifying that thingie as existing as a non-imaginary thing, let alone as deserving to be regarded as as a god thingie.
If you disagree, please provide whatever evidence you imagine you possess. If you claim to be a christer, you may find my short cuts to persuade me helpful. See Hermit, The easy way to prove the bible valid and god thingies exist.“
Unfortunately, your link to ‘On Truth and Models’ does not work.
Some new Disqus nonsense fighting with Google’s short links. I’ve corrected it with a cannonical URL. Please try it.
Bingo!
Thank you Hermit for a very interesting essay.
Just one comment; I am not entirely taken with Descartes: Cogito ergo sum is only a part of existence for a normal human being. The other part, and more important with it, is the fact that I act on the world in a myriad ways every day, and experience the world reacting to me (I am not a cogitating corpselike package of atoms and neurons sitting quietly in the corner). Faceo ergo sum!
Your actions and the world’s reactions might not exist except as an injected memory created at the moment of remembering, or could be some artifact of a simulation which may not even be intentional. However the fact that you think that you remember things shows that there is some you in some form that is able to consider such things.
“…an injected memory created at the moment of remembering…”. The mechanism, be it physiological or otherwise, which allows me to claim that I act on the world, and the world reacts to me, is neither here nor there with respect to my being and doing in the only world I know.
Exactly so. All we can know is that we must exist in some form because we know that we exist in some form. “Or I think, therefore I am.” Which is why I credit Descartes for this (though little else).
…even though we may not be what we think we are.
Have you read any kind of apologetic work(s) that have helped you as you possibly explore the question of the existence of God?
Yes, but to no avail!
Unfortunately for you, it is logically impossible to prove a negative. On the other hand, the onus is on the believer to substantiate their claim that a ‘god’ actually exists.
As he has not answered you, the answer is probably no. Personally, I see no need to even try.
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” ― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Remember “Yes, Virginia. there is a Santa Claus”? For you god does exist as you invented him in your own image and rather endearingly believe that he is somehow aware of your existence. If that belief gives you comfort, I say go for it. But keep your beliefs and your “blessings” to yourself.
First you need to say what you mean by a “god” and identify the intersubjectively verifiable attributes that are sufficient and necessary to identify a thing as a god thingie, which would allow you to tell if something were a god thingie, and to differentiate such thingies from other things.
All-Mighty Supreme Being, hermit. Now go back and hide in your cave, as usual, like the coward that you are.
You could try to answer the question rather than tossing out what you apparently imagine are insults but only serve to prove your advanced stupidity.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fcfa6c9d7af89b2d45fd765819051ea1b007e324e48495355b6e7da44ca60835.jpg
I answered your question here and on other forums. You choose to disappear because you can’t refute it, cartoon girl.
Omnipotence is what makes God, God. As you defined omnipotence: the ability to do anything at all.
What a pity you cannot, and nor can any other religiot, it seems, provide the irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence that would lead any sane person to accept that your favourite supposed ‘god’ actually exists.
A link or you are lying again.
I have, to the best of my knowledge, never missed an opportunity to respond to your rubbish, and will always take delight in doing so.
Fortunately, “the ability to do anything at all” does not exist except as an imaginary idea. If it did exist, even if not exercised it would violate uncertainty, causing the collapse of the waveform of everything in the Universe, resulting in it no longer existing. So the fact that the universe still exists precludes this from being anything but imaginary.
An additional problem with your idea is that there is no way to establish “omnipotence”, and even if it is claimed, no way to evaluate whether such claims are sustainable. As such, you cannot use it to evaluate whether something is a god thingie, or differentiate between competing god thingies. The fact that you have chosen to attempt to use an imaginary attribute which neither you nor anyone else to try to persuade others that your god thingies exist suggests strongly that you are fully aware that your god thingies are purely imaginary and that you have no more concrete attributes you might offer which might be more convincing.
http://disq.us/p/1togt4p
This is how you defined omnipotence: “”Possessing the power to do anything” (without constraint).”
I agree with that definition.
Omnipotence is what I said is the identifying attribute that makes God, God. Now you say such a thing does not exist or that uncertainty would ensue or whatever reason that has nothing to do with this identifying attribute.
Logically, there can be only one omnipotent being- imaginary or not. Being omnipotent, uncertainty would certainly be under his control.
Now the question was: “Prove that God does not exist”. I didn’t ask it because I don’t think it matters who has the burden. I can’t prove God exists and you can’t prove he doesn’t exist. However, I have the Bible and God will prove himself in due time. Atheists, on the other hand, are the equivalent of nihilists.
Not so much “a reply”, rather a round of applause. The problem that the “Prove God doesn’t exist” brigade now encounter is that, increasingly, the unarguable empirical findings disprove the presumptions advanced as “proof” of God-thingy’s pre-existence….not to mention his omniscience, etc.
Indeed, my question to the Religiots is “Is your God thingy god of just this Universe or all of them?”.
Three shiny toys for you 🙂
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/channel-disproofofunattributedgodthingies/responses/ Disproof of unattributed god thingies
As well as
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FkJCpjgH35PpZELoIl0fDcg2HcKutQDqwtnfUsnjrvw/ On Truth And Models
And
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1suoqwsyVciuu8_1kP6gOrN_NJkFqQTd9JlehczYNffA/ On “Jesus” and the so-called “bible”
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind …
Matthew 6 clearly instructs to pray in private and ask for nothing. If Christians paid attention to that, atheists wouldn’t bother them a bit. Instead, they cherry pick the parts they like and pretend the rest isn’t there. We must help others learn to think critically.
1 Timothy 2:1-3 1I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people- 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
Is it not about time your supposed ‘god’ rid the world of people such as Trump, in answer to fervent prayers from the oppressed? Ah, silly me, I forgot, your supposed ‘god’ does not have a good track record when it comes to answering prayers, or protecting the weak from bullies and paedophiles, for example.
God loves Trump & God loves you. God loves man whom He created in His image. I pray Mr David Cromie that the Living God wreck you with His love & that He become so tangible to you that you can KNOW His love truly is a weapon of mass destruction of evil. God gave man dominion over this earth & no we have not done a good job. The Lord Jesus Christ bless you.
A supposed unknowable, invisible, supernatural entity (for which there is no evidence) that would send anyone that does not reciprocate its ‘love’ to a lake of fire for eternity is hardly the paradigm case of a ‘loving’ ‘god’. When we add to that all the claimed supermax attributes, it is clearly seen that this supposed ‘god’ is powerless when it comes to curing the ills and evils of this world – if not, then it’s as if it didn’t give one flying fcuk about the welfare of humans, its supposed ‘creation’.
And this is why this god thingie stacked the planet with neuroparasites including toxoplasmosis gondii and other such delights?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ae2b2b7810c68aea4a7aa0b12662a047c263a6ebcd41b3e386ab31e3fa37af58.jpg
What do you think about the uncertainty principle and quantum mechanics?
That it makes perfect sense.
What do you think the principle teaches us about our ability to know something with 100% certainty?
“On Truth and Models” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FkJCpjgH35PpZELoIl0fDcg2HcKutQDqwtnfUsnjrvw/.
“It is an abomination to kings to do evil, for the throne is established by righteousness.” Prob 16:12
“When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.” Prov 29:2
“If a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked.” Prov 29:12
“Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel. All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the Lord that he had made holy in Jerusalem.” 2 Chron 36:11-14
“Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow’s cause does not come to them.” Isaiah 1:23
“A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor, but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days.” Prov 28:16
“By justice a king builds up the land, but he who exacts gifts tears it down.” Prov 29:4
“And I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them. And the people will oppress one another, every one his fellow and every one his neighbor; the youth will be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable.” Isaiah 3:4-5
“[Zedekiah] did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God”. Since we are asked to believe that kings, presidents. governors, etc. are appointed by a supposed omniscient ‘god’, why was Zedekiah appointed when this supposed ‘god’ must have known that he would behave badly (since before he was born!)?
