Went to Church for the First Time in a Long Time

[ThinClient]

Sarcasm noted 🙂

Once one gets past the contradictions there are actually some good lessons that can be gleaned from the Bible. Certainly one has a plethora of other sources but in a significant portion of the developed countries parents are going to teach their kids ethics via Catholicism or Protestantism.

The bible is a great source of two-faced forked-tongue hypocrisy to teach from.

Why bother teaching ANYTHING from that book, even if the tiny snippet that you cherry pick from it is actually morally or ethically righteous?

Why not just throw it away and teach them properly without the bullshit influence?

 

[stormkroe]

You're forgetting about the animals, which were NOT limited to the Near East.

The account says "all flesh" will be wiped out. Life, in general, extended far beyond the Near East.

No offense, but your interpretation of a local flood really stinks of you trying to make is scientifically plausible.

No offense taken, Roberto. I think it would be more accurate to say that old interpretations made by people without the scientific information we have today makes it scientifically implausible. But lets not stop there, look at the Bible itself for context. Psalm 104:9, another creation account speaking in the context of the entire planet, says that the Lord has set the boundary for the waters, so that they never again will cover the whole earth. Then there was the leaves the birds brought back at the end of the flood. Then there is the idea that you can't kill all the fish in the ocean with a world wide flood. I'll leave this here because I know you care enough to read it.

The Bible suffers much scorn because lots of people get it wrong, whether from lack of information (failure to re-examine doctrines from sometimes hundreds of years ago in light of ever-budding science) or from agenda-driven cherry picking (pretty much everyone else).

Again, at this point for me it's not about insisting what is says is fact but rather trying to teach (and learn) what it factually says.

 

[stormkroe]

that means nothing, see matthew 7:21-23

Actually, that means everything. That verse, while not exhaustive, is the distillation of the gospel. Do you think your link in matthew is talking about people like John (welcome back to life btw) who make no grand claims, or to the front pew suit that attends every Sunday and never misses a chance to sleep with one of the Sunday school teachers?
Also, how is your IP not banned yet?

 

[ThinClient]

Actually, that means everything. That verse, while not exhaustive, is the distillation of the gospel. Do you think your link in matthew is talking about people like John (welcome back to life btw) who make no grand claims, or to the front pew suit that attends every Sunday and never misses a chance to sleep with one of the Sunday school teachers?
Also, how is your IP not banned yet?

There are people who think like you do who claim that only 144,000 people will get into heaven.

 

[doubledeluxe]

This thread went to being about normal people who go to church and whatnot to crazy fundamentalists breaking down their holy book word by word.

 

[ThinClient]

This thread went to being about normal people who go to church and whatnot to crazy fundamentalists breaking down their holy book word by word.

That's what it always comes down to when you successfully deconstruct every single argument that the religious bring to the table. They get desperate and end up going full retard.

 

[db]

Bottom line:
you don't need to go to church to learn morals and ethics and you don't need to go to church to be a good person. You can be a moral, ethical and good person without going to church.

Fear is a powerful motivator when it comes to religion and is probably the biggest reason people "become" religious. To seal the deal, the promise of reward is also there, so your have the threat of punishment and the potential of reward, which is a pretty powerful tactic to motivate someone.

 

[doubledeluxe]

Bottom line:
you don't need to go to church to learn morals and ethics and you don't need to go to church to be a good person. You can be a moral, ethical and good person without going to church.

Fear is a powerful motivator when it comes to religion and is probably the biggest reason people "become" religious. To seal the deal, the promise of reward is also there, so your have the threat of punishment and the potential of reward, which is a pretty powerful tactic to motivate someone.

When given a choice, including culturally and socially, it seems that people opt to be more secular.

I wonder if anyone has done a study on this though. I'm really just speculating.

 

[Jeff7]

Lovely.

Biblical evidence appears to match reality at first glance: "Bible nailed it!"

Biblical evidence is very much at odds with reality: "It was poetic, or a metaphor. You just don't understand."



Biblical inconsistencies? There are lists compiled, and yes, Google would provide them. Since you've restricted Google, I'll not go there. So....
(But heck, I can't provide a proper mathematical proof that 3*4=12 either.)