Trumpvangelicals voted him in. But, seriously the OT presents a primitive view of a “controlling” God. Everything, both good and evil, is controlled by this God. It was a religious construct that made sense in ancient times. But it made for a pretty scary, unpredictable God. The ancient Hebrew religion was not much different than the prevailing culture around them. They just had a different tribal deity. They evolved away from some more odious practices of the neighboring religions such as child sacrifice (2 spots in scripture hint at a darker past), but kept the ritual of scapegoating through stoning offenders to death.
Of course, what you are intimating at is known philosophically as ‘the problem of evil.” And it is a major black hole in orthodox Christian theology. One’s theological presuppositions determine what kind of God one ends up with when all the theological speculation is done. An entirely different God pops up when you assume, for example, his primary character is holiness rather than love. As an atheist or agnostic I presume none of this seems particularly compelling to you. It seems like religionists make these things up. I get that, but as a progressives we are more interested in orthopraxy than orthodoxy (which seems to be the polar opposite of conservatism).
We tend to be more interested in end results and allow a wide range of beliefs, other religious perspectives and unbelievers. I am an “open theist.” Basically this is a view that God does not control or coerce, as that would not be loving, which is seen as God’s primary attribute, defining him as it would be. Instead he cosuffers and works through human agency to accomplish the betterment of humanity. I guess you could call it a humanist Christianity. Man’s inhumanity to man is not ordained by God, nor does he directly stop it, as we would merely be pawns in the game of life. Instead, it is we who are responsible for our actions. We can look to Jesus for inspiration and try to implement the “Kingdom of God” on earth, or we can work against that goal.
All very fine and fanciful, but constructing a more benevolent version of a ‘god’ will never solve the problem of evil, since it would still be just another man-made version, with no ability to adduce the irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence that it actually exists outside the believer’s head. Ockham’s Razor is applicable here, it seems.
David, this always bugs me about atheist true believers. Why the obsessive compulsive need to convince everyone there is no God? It seems such a waste of energy and must be terribly emotionally draining. And also very disappointing. I find it far more rewarding to try to convince people to be, well, better people. Evil is a man made problem and better people need to come together to solve it and contain it. Now, some religious traditions are better at that than others. Unfortunately, Christianity has a rather checkered past and needs to improve fast or it will be irrelevant, and I understand if you think it is, I lean that way myself. Religion I take with a grain of salt, Jesus is a different story for me altogether though. Peace.
There are no such things as “atheist true believers”. Atheism is simply not vesting belief in god thingies. Not vesting belief takes no belief at all.
Sorry, I meant “fundamentalist atheists.” My bad.
There is no such thing as a ‘fundamentalist’ atheist either. An atheist is someone that has come to realise that there is no evidence for any supposed supernatural entities, whatsoever (unless you think you can adduce such evidence, and if so, then let’s have it).
“Fundamentalist” has been used pejoratively to refer to philosophies perceived as literal-minded or carrying a pretense of being the sole source of objective truth, regardless of whether it is usually called a religion. For instance, the Archbishop of Wales has criticized “atheistic fundamentalism” broadly and said “Any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous”. He also said, “the new fundamentalism of our age … leads to the language of expulsion and exclusivity, of extremism and polarization.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism
Atheistic fundamentalism is generally rigid and militantly defended. It is combative and polemical, seeking to convert or discredit any belief that doesn’t fit into the test tube. Here’s a good example”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/w-hunter-roberts/atheism-the-new-fundament_b_4767900.html
In other words, just as obnoxious as the most rabid, Bible thumping street preacher telling people they need to repent or go to hell!
Just like fundamentalism in religion, when married with politics and the power of government, atheism can be quite dangerous. The temptation to force conversions or face penalties is equally appealing to fundamentalist atheists as to religionists.
Bottom line, if it works for you, fine. Following Jesus is working just fine for me, thanks.
Atheism is not a branch of metaphysics, no matter what now retired Archbishop Williams thinks.
I’ve never heard of atheists trying to deconvert believers, only making it comfortable for those who already don’t believe in anything supernatural, but have been under pressure to keep it closeted. That contrasts with believers who think it’s their duty to convert others. https://imageproxy-cdn.youversionapi.com/1280×1280/https://s3.amazonaws.com/static-youversionapi-com/images/base/7214/1280×1280.jpg (Of course, he also said that he came only for the Jews.)
True for the most part. Historically atheists have gotten the short end of the stick. The atheists I run into here on Patheos are usually trolling the various faith based channels.
It’s important for atheists to have a public presence to reverse the steady march toward a theocracy that I’ve observed in my lifetime. Far too many Americans actually think we live in a Xn nation (because they have heard the lie so much). UNDER GOD was put in the pledge when I was in high school, and there was no pledge until 1894 for a proposed commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing in the Americans. It was a scheme to sell boys’ magazines and flags.
http://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate/dp/1501238213
Or has never vested belief in any “supernatural” entities (whatever is imagined to be meant by that).
What on earth do you imagine you mean by that. Do you really suppose that atheists have some form of “scriptures”?
Do you believe God only sees the future in the realm of possibilities, Kurt Leavens? If so … does that mean God (in your view) doesn´t sovereignly act in the lives of people?
I guess what I´m getting at, is, do you think God is completely sovereign — omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent? I struggle with what open theists believe about these things.
[Edited]
Yes. And no. Yes to the first, and no to classical theism.
Thanks Kirk Leavens. I think I´m beginning to understand the position of the open theist more.
That said, while I have jettisoned much of traditional Reformed theology, I think I still am in agreement with their classical view of theism in terms of how they understand sovereignty.
In what way is the ‘god’ of the NT any different from that of the OT?
The NT claims that JC said he was come to fulfil all the law (i.e. the OT law) and the prophets, so there is not much room for get-out clauses there when it comes to ‘controlling’.
The storybook claims that JC also predicted that the kingdom of heaven would come before everyone who heard him had died. Didn’t happen, so does that make him a false prophet?
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/end.html
If anyone can be non-existent and make prophesies at the same time, that would be magic, or something!
Hmm, I earlier replied to David Cromie that I thought atheists trying to “convert” people to their way of thinking was a “waste of energy and must be terribly emotionally draining. And also very disappointing.” Then it hit me, am I not doing the same thing when I engage evangelicals on their turf? It is so frustrating. We are most of the time not talking about the same God it would seem. I think I will have to back off the evangelical channel and just let them figure things out for themselves. It’s far more rewarding to share the “Good News” with those who don’t know all the answers.
I rarely check the evangelical channel anymore.
Good idea-stay in your own bubble.
I was in the conservative evangelical bubble for years … glad it popped :-)!
And got into another one immediately, it looks like!
I´m forever blowing bubbles!!! 🙂
I miss Warren Throckmorton. HE was the most reasonable person there.
The question of the existence of god thingies is meaningless, because nobody knows what intersubjectively verifiable attributes are necessary and sufficient to qualify a thing as a god thingie, meaning that the term “god” has no unambiguous definition.
Why is so difficult for the pseudointellectual mind to understand the concept of the All-Mighty Supreme Being? The alternative is NOTHING!
So what are the qualifications possessed by you supporting your alleged ability to discern between intellectuals and “pseudointellectual mind[s]” (sic), and what are the criteria you apply in differentiating between them?
Apparently your education was not sufficient to cure your kefálalia*. What are the intersubjectively verifiable attributes sufficient and necessary to qualify some things as your “All-Mighty Supreme Being” (sic) as worthy of the title, and how do you differentiate it from any oither imaginary thing?
*from Gk “κεφάλαιο” [kefálaio] (i.e. the majuscule letters) and Gk “λαλια” [lalia] (i.e. speech) to describe the random use of capitalization, rather as echolalia describes the random repetition of others’ words. In other words, the syndrome of inserting random capitals into sentences, a usually reliable indicator of religiosity, conservatism, AGW denial and other symptoms of mental deficiency, with differential diagnosis facilitated by the fact that the condition is exacerbated by opposition.
It is so typical of the pseudo-intellectual- they seek to impress by misdirection. My use of the all-caps was for emphasis only.
I gave an attribute that if God exists, it is that which makes that being God- omnipotence.
Not being suitably qualified to discriminate between the “intellectual” and “pseudointellectual” your trolling is rather transparent.
Your use of “Camel case” was not “all-caps”.
Unfortunately “omnipotence” is not intersubjectively verifiable in this universe. So neither you, nor anybody else can have established whether any god thingie possess such attributes and therefore do not know whether such god thingies exist or not. whether referred to as Jupiter, Zeus, Wotan, El, Baal or any of the myriad other names given to such imaginary entities.
The pseudo-intellectual not only misdirects, they often use esoteric terminology, lack wisdom, and most of all, are dishonest.
You stated that the question of the existence of some “god thingie” was meaningless without an agreed upon attribute. I stated that omnipotence was that attribute. Now you move on to question the existence of “omnipotence” and accuse me of being a troll. Whether I use all-caps or camel case, for God to be God, God must be omnipotent -the All-Mighty. If you can find something in your mind that you consider impossible in this universe, the All-Mighty most certainly could have created a universe that if he wanted to do it, he could.
” Whether I use all-caps or camel case, for God to be God, God must be omnipotent -the All-Mighty”. You may ascribe any superlatives to your supposed ‘god’ that take your fancy, but it still only exists in your head (the use of upper case adds nothing to your argument, since the word ‘god’ is not a proper noun).
This illogical drivel and fanciful BS proves that you have failed to attain even pseudo-intellectual status.
Perhaps a remedial lesson in logic would do you good, curmudgeon.
The ‘logic’ of the christer is the ‘logic’ of the terminally deluded moron.
So the rejection of my statement “for God to be God, God must be omnipotent -the All-Mighty” which you characterized as “drivel and fanciful BS” had nothing to do with it being “illogical”?
Intersubjectively verifiable attributes are required to define things which are more than imaginary.
Imaginary attributes can only confirm that something has been imagined but do not define them, because nobody can determine whether their imaginary attribute is the same as anyone else’s imaginary attribute.
So when you propose puirely imaginary attributes for your god thingies, you merely confirm that your god thingies are purely imaginary.
And the “pseudo-intellectual” does not recognize that he is spouting BS.
Conception often precedes perception. Seek so that ye may find.
One can imagine the meaning of omnipotence and even come to an agreed upon meaning with most others (Otherwise, who needs dictionaries?). Only the scoffer who lives in their own world like a hermit would be disagreeable.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed31648a78149a3d54a6d69ca3c3e170130836a621b2d79b24d942321009b280.jpg
We know everything significant that there is to know about the universe at human scales. Any future discoveries will necessarily be compatible with what we already know. One of the things that we know is that it always takes energy to transfer information, that any interaction involves a transfer of information, and this means that anything that can affect anything, can be detected through the necessary energy interactions. Here, in a single elegant equation, are the energies involved in anything ever experienced by any human. You will not find omnipotence here. That is because any reasonable definition of “omnipotence” conflicts with what we already know about the universe, and could not be exercised without being detectable. This is why your claim that your god thingies deserve to be regarded as god thingies because they are “omnipotent”, when “omnipotence” is imaginary, and even if not imaginary, could not be identified through observation, is in and of itself proximal and compelling evidence that your god thingies are purely imaginary.
Your dogmatic empiricism is duly noted.
Nevertheless, I stated that omnipotence was an attribute, among many others, by which a being would be god. Therefore, there could be only one god. That is probably too simple for you.
You are apparently adding conditions to the meaning of “omnipotence” that simply aren’t there.
I am far from a “dogmatic empiricist”. I am of the opinion that we are most likely residents of some form of holographic universe. However it does have some well understood rules. One rule is that we can achieve everything required to function effectively and avoid error by relying on the physical, which is always supported by proximal intersubjectively verifiable evidence and ignoring the imaginary (things that are not supported by such evidence). At this point, despite repeated challenges, you have yet to provide any proximal intersubjectively verifiable supporting evidence that anything except these two categories exist.
Instead you continue to try to present arguments. As previously noted, in the absence of evidence, arguments can created to support any position, but this is not useful.as it leaves such things in the realm of the imaginary.
Speaking of the imaginary, While I don’t know why you imagine that omnipotence would be necessary and sufficient to earn any omnipotent thing the right to be regarded as a deity, and cannot see how you would imagine that you could detect that an entity possessed omnipotence (even if it passed some test, there would be no reason to imagine that there is not some other test which it might fail, meaning that it is not “omnipotent”, but even if you could address these issues (and i am waiting for you to do so), I am simply taking “omnipotence” to mean what the Latin would mean. “Possessing the power to do anything” (without constraint). For example, to accelerate some mass to above the speed of light. That would require infinite energy. The universe does not possess infinite energy. Therefore omnipotence is not possible in the Universe.. So the attribute is imaginary. Change my mind.
It sounds like a robot would be happy (in spite of possessing no emotion) in your world. Are you a Sheldon Cooper clone by chance?
“Possessing the power to do anything” would axiomatically mean:
1. To create something from nothing,
2. To eliminate or constrain any supposed supplanter (which of course would be a creation),
3. To have no needs,
4. To not be limited to a finite number of joules,
etc.
Therefore, if an omnipotent being wanted to accelerate some mass to above the speed of light (are you suggesting warp drive is impossible?), that being could do so by either creating the energy, or by creating a universe by which it could be done if it were not possible in the present universe.
Tell me what “happiness” or “emotion” are, and how to measure them, and I will tell you if a “robot” can “possess” them. Until then you are simply making nonsensical assertions.
I am not a clone of anyone.
The trouble is that your alleged examples are incompatible with our universe. So they do not exist in the universe, and if they exist outside the universe, from the definition of the universe and known physics, not only can you not tell anything about it, but it cannot affect the universe in any way, including learning anything about the universe, without either becoming part of the universe or destroying the universe, or perhaps both.
So omnipotence remains an imaginary idea in this universe, that you cannot demonstrate or evaluate, and therefore cannot use in a valid claim about the nature of something that is non-imaginary. Like your god thingies.
Irony meter just exploded.
Don’t call people pseudo-intellectual and then say something as stupid as “The alternative is NOTHING.”
It is clear that you have NOTHING as an alternative. Ha!
It is not difficult at all to understand the concept of an ‘All-Mighty Supreme Being’, however you describe it (semiliterate people are especially prone to having such phantasies), and the same goes for fairies and unicorns, for example. The real difficulty with these mental constructs, when presented as existing in the real world, is reification in the first instance, and then being able to present irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence that they do actually exist!
What is the “real world”, Curmudgeon?
Is it possible for things to exist outside of your immediate perception?
Assuming you to be a sentient being, what else could be out there?
“Is it possible for things to exist outside of your immediate perception?”.
What ‘things’ do you have in mind, if any?
I am sure there is a hut in the middle of some forest that I have never yet seen!
Do you wonder how that hut got there, or did it just construct itself?
Learned men debated for centuries what caused disease. Then, someone invented a microscope and a whole new world called microbes was discovered.
Maybe your problem is that your awareness is just too small.
Wondering how the hut got there is contingent upon there being an actual hut (and it certainly would not have built itself), and is irrelevant in this instance.
Well, you were “sure” about it being there.
Have you ever wonder about an after life, or are you just content with the here and now then no more?
Get some remedial lessons in English comprehension.
What proof do you have that an ‘after life’ actually exists?
The mind- it is a terrible thing to waste.
The fact is, we all are going to die. As a sentient being, with some intelligence, I will search all possible clues for an after life. So far, the best I have found are found in the books of the Bible.
Anything can be said to happen in fairy tales, and the more bizarre the better! Intelligent people, on the other hand, tend to stop believing in fairy tales when they reach adulthood and have to face up to reality.
It takes more intelligence to understand the Bible than to just drift through life with nothing but death to look forward to. You might as well have never been born. Your “fairy tale” is just too dull and hopeless.
“You might as well have never been born.”
Why because he’s an atheist?
Apart from being a d##k thing to say, you could say that about most people regardless of beliefs.
Yet he’s probably made more of his life.
In 100 years time most of us won’t be remembered.
Everyone lives a “fairy tale”. The atheist’s “fairy tale” is just too dull and hopeless.
And yours is more dull compared to others including some atheists I’ve known.