Inconsistencies with reality, and major omissions: Yes, Genesis. "Poetic," or whatever that would be. Or "day" doesn't mean "day," so God couldn't get units right. Or maybe our knowledge of physics and the Universe exceeded what was known when those parts of the Bible were compiled.

Evolution of life and abiogenesis: Not that different, I think. Heck, we convert non-life to life every day, integrating consumed food into our bodies. A life form is comprised of nonliving components. Abiogenesis was a progression of nonliving molecules into arrangements that could reproduce themselves through chemical action. Thanks to readily available energy sources, either from sunlight or from chemical means, the molecules could increase in complexity, gradually giving way to things that we might have classified as "life."
The Bible doesn't go much into this rather critical part of our biological history. What I know of it is that it really focuses a lot on human social issues, and on the lives of a select group of individuals.
I don't know that there's much in there about physics or advanced mathematics. Maybe that's part of that knowledge stuff that we weren't meant to have.



Reading the book cover-to-cover: Imagine trying to read Twilight with the knowledge that a few million people out there genuinely believe that it is truth, or maybe a book about Scientology. It is intellectually unbearable and in fact quite distressing. They're ancient tales, just as valid as those of Greek or Norse gods, but I guess this particular formulation of stories just has good staying power.

 

[alzan]

The bible is a great source of two-faced forked-tongue hypocrisy to teach from.

Why bother teaching ANYTHING from that book, even if the tiny snippet that you cherry pick from it is actually morally or ethically righteous?

Why not just throw it away and teach them properly without the bullshit influence?

The influence comes not from the Bible but from the organizations built up around it and the more zealous and vocal of it's believers.

If one has a goal of teaching ethical behavior to a given group of people one should use all the tools and sources available; if a point is illustrated best by reading a biblical parable one would be silly not to use it.

 

[stormkroe]

There are people who think like you do who claim that only 144,000 people will get into heaven.

Yes, jehovah's witnesses believe that, although technically not that those people will 'go to heaven', but rather that they will rule over the faithful as spirit beings on paradise earth. And, just like the 6000 year old earth guys, they have it wrong (not based on reality, simply what is said in the Bible).

Inconsistencies with reality, and major omissions: Yes, Genesis. "Poetic," or whatever that would be. Or "day" doesn't mean "day," so God couldn't get units right. Or maybe our knowledge of physics and the Universe exceeded what was known when those parts of the Bible were compiled

Jeff, I didn't ask you to refrain from google because I thought you didn't have any answers, but rather to hear what your specific issues were.
A few books of the Bible aren't called poetic in a reactionary way, it's based on their content and literary devices that separate them from books considered historical in nature, as well as content.
With regards to God simply misunderstanding units and words, again this is simply a limitation imposed by the old fashioned refusing to accept modern science (the world is round, the universe isn't geocentric) and given the limitation of ancient hebrew's 7000 word vocabulary, the word used for 'day', (yom), literally means 24 hours, the day light hours, or a long period of time, to break the creation events down into 6 epochs would look exactly the same as breaking it into 6 24 hour periods. Yay for homonyms.
A lot of the misconceptions people have about Biblical content, such as the age if the earth, are easily clarified without much trouble. Anyway, thanks for replying.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Evolution of life and abiogenesis: Not that different, I think. Heck, we convert non-life to life every day, integrating consumed food into our bodies. A life form is comprised of nonliving components. Abiogenesis was a progression of nonliving molecules into arrangements that could reproduce themselves through chemical action. Thanks to readily available energy sources, either from sunlight or from chemical means, the molecules could increase in complexity, gradually giving way to things that we might have classified as "life."

Not sure I agree with all of your statements (e.g., creating life from non-life by consuming food), but I think the gist of your argument is that scientific theories support the long-term evolution of complex life from inorganic and organic compounds. I get that, and by and large I agree with it.

But there are many questions science cannot answer to my satisfaction. BUt before getting into them lets lay a framework based on abiogenesis. That framework is essentially based on assertions that before there was complex life, there was relatively simple life. Before simple life there were non-living organic compounds and inorganic compounds. And before there were organic and inorganic compounds there were elements. And before their were elements there were subatomic particles floating around.

Question 1 - where did the subatomic particles come from? If from smaller particles, what is the origin of those particles?

Question 2 - where did "space" come from?

In other words, how did the universe come to be?

An even greater question (for all religious folks to ponder) is - "where did your god come from?" Who or what created it?

In my view the answers to those questions are unknowable. At least by a mere human mind. I therefore believe in something greater than humanity, which I call god. The fact that I may not understand what god is or how god acts upon me and the rest of the universe is no surprise, because I do not have the capability of understanding. But I am intelligent enough to wonder about these fundamental questions. . . and to realize that at some point scientific and/or rationale explanations just do not hold up.

 

[ThinClient]

Not sure I agree with all of your statements (e.g., creating life from non-life by consuming food), but I think the gist of your argument is that scientific theories support the long-term evolution of complex life from inorganic and organic compounds. I get that, and by and large I agree with it.

But there are many questions science cannot answer to my satisfaction. BUt before getting into them lets lay a framework based on abiogenesis. That framework is essentially based on assertions that before there was complex life, there was relatively simple life. Before simple life there were non-living organic compounds and inorganic compounds. And before there were organic and inorganic compounds there were elements. And before their were elements there were subatomic particles floating around.

Question 1 - where did the subatomic particles come from? If from smaller particles, what is the origin of those particles?

Question 2 - where did "space" come from?

In other words, how did the universe come to be?

An even greater question (for all religious folks to ponder) is - "where did your god come from?" Who or what created it?

In my view the answers to those questions are unknowable. At least by a mere human mind. I therefore believe in something greater than humanity, which I call god. The fact that I may not understand what god is or how god acts upon me and the rest of the universe is no surprise, because I do not have the capability of understanding. But I am intelligent enough to wonder about these fundamental questions. . . and to realize that at some point scientific and/or rationale explanations just do not hold up.

I don't know, therefore GOD!! 🙄

 

[mnewsham]

I don't know, therefore GOD!! 🙄

Yup, and when you try to explain to someone like that, the science involved is so over their head they just dont believe it, think you're wrong, and go back to championing "god".

Just because you personally don't know enough science to understand how the universe came to be and how life could form does NOT somehow mean it MUST have been God. And if you think you know enough science to somehow discredit the big bang theory and abiogenesis then you're fooling yourself. The beautiful thing about science is it has hundreds of years of editing and revision and testing theories and ideas in order to come to any conclusions, religion has been touting the same beliefs for hundreds of years without many if any major changes because the word of god is infallible. IDK about you guys, but I trust the evidence backed science people who are always willing to change their point of view when new evidence is presented, not the people who throw a a book at you or try and tell you about some fairy sky being who controls everything because someone 2 thousand years ago told us so.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Not sure I agree with all of your statements (e.g., creating life from non-life by consuming food), but I think the gist of your argument is that scientific theories support the long-term evolution of complex life from inorganic and organic compounds. I get that, and by and large I agree with it.

But there are many questions science cannot answer to my satisfaction. BUt before getting into them lets lay a framework based on abiogenesis. That framework is essentially based on assertions that before there was complex life, there was relatively simple life. Before simple life there were non-living organic compounds and inorganic compounds. And before there were organic and inorganic compounds there were elements. And before their were elements there were subatomic particles floating around.

Question 1 - where did the subatomic particles come from? If from smaller particles, what is the origin of those particles?

Question 2 - where did "space" come from?

In other words, how did the universe come to be?

An even greater question (for all religious folks to ponder) is - "where did your god come from?" Who or what created it?

In my view the answers to those questions are unknowable. At least by a mere human mind. I therefore believe in something greater than humanity, which I call god. The fact that I may not understand what god is or how god acts upon me and the rest of the universe is no surprise, because I do not have the capability of understanding. But I am intelligent enough to wonder about these fundamental questions. . . and to realize that at some point scientific and/or rationale explanations just do not hold up.

Here is a very short (4:00) video that addresses what you've said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nikg4hMRjs

Think about what was 'unknowable' 200 years ago, 1000 years ago, etc.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Question 1 - where did the subatomic particles come from? If from smaller particles, what is the origin of those particles?

Question 2 - where did "space" come from?

In other words, how did the universe come to be?

Your questions assume facts not in evidence -- particularly that the universe, space and matter "came to be" in the first place.