You people who have to have a promise of an afterlife to give your life purpose obviously live a very shallow narcissistic existence.
There’s plenty to give your life meaning – starting with family, helping others…..
Focusing on eternal life is just the opposite of narcissism. All the atheist has is self, so you are a hypocrite.
Rubbish!
All you’re interested in is yourself and some heavenly reward.
I didn’t know God had a thingie! Well I’ll be damned!
God Thingies, noun plural. God thingies are anything claimed as possessing attributes qualifying them to be regarded as deities by anyone at any time, including by referring to any god thingies as deities without proving that such god thingies possesses such attributes, or indeed identifying what non-imaginary attributes would be sufficient and necessary to regard god thingies as deserving of being regarded as deities. In this Universe things may occur as objects (comprised of energy or matter) about which intersubjectively verifiable predictions may be made or as imaginary objects for which this is not the case. Until somebody explains what intersubjectively verifiable evidence there is for an attribute or attributes qualifying something possessing such an attribute or attributes as a deity, and then shows intersubjectively verifiable evidence that a particular god thingie or thingies exist and possesses those attributes, all god thingies will remain imaginary. God thingies are plural not only because mankind has introduced hundreds of thousands of such god thingies (billions if we include the various forms of object and ancestor worship) all of which are equally as valid only as imaginary objects, at least until the above conditions are met for one or more of them, but also because until the attributes of such a god thingies are fully qualified, it cannot be known whether or not such a god thingie is congruent with other god thingies.
Goddities are god thingies where their supporters though repeatedly challenged, still cannot provide any evidence that their god thingies possess any attributes that earn them the right to be regarded as deities and where they are prima facie ridiculous, in that they cannot assist their supporters in any way in this process, no matter the cost to their followers of their beliefs.
So the christers’ god thingies are both god thingies and goddities.
According to the babble, humans were made in the “image” of one of their god thingies, so we can safely assume that it must have, inter alia, had a penis (presumably suffering with balanitis or some other unpleasant condition causing it to dislike foreskins), if that is what you mean by your baby talk.
God Thingies, noun plural. God thingies are anything claimed as possessing attributes qualifying them to be regarded as deities by anyone at any time, including by referring to any god thingies as deities without proving that such god thingies possesses such attributes, or indeed identifying what non-imaginary attributes would be sufficient and necessary to regard god thingies as deserving of being regarded as deities. In this Universe things may occur as objects (comprised of energy or matter) about which intersubjectively verifiable predictions may be made or as imaginary objects for which this is not the case. Until somebody explains what intersubjectively verifiable evidence there is for an attribute or attributes qualifying something possessing such an attribute or attributes as a deity, and then shows intersubjectively verifiable evidence that a particular god thingie or thingies exist and possesses those attributes, all god thingies will remain imaginary. God thingies are plural not only because mankind has introduced hundreds of thousands of such god thingies (billions if we include the various forms of object and ancestor worship) all of which are equally as valid only as imaginary objects, at least until the above conditions are met for one or more of them, but also because until the attributes of such a god thingies are fully qualified, it cannot be known whether or not such a god thingie is congruent with other god thingies.
No time to watch the World Cup … but enough time to write that 🙂 :-):-)!
I did notice in passing…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ac798bd004f767b614f3fcfced232cd983def4b3a19cc71b49432ff87b12924.png
🙂 Wir sind AUS! Lots to reflect on …
What an intelligent reply!
I have a simple criterion: if it wants worship, it doesn’t deserve it.
The religiot’s supposed ‘god’ demands worship with menaces.
If you take the time to really talk to others whose beliefs are more in line with yours, you’ll find that they, too, worship a different god from yours. There are as many gods as there are believers, each with a congregation of one.
Which just goes to show, there is no purely “objective truth” religiously speaking. But this is true of life in general. There may be constants that we can verify scientifically, but we tend to still interpret through our own lenses. It is why we have theories in science. Of course, the further one gets from practical sciences and into sociology, psychology, the arts and metaphysics, and abstract concepts such as God, the more room for theory. Historically there has always been, however, an attempt to reach consensus, what families, tribes, societies and religions were founded on. However, what we are seeing in the western culture wars is a clash between enlightenment rationalism and its authority structures, and emerging postmodern distrust of those structures as socially conditioned.
Society is constantly reinventing itself, and is a constant struggle between the past and an emerging future. Religion is no different. Past forms of religion are dying, to be replaced by broader, more individualized spiritual forms. Fundamentalist forms of religion are bodies that have not yet realized the heart has stopped beating.
Kirk, just fyi in case you are targeted: the fraudulent Disqus account impersonating me has again resurfaced. This is the 6th occurance of such harrassing behavior.
While the Evangelical troll can steal my username and avatar, he can’t steal my profile history. My Disqus account was opened in 2011, remains public, with 4,791 comments and 14,185 upvotes. The abuser’s fraudulent account is set to private and was opened in June 2018.
Evangelical trolls sure are earning their abusive, dishonest reputations:
4,791 comments that boil down to:
– White Evangelicals are bad
– Jesus was brown-complected
– Jesus never directly said bum-sex between men is bad
– I am being harassed by a White Evangelical
You do know that imitation is the highest form of flattery right?
Honest post of yours
I had exactly the same problem for a while, and had great problems getting the spurious, lying, account deleted.
And, of course, “revealed truth” in the form of scriptures is once again, subjective, influenced by the thoughts and presuppositions of the reader, further filtered through the vagaries of translation to other languages, which have their own cultural filters…the human language is itself subjective. Just look at the difference in English translations of the Bible alone…and the arguing over what this or that Hebrew of Greek word meant 1000s of years ago.
Kirk – I think it’s worth engaging with all types of people, even those who come across as if they know all the answers. But this suggestion only goes for face-to-face engagement. Online engagement is much less fruitful, and what evangelicals or atheists or any other group says online is often not representative of the people you’ll meet in that group in your day-to-day life.
Also, from the perspective of someone who is an outsider to “progressive Christian” circles, there’s certainly plenty of progressive Christians who act as if they’ve got it all figured out and if only the others would come around to their view of Jesus then all would be right with the world. Evangelicals and atheists don’t have a monopoly on certainty.
Thanks. So true!
By showing the implausibility that any of the religions are correct (even any of the Xn ones) in part because they all disagree with each other, in no way implies that we think we know everything! That is just a way to try to stop sensible debate.
There is no god, no judgement (final or otherwise), and church is boring.
It’s not boring when it tries to take over my country!
http://www.atheists.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/TheocracyProtestSign.jpg
Great-so you’ll have no problems when a government agent comes to take away people in the US illegally from claiming ‘sanctuary’ (a medieval term, by the way) in your church?
I’ll inform ICE straightaway.
ICE has become Trump’s Gestapo, and perhaps we all need to remember the events of that story.
Nice evasion of the point.
You are going to the wrong churches then.
No; I don’t want to waste my time, trouble, and money on anything other than my agenda(s), thank you.
IVAN thats just TERRIBLE. You have no God but yourself! No wonder you are so bitter. There is no hope, or higher vision!
I’m not bitter; I’d be bitter if I’d wasted as much of my life as religious people do with nonsense, though.
Hope for what?
Higher vision of what?
Clearly you will never understand. So keep whingeing, even though their is no apparent reason for you to do so?
Celebrate your diversity!
We heard the plight of the refugees fleeing from war. We saw them coming, and what did we do? Nothing! We were not ready for them. The immigrants crossing the border to have a “life” were ignored and treated like animals. The America I know is not this America! Caging children and separating children from their parents is not compassionate care. These people are teaching us a lesson! Blame, blame, blame! Who do we blame? Where do we start? Where does this end? Local, State, federal government? We have much to learn. As the Church, our example should not be using scripture to jab at our brothers and sisters! The Good News of the gospel is for everyone. This is the gospel of God. This is the news of Jesus and the coming Kingdom of God! If you have a problem with the plight of refugees and immigrants and how our government is treating them; then pray continually. Contact government officials. Writing an article of frustration using the holy scripture the way you have for your cause is arrogant pride and a poor witness as a Christian. How stupid to say that the Good News of the gospel is not for everyone just because you are upset with the government!
I have to take issue with you on just about every point. You begin by looking for who is to blame but while Jesus often looked beyond the obvious he didn’t dodge the point at hand. In the case of the woman caught in adultery the take away was a lesson in judgement but he still admonished her. Rather than jabbing at brothers and sisters (presumably why you felt the article was written out of frustration) Ben is simply pointing out what he believes is the truth. I certainly felt he was talking to me rather than those for whom the Gospel might be a warning. Even if Ben is frustrated there are plenty of examples of Jesus and the Apostles preaching out of frustration and warning others through scripture.
Whenever did Jesus ever preach good news to those who presided over injustice and oppression? I don’t know what bible you are reading but mine says that Jesus preached woe to the scribes and teachers of the law. When the Pharisees and Sadduces went to John for baptism he didn’t mince his words. James, Jesus’ brother, told the rich to weep and wail whom he said had murdered the innocent when they posed no threat. He wasn’t preaching to the local council.
Your call for moderation belies an arrogance you accuse Ben of. Your prayers will not work if all you are doing is contacting government officials. History teaches us that change comes through righteous confrontation, calling out evil for what it is. I am no fan of hell fire preaching but if some of those facilitating these unspeakable evils claim to be Christians they need to be confronted with the truth. They should be pointed to Hebrews 6 where we are told that those who fall away (and I believe that refers to those who deliberately break Jesus’ one law: to love your neighbour), cannot be brought back to repentance because they are crucifying the Son of God all over again.
Ben was careful and right to not mention names but I think Jeff Sessions, Sarah Sanders and others should fear for their souls.
You obviously have not read the book of legends, myths and folklore, also known as the ‘bible’, from cover to cover. Time you did, but with a critical intelligence, and ignore the BS of the leaders of the business of religion, whose aim is to sell you a pig in a poke and keep you ignorant and in submission to their will.
FYI I’ve read the Bible from cover to cover more than once and have been studying it critically for years. I’m struggling to see how you could critically conclude that my views have been informed by BS leaders of religion. I’m also wondering how you can justify the body of your reply since all you have done is write the Bible off and judge my intellectual integrity on nothing more than your disdain for a religious book and your assumption that I am gullible (from your first assumption).
Assuming that the Bible is a work of fiction would you take issue with my conclusions on principle? Do you think the Trump administration deserve to be absolved of responsibility for their horrendous actions and policies or tolerated? Martin Luther King Jnr could easily be substituted for the Jesus in my answer in his struggle for racial justice. So is it more important for you to dismiss my faith than challenge the inhumanity? Jeff Session’s faith is killing people but there are at least thousands of Christians who are standing up his bigotry because of their faith and a book that tells them to love and care for the poor, the homeless, the sick and immigrants.
I question your motives and critical intelligence. I can see no reason to suggest that I am ignorant or submissive.
Religious scholar Bart Ehrman understands how reading the bible can result in misleading conclusions, as he used to read it that way. Watch his presentations on You Tube and his fascinating books too.
https://ehrmanblog.org/how-a-non-historical-account-can-be-meaningful-the-death-of-jesus-in-mark
https://thebestschools.org/special/ehrman-licona-dialogue-reliability-new-testament/ehrman-major-statement
I could work from Ehrman’s position in this argument and was quite prepared to do so but I don’t share Ehrman’s point of view. My position is that the Bible is neither an historical nor scientific book (or collection of books). It is religious and its purpose is to point its readers to God rather than persuade them that certain events happened. Having said that, the Gospels do make an appeal that Jesus died and rose again in bodily form and if he didn’t they are quite pointless. Also, if the epistles are works of fiction they are less than useless.
I find the Bible a challenge. My views have changed dramatically over the years and are still evolving but from my glimpse of Ehram, if I followed his line of thinking I would probably give up entirely on Christianity. I would really not see the point and see it as one huge confidence trick.
I find the bible a challenge. I just cannot understand the mechanism by which god conveyed all this important religious information to what have been called Bronze Age shepherds.
Most of the Bible doesn’t actually require a revelation from God. Much of it is either historical, poetic, philosophical or observational. The revelation part challenges me too. There are great many people claiming to hear from God and there are very few I would seriously consider.
So if the bible is not god’s word (as so many believe) why is it used as a blueprint for life?
There is no simple answer to that and it would be disingenuous of me to pretend there was. I am conflicted because I spent many years in the thick of hearing people claim to being spoken to directly by God and my instinct is to not believe them. My own position is not very robust but its what I feel comfortable with and I feel is at least honest.
I no longer consider the Bible to be an entity, but to be 2 works: the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and Christian Bible (New Testament). I see neither as the ‘word of god’ but rather a revelation of God in human activity, i.e. God’s revelation outworking through people. Having said that I believe in God the Creator (though I’m not a creationist per se). My position is that if God wanted to be represented through these texts, He would ensure that they were fairly representative of his nature.
I don’t see either as a blueprint for life but I find the Gospels incredibly inspiring as one who is politically progressive.
I recently met a man who claimed to be a “Christian” but who said that he believed in the Old Testament and not the New.
When I remarked that he was actually a Jew, then, he didn’t get it.
That is rather peculiar. Of course a Jew wouldn’t say he believed in the ‘Old Testament’ because such a thing only exists for Christians.
I was being somewhat sarcastic. How could he claim to believe in the Old Testament, not the New, and, at the same time, call himself a “Christian”?
Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law, and my understanding is that the New Testament is the new contract that God made with Man, superseding the old contract, which the Jews never could keep. My acquaintance was still hearkening back to the old contract and its judgemental, vengeful God.
I have three good friends who continue to follow their religion, but no longer believe in god. One is a Jew, one is a Baptist and one is whatever the predominant religion is in Australia. They were all ordained and worked as pastoralists.
I, too, am politically progressive, but I find Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex more inspiring than the bible! To each his own!
Thank you for polite, constructive conversation.
What is so difficult to understand? “Believe in me (Jesus Christ) and you get eternal life”. Most quibble about the specifics, but that is the gist of it.
There is a lot that is difficult to understand starting with why anyone would want eternal life. What are you going to do for the rest of time? You don’t have a body – just your immortal soul. How does a soul interact with your loved ones who passed on earlier? You do not have the mechanism to hug them or kiss them or even talk to them. And you want this for the rest of time?????
I will worry about what I will be doing for eternity when I get there. I will probably spend a good portion of that eternity just happy to discover that it was all true. The Bible that is.
As for the body, all you have to do is look at Jesus for the 40 days he wandered around after his resurrection and prior to his ascension. He had a body that could go through walls, travel distances in split seconds, interact with people, and he even ate fish.
I suppose, if there is an afterlife, and you don’t like it, God would be kind enough to put you out of your misery.
How, pray, would god put me out of my misery?
Does it matter?
How would I know?
So Jesus was a superhero. Good to know.
I like that, thank you. If the Bible does not ‘challenge’ ‘us’, we are not reading it honestly.
I don’t believe the Bible talks in riddles (you don’t need a Phd in Hebrew or Greek) but anyone who quotes chapter and verse and expects you accept it, they are either deluded or its a confidence trick.
That is precisely what it is, a con trick. Their ‘confidence’ demands certainty. And the fault lies in trying to teach ‘certainty’ and learn the verses which ‘prove’ those certainties, without ever seeing the ones which call it into question.
And the Bible is, like so many Eastern traditions, a whole series of riddles and puzzles, which draw you in and force you to think, and to find the best solution you can, without shutting the book on its own reality and purpose. It is significant that Jesus speaks in riddles and parables. He paints a picture and then says, “You! What do yo say … ” And by our own words and prejudices we are all judged?
The so-called ‘bible’ is “… a whole series of riddles and puzzles…”, not forgetting the rehashed myths, legends and folklore syncretically concocted from past Pagan sources!
Nonetheless, for those who have the eyes to see and ears to hear, it points straight to God, or ultimate truth.
These seem to be spiritually enhanced eyes and ears.
Funny David… you sound like a very cynical person… glass is half full kind of guy.
I wouldn’t cll him cynical. I would say realistic.
“And the fault lies in trying to teach ‘certainty’ and learn the verses which ‘prove’ those certainties, without ever seeing the ones which call it into question.“
That was me for decades, except that I didn’t ignore the ones which called the others into question, I instead just consulted a commentary lol and convinced myself that there was really no contradiction. And then taught it while crossing my fingers behind my back.
Yup.exactly. The need for certainty is in direct proportion to your lack of religious experience.
The less you know(gnosis as in ‘and he knew her!!!)the more knowledge and certainty you need.
The more need for certainty the further away from God you are.
We must embrace the divine confusion.Live with opposing truths. Let paradox and irrationality be with you at all times.Let not knowing be the space in which you recieve God.
God NEVER talks to the certain and those who know and believe.
The more certain and more you know and more you believe the more God and the divine holy truth is kept out.
The need to ‘know’.To be ‘clear’ to be ‘certain’ for things to make ‘sense’ is a human ego desire and has no more to do with the father and ultimate reality as getting an upgraded t.v. set.
You cant ‘certain’ yourself to God. You cant logic yourself to God.You cant ‘clarify’ yourself to God,You cant rationally understand your way to God.
These certainty morons are boosting up their sense of false self,inflating themselves like the fat puffed up Donald Trump,puffed up and full of old stale air,no true substance fills them let alone the divine truth,the holy father,the son,the holy spirit or knowing and being thier eternal soul.No angels will come to Trump and these other puffed up bullies,whether christian,biblical,islamic,spiritual or car mechanics.To puff yourself up demeans and weakens others.
You have to put down to puff up.
To not know is the greatest knowledge of all.
To be in chaos gives the eternal order.
To accept oppossing facts as true.
To hold the opposites which cannot in any way exist together and yet in you ,they do, is the door to heaven,you wont even need to knock or open it for in opposites and opposing impossible truths comes certain divine transcendance to merge with the only one.Not two,but one and one alone.
And those who use scripture or faith or religion to be certain,to puff up thier self view,to bully and make others less or wrong are not with the spirit in the slightest degree.They are more closed against God than a sinner and non believer,than a person who puts their car before God for these people put their own certainty and pride before Gid do they not?
But they,like all of us are lucky and blessed indeed for the Father is at work in EVERY person,in EVERY experience,in EVERY thing,in EVERY atom.
‘Crack open a rock and there i am.Seperate a twig and there you can see me,look inside a leaf and there i am.’
‘So worry not,for God is in charge and is responsible fir the functioning of the world’ Egyptian temple 2,600 b.c.
Well how do you square this with your philosophy? I am as certain as it is possible to be that there is no spiritual, supernatural being who takes a sometimes morbid interest in our lives. I am as certain as it is possible to be that there is nothing even remotely resembling the god of the bible.
And I am no moron.
Peter Enns wrote a book called The Sin of Certainty. It’s on my reading list : )
Who wrote the commentaries? LOL
All conservatives
Warren Wiersbe?
Yes, Wiersbe, McGee, Wycliffe, Liberty, Chafer, MacDonald, Rice, Ironside, Scofield, Jones, MacArthur, Henry, Walvoord. They’re all on my shelves lol. I’m sure there are more but these are the ones that most readily come to mind. I imbedded myself in these teachings for decades which is why I become amused (or sometimes irritated) when I’m lectured by a conservative evangelical on these threads on what I’m supposed to believe, like what they’re telling me is somehow new information to me lol.
You make a good point. Jesus spoke in stories so the people would engage with what he was saying. He then posed questions rather than making closed statements so that they could understand why they were coming to their conclusions rather than simply reiterating what they had been told. No wonder the Apostles could stand before the Sanhedrin and make their case with confidence.
Yes, Jesus was a Jew and a Rabbi when he died. And like all good Jewish Rabbis, tended to answer the questions of others, with questions of his own, designed to lead folk on to a different level. Great conversation. Thank you.
If you compare a verse in one place with a conflicting verse in another place, it starts to seem like it’s talking in riddles.
From my experience people have been taught to read the Bible with a particular mindset which would be like maintaining a house with only one skillset. The assumption is the Bible has one purpose. A roofer might use lead to direct water to the drain pipes but a plumber would never use lead to direct water to the bathroom. So if you don’t grasp the context you can be confused when verses appear to contradict each other. That’s not to say there aren’t some parts of the Bible that are very hard to reconcile like the destruction of the Canaanites (though that never happened in practice.
No, but it might be interesting to compare various translations. Aramaic to Greek to Hebrew to Latin to old English, to modern English to American. Has anyone asked god if we’ve go it right?
The vast majority of English translations of the Bible are materially very similar throughout with some minor exceptions and unless you are an expert on the languges from which it has been translated you are very likely to be more confused than enlightened. The translators of the Bible throughout history have been very meticulous. You might be sceptical about the source but the copyists have generally been pretty methodical.
I’m sure that the copyists have been meticulous. But that just means the second Greek version was identical to the first Greek version.
It is possible that you are not familiar with other languages, but I have translated from French Italian and Spanish. I can assure you, that without being able to consult with the author of the original it is impossible to say that you have got the meaning or the intention right.
I agree. But modern translators of the Bible have taken archeology and other sources into consideration. The King James Bible is a wonderful work but some of its translation is now known to be inaccurate because of other evidence unearthed over the last 100 years or so. The Dead See Scrolls have been invaluable in checking our translations against ancient texts. Some translations such as the NIV have passages that were part of the KJV in its footnotes while other passages are marked as less reliable than the main body of the text. We are able to compare the Greek of the New Testament with contemporary texts in order to test the translation. Few ancient texts have such a wealth of sources and nearly contemporary accounts to check against.
I agree entirely with you about the destructive/callous policies of the Great Orange Maggot and his band of fundamentalist brigands.
However, it seems that you still think that Christianity has all the answers to the ills of this world, i.e. your brand. I find it interesting that each brand of Christianity is able, using the so-called ‘bible’, to cherry-pick the parts that legitimise their own prejudices and bigotries, while condemning those of the others. Does that not give you pause for thought (forget the No True Scotsman fallacy here)?
A supposed ‘god’ has never been, nor will ever be, the answer to mankind’s origins, or problems, especially since no one has yet adduced the irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence that any supernatural entity, of any kind, exists outside of their own head.
Thank you for filling out your initial response but you are still arguing the existence of God which, while a valid position, has little or no relevance to the discussion. I asked you to presume that the Bible is a work of fiction (some of it is) and then judge if my position in relation to the antagonists is, of itself, flawed. But your line of attack has not moved at all.
I didn’t say that Christianity has all the answers, nor was it implied. You have identified one of the key differences between my faith and that of Christian fundamentalists. It is that they cherry pick the verses that suit their world view when, ironically, its their reading of the Bible that informs their world view in the first place. You assumed that I buy the BS of Bible preachers – submitting to their teaching, but I test what I read, hear and have been taught against empirical evidence and my own experience – against received wisdom and independant sources. I will never claim to be the real deal but I think my approach to my faith avoids the pits that most religious fundamentalists fall into.
Your last paragraph is self validating and while you might think it covers all bases its so narrow in its scope that it will only satisfy those who are already convinced and have no wish to argue critically. You are treading a very worn path that is, frankly, tedious.
You still seem to be claiming that your brand of Christianity is the best approach to ‘faith’, but it is still rooted in the assumption of some ‘god’ or other (whatever attributes you ascribe to it) that you have faith in, and therefore a belief in some supernatural influence in the affairs of mankind (if someone sincerely believes in faeries, and some still do, then that belief will have some influence on that person’s actions, and world view, but not because faeries actually do exist).
What is really tedious, is the deliberate denial of the evil influence of religion over the centuries, across the world, together with the complete lack of any testable evidence for a supposed ‘god’, of any description, which is at the root of the validity of any discussion that relies on/assumes that there is such a ‘god’.
By the way, morality is totally independent of deluded religious beliefs, which is the problem of the current Shite House.
Sorry, what is tedious is that your only agenda is to tear down religion. You have no interest in looking at it philosophically, you only want to argue on the basis of your entrenched ideas that you don’t appear to have ever questioned critically. You keep coming up with claims and denials that I have not made and keep introducing tired arguments that I have no interest in arguing against because I’ve been there, done it and got the T shirt. I think we’re done.
One could look at the existence of unicorns philosophically, but I doubt that one would go on from there to worshipping them as real, existing, supernatural entities!
If I had never studied metaphysics and the question of the existence of a supposed ‘god’, how would I have been able to claim to be an atheist?
You cannot argue with the atheist position because you have nothing to pit against it, much less the irrefutable, falsifiable evidence that your favourite supposed ‘god’ actually exists!
You really have no idea what you are talking about.
Which ills does Jesus’ trust in God, not touch for you?
And no God isn’t going to ‘touch it’, he asks us to touch and heal what needs healing adn to simply trust, what we have yet to understand.
???
i have never heard of anyone sending their kids of to summer Bard of Avon Study Camp. Yet arguably, there is as much or more wisdom and psychological insight in the complete works of William Shakespeare as in all the gospels, including the unpublished ones.
A Bard of Avon summer camp sounds like a very good idea and I’m sure something like it has been done. What might also be a good idea is a summer camp to study the Bible as literature. Interestingly Christopher Hitchens, a confirmed atheist (now deceased as you probably know) wrote an article on the King James Bible, claiming it as arguably the most influential work of literature in the English language (https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2011/05/hitchens-201105?currentPage=all). Shakespeare borrowed from the King James Bible which was his contemporary but was based on the Tyndale Bible, written before he was born.
You could argue that Sakespeare wrote with more wisdom and insight but you would be hard pressed to justify it.
Up until the time I was about 20, I religiously finished every book I ever started. Then I began reading the Hobbit. The language is beautiful, eloquent and lyrical. But I have to say that i could in no way get excited about the characters or the subject matter. I abandoned it on about page 64. I feel the same way about the bible. Great language, but the plot falls a long way short of great literature.
Dear Chris, I believe in the power of prayer and the Word of God. No blame, no argument, no enemies. I strongly feel that the reference to the scripture of the good news of the gospel is a beautiful message and that it is a poor witness to use it in the way this article has been proposed. No reference to any other scripture or words that Jesus said; or personal slander to the writer. The writer could make his point without misuse of the scripture pertaining to the good news of the gospel only. Contacting government officials is a civic duty. Prayer is a spiritual duty.
Unfortunately you can’t have good news for the oppressed without bad news for the oppressor. Jesus said he came to preach good news to the poor. He warned the rich that they would perish with their wealth. He said he was sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. That is bad news for those who profit from mass incarceration. He came to release the oppressed from their oppressors and proclaim the year of Jubilee when slaves would be freed from their owners. The rich young man walked away from Jesus, sad, because Jesus had no word of comfort for him as long as he clung to his wealth.
John didn’t just petition Herod and pray that God would persuade him, he publicly criticized the king knowing there would be consequences. Jesus told his disciples to not listen to the teachers of the law who went to the ends of the earth to make converts only to make them more sons of hell than they were. The good news was that it was the grief stricken sinner who was justified rather than the self righteous official. The good news was that those who always stood at the front of the queue would now be pushed to the back. The good news was that God didn’t listen to those who practised their prayers and made a show of their holiness. Rather he came to comfort those who mourned and were called sinners.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save all people…that is the good news of the gospel!
Yet the Bible says that many are called but few are chosen. Many will say “Lord Lord…” and they will be turned away. Just look at the crowds that followed Jesus and the more he preached the more the number dwindled till he ended up with 12 and by the cross most of them had deserted him. Its good news to those who will receive it but bad news to for those who won’t. And if you are killing people by denying them health care while lining your pockets and abusing children to satisfy your supporters you are effectively turning the invitation down.
“He warned the rich that they would perish with their wealth.” Well, he got that one wrong!
That depends how you look at it. If your purpose in life was to become wealthy and you died rich then you would perish with your wealth. Many have sought wealth and ruined their lives in the process. As many people who win large sums in a lottery are ruined by it as gain from it. Studies have shown that beyond a certain [relatively modest] level of wealth there is nothing to be gained in terms of happiness. You can find exceptions but that doesn’t negate the principle.
Oh come on! The wealthy are not perishing. Instead they now have carte blanche to pass on their obscene wealth to their undeserving kids. As well as have their names emblazoned over hospital wings or bridges or museums. Immortality, don’t you know.
My original point was that the good news of Jesus was pointed to the poor and disenfranchised and the rich could not buy into it. Part of the obcenity of wealth is that it buys fame and legacy but what Jesus is offering is community and care, love and peace. The Bible itself asks why the good die young when the rich grow old.
Prayer is a spiritual duty?????? You have to be joking.
Are you aware that there are an increasing number of people on this planet who have absolutely no religious affiliation, and furthermore have no spiritual inclination. I am one of them. For the past 60 years I have not believed in anything supernatural. I have a bumper sticker on my car which reads “Good Without a God”. I don’t meditate. I don’t commune with nature. But I do what I can to protect nature. I care for animals. I tolerate squirrels and Septoria leaf spot on my tomatoes. Dogs and children like me.
“Those who face the wrath of God, Jesus said, are those who did not welcome the immigrant, who did not clothe the naked, or feed the hungry. And specifically regarding harming children, let me remind you, is an act where Jesus said it would be better to have a rock tied around your neck and be thrown into the deepest ocean.”
You want to know WHY Jesus aka Yeshua said this stuff. He said it from living experience. Lets look at the time line, it is widely accepted that Jesus lived from 6BC-37AD now we was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth. If you look at the historical facts those two cities were not even proper cities in until much later. Sure they were both settled in 2200BC but for the most part were undeveloped Bedouin camps. Now this does not disprove teh Jesus story but it puts in in better focus.
Now even the NT alluded that Nazareth was not well though of as a town, it was in Trump terms a “shithole”.
Jesus was a individual who grew up in a life of abject poverty and on the margins of society. It why in much of the Gospels he identifies with these same people, GOP and Trump to not practice Christianity, they practice a special form of Christ less Christianity. No wonder young people are abandoning religion in droves. Because now when they hear Christian, they immediately think of these people.
There is no evidence, whether written or archaeological, for any man-god named JC.
I read enough to get a impression at least it is based around a real person. Some of it also comes off as things that were added later as a real obscure radical rabbi eventually evolved into a folk character a cult was based around.
Where did you get that impression?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Lmmy2jfeo
Even John Frum of the Tanna Island Cargo Cult could be based around a real US soldier. But yeah the lack of hard contemporary historical records of Jesus is damning. He was supposed to be super famous yet not one person who lived during that time who wrote records of everything going on mentions him. Like no one caring about Elvis during the 1950s.
You are right. I don’t recall seeing any footage of Jesus walking into Jerusalem or any snippets from the Jerusalem Times. If he was that famous you’d think there’d at least be a fan club.
Anyone who causes such a stir as to be remembered by historians, can only have been a real historical person.
The only people causing a stir (and they have been doing it for centuries) are religiots vainly attempting to impose their deluded opinions (or a theocracy in their own image) on all around them, while failing to adduce any irrefutable, falsifiable, evidence that their favourite supposed ‘god’ actually exists. It is all about power grabbing, and then fleecing the ‘believers’ who fall for their various versions of the religiot scam.
You describe ‘The Church’ fairly accurately with your rather jaundiced eye.
But the only ‘proof’ is to put Jesus’ words of life into practice. It works for me.
I used to be a cynic too. But then something happened! I asked God a question. And he answered. LOL !
Really? What did he say? Did he call you on the telephone, or maybe send you a text? How did he identify himself? (Hi Bernard, God here, just wanted to tell you I thought that was a great question. So much so that I just had to push aside the four billion other questions on my desk and answer you personally. LOL!
I grew up in the post war London slums. Communities full of poverty and crime. I cried out and God heard my cry. Simple really.
God heard your cry, or you found strength within yourself?
Obviously as I don’t believe in god, I find it hard to understand how he could hear your cry. Can you explain to me how that happened? There is no sarc, or criticism here. I really want to know why you think that god responded to your cry and how he showed that.
God eventually responded to a plea and simply told me (audible experience), I should go and speak to those who say they know him. I hated the church so didn’t. Six months later he forced me to go to church and gave me a reason. I can barely explain the process, but not unlike Saul’s conversion experience, except the I dragged my feet and was nonetheless dragged in kicking and screaming. It involved auditory experiences, dreams and visions and a lot of ‘stuff’ you couldn’t organise or imagine. It ended in an experience at work, while I was telling a Christian friend to get lost, after telling me about two people who went to sail the world in a boat, got into a storm, prayed and were saved. But in the instant that I told him where to stick it, and asked, “What about the millions who say a prayer of desperation and die anyway?”, I realised I had been a Christian since childhood and the experience was identical to that of Pentecost. It involved, fire, wind and a virtual earth quake, which caused everything I had ever believed and al my arguments against God, to crumble to dust. And speaking 20 to the dozen, after locking myself in the key room and being accused, as they were, of being drunk. Believe me, it is real. and the last 36 years are inexplicable, without that having all been real.
For a few months after my husband died I heard him calling me. This is a not uncommon reaction to grief. But hearing voices, especially god talking to you, can be attributed to a number of very serious medical and psychological disorders including psychosis, schizophrenia, various types of dementia, DTs, epilepsy, marijuana abuse, Cryptococcal meningitis and mad-cow disease. It’s probably not the last two as you would be dead by now. If I were you, I would get checked for some of the others. On the other hand, you don’t seem to be doing much harm, so just carry on.
But the 1st century equivalent did not mention Jesus at all, no contemporary writer who wrote abotu all sorts of events going on at that time mentions Jesus, who the NT has was famous throughout the land. Like no one not mentioning Elvis in the 1950s and we only hear about him from Japanese Impersonators in the 1990s
There were self-proclaimed men-gods, both before the 1st cent. CE and afterwards, some of them even claiming to be the ‘messiah’. It is quite possible that the early christer myth-makers (usually referred to as the early ‘church fathers’) of the 4th cent. CE rolled them all into one, and gave this fictional man-god the name Jesus.
Thankfully, there are ‘God-centred’ folk in every generation and every place.
Just look at the bloody history of these ‘god-centered’ folk, and then tell me that there is anything to be thankful for!
I don’t live in America so cannot comment of the parlous state of your religious institutions. I struggle on with what is happening in my own country. And that is bad enough.
Are you really totally ignorant of the bloody religious conflicts that have happened throughout British history?
Conflict is common to all human beings. It is written into our DNA. Some call it religion, some all it politics. I am a Christian and am not in conflict with anyone?
I try not to blame anyone. They can’t help themselves. If it issn’t religion or politics it could abba bout hair colour, or whether or not someone else keeps their hair short enough.
It seems that most humans try to hang the blame on others? My advice would be to consider your own failings, before you blame anyone else for the parlous state of the planet?
I know from experience, that escaping the hold of ego, is terribly difficult. But it can be done! Have you tried it? If successful, you won’t need to scapegoat anyone else.
Thankfully? The sooner we gt rid of these god-centred folk the better. I have just watched two season of the Handmaid’s Tale and had to keep reminding myself that it was fiction. “Under his Eye”.
The handmaid’s tale is a precautionary one, for sure. Like the Poldark books, its chronicles a history full of ignorance and prejudice. Did you know that 90%+ human beings, never get beyond lives 1 & 2 of any kind of moral, or cognitive development? No wonder we are always in a mess? I build congregations that make sense of a complex world and offer simple measures to make each of our lives better. Staring with the poor and disadvantaged.
Build your congregations! Yes. Work to make the lives of the poor and disadvantaged better. But you do not need a non-existent god to do that.
By the way I LOVED the Poldark books, read them end to end three times and visited Cornwall to find locations.
How about those who have met the risen Christ? Or been healed by him?
In a faerie tale, anything is possible!
This is true also in life.
As long as you’re referring to the mythical Christ of faith (who isn’t really any different from the central figure in other mystery religions) and not pushing pseudo-knowledge of a historical person who existed physically; you’re probably not doing any damage.
I am speaking of a ‘reality’, a force, and elemental truth. Which curiously, does manifest itself, to those who cannot even trust themselves. “Blessed are the poor’, those who know their own lack!
Sure. You’re talking myth.
There’s no more empirical historical evidence for a Jesus of Nazareth than for Homer.
https://classicalwisdom.com/homer-man-myth/
And no less than Homer, who was real enough. My ‘Jesus’ is primarily a wisdom figure and as real as any other wisdom figure, like Buddha. All we can deduce from this, is that wisdom figures appear all over the world. We can also say clearly, that many real historical people have a mythical aspect, as they speak to our various aspirations and ultimate values. And it is not for you to debunk any of them.
Rather, perhaps, we should take them all, more seriously. Philosophers tell us that when an idea’s time has come, it appears in many and varied places at the same time. They also speak of a superior consciousness, integral to creation. Even science is now following this same line.
I think perhaps we should, all of us take more interest in these ‘mythical’ characters, who actually, agree more often than then they disagree, about the problems of humanity.
Why do you resist them all? Do you suppose yourself to be more intelligent or wise than they? Do you think you have the answers? All of these wisdom traditions tell us that hubris, is the biggest part of the problem. Along with the will to power and the total lack of self knowledge and appropriate humility!
Myths are real enough. As are wisdom figures.
There’s plenty of hubris among religionists, i.e. claiming mystical knowledge & certainty when it’s mere faith-w/o-evidence.
I couldn’t agree more. 90%+ (of all humans) never get beyond levels 1 & 2 of moral (or other human) development processes. They remain essentially selfish and driven by unconscious animal instinctive drives, based on will to power and survival at all costs. Procreation and the biggest tribe. As for mystical knowledge, where is the mystery? Wisdom, is recognisable as such, because it works, it makes a difference. We all know a true saint when we meet one. We do ultimately know the difference between good and evil. wisdom and folly, life and death? As for ‘certainty’, there is none. Faith, trust and discernment are the tools of the humble. They experience wisdom and a peace beyond human understanding. But when you experience it for yourself, it is the true gold. You are no different to ‘religionists’, you trust your own ‘ego self’. Which is pure delusion. And which is why the ‘true self’ and the deep connection with reality in us all, remains unrecognised.
Oh, please.
Yes, ‘please’ listen. I can understand your diffidence about religion, in the light of your own story perhaps? But I am not a fundamentalist who pours scorn on those who disagree with them and judgement upon all who appear to be ‘sinners’, because we are all sinners. We all fall short of any projected ideal. I speak of what I ‘know’, of what I have seen, heard and touched. Such intimacy with God is possible and the spiritual traditions of the world attest to this reality. I am sorry that so many give you no cause to believe and indeed have clearly impaired your ability to cry out to God, with their simple folly, or even cruelty and intolerance. I wish you only well.
If you have some slight inkling about “my story”, you would not use the phrase “diffidence about religion”. I have led an extremely comfortable life with no major traumas. I was extremely lucky to have parents who went through the motions of bringing us up as Christians, but who stopped a long way short of indoctrination. I was not turned away from god. At the age of 11 it was suggested to me that god did not create man. Rather man created god. Like Santa Claus who I ceased believing in when I woke up one Christmas Eve to find my mother leaving a pillowcase full of gifts at the bottom of my bed.
Non-belief is the default setting. All belief is taught. All belief is irrational. There is no cause to believe other than the teachings of your parents coupled with a deep-seated insecurity about your place in the world, causing you to defer all major decisions to a mythical supernatural being who will solve all your problems in those famous mysterious ways.
Thank you for your good wishes, but – honestly – I am fine without them.
The default position is a child’s openness, wonder and trust. It is what we ‘lose’ and must re-discover. Do not be afraid.
So mum blew Santa Clause, no excuse for trolling! Bye!
Finally I have got to you. I am not trolling. Nor are you. We are both presenting our positions which happen to be very far apart.
I am not afraid for myself. I am very afraid for the world when so many -the vast majority – are caught up with one religion or another and do not think for themselves.
Good stuff!
Yes it is we just need to believe the truth
Truth does not need to be “believed”. Truth just is.