 

[alkemyst]

Bottom line:
you don't need to go to church to learn morals and ethics and you don't need to go to church to be a good person. You can be a moral, ethical and good person without going to church.

Fear is a powerful motivator when it comes to religion and is probably the biggest reason people "become" religious. To seal the deal, the promise of reward is also there, so your have the threat of punishment and the potential of reward, which is a pretty powerful tactic to motivate someone.

Well that is true, but where does the guidance come from?

Common sense is what people try to claim, but often those people really aren't doing such a good job either.

 

[doubledeluxe]

So now we're choosing between the lesser of two evils? Church or poor parenting? I guess if you come from a bad home church may do you some good. So maybe we should weigh foster care vs going to church if poor parenting is the real problem.

 

[Retro Rob]

The Bible suffers much scorn because lots of people get it wrong, whether from lack of information (failure to re-examine doctrines from sometimes hundreds of years ago in light of ever-budding science) or from agenda-driven cherry picking (pretty much everyone else).

Well, I need you to understand where I am coming from -- it wasn't until after science showed a global flood didn't happen and that we decended from ape-like ancestors did scholars and theologians start reinterpreting the flood story and making Adam and Eve to more poetic and allegorical figures, and they cited Biblical reasons why Adam and Eve had to be symbolic, and also why the flood was local.

Ironically, Christians still hold to the resurrection of Jesus and his miracles as facts. This natrually begs the question: If one day sceince were to show these as factual falsehools, likely, people who authored the material on the site you gave to me will argue that they [ressurection and mircales] were always meant to be symobolic, and show Biblical reasons why we should have never taken them literally.

It just seems that people are employing dishonest attempts to make the Bible completely harmonious with modern science.

EDIT: In other words, down through the centruries, people argued and suppored their arguments that flood and Adam and Eve were global and real people, respectively, and that they were meant to be understood as so.

Now contempoaries are arguing the opposite, and supporting those arguments to the point of debating original language words.

Another way this is happening is with whether or not the Bible condemns gay marriage. For centuries, no one really questioned that, but recently since people believe gays are born gay and God evidently created them that way, now they're saying God condemned prostitue gay sex and gays who had sex unmarried.

:roll:

Any objective observer can see the rampant intellectual dishonestly in contemporary scholarship.

 

[alkemyst]

So now we're choosing between the lesser of two evils? Church or poor parenting? I guess if you come from a bad home church may do you some good. So maybe we should weigh foster care vs going to church if poor parenting is the real problem.

Sadly, parents do a piss-poor job today; even those going to church. It's not uncommon to be in line for Church when some asshat just plows into the front of the line, blows through stop signs, and doesn't yield to pedestrians crossing the street (even in the rain).

The kids in the vehicle see this and they learn that it's OK.

 

[doubledeluxe]

Well assholes are everywhere.

The real question is where do you get the best moral guidance if you come from a bad family?

Church isn't at the top of my list.

 

[alkemyst]

Well assholes are everywhere.

The real question is where do you get the best moral guidance if you come from a bad family?

Church isn't at the top of my list.

Most churches do provide the proper moral guidance whether you choose to believe or not.

Almost all the phrases in the Bible, Koran, Torah, etc come from practical things to help people get along.

The problem today is everyone expects their kid to be a ruler/dictator and can do no wrong.

People (especially here) believe society/civilization does not apply to them and they are autonomous.

 

[doubledeluxe]

What do you mean?

 

[SlowSpyder]

Most churches do provide the proper moral guidance whether you choose to believe or not.

Almost all the phrases in the Bible, Koran, Torah, etc come from practical things to help people get along.

The problem today is everyone expects their kid to be a ruler/dictator and can do no wrong.

People (especially here) believe society/civilization does not apply to them and they are autonomous.

There are good moral lessons, but there are many, many phrases and bits in those books that aren't really practical, nor would I say they help people along. Some of it is pretty evil, really. I'd say especially the torah as it is all old testament stuff when god was off his meds.

 

[Thebobo]

Not sure I agree with all of your statements (e.g., creating life from non-life by consuming food), but I think the gist of your argument is that scientific theories support the long-term evolution of complex life from inorganic and organic compounds. I get that, and by and large I agree with it.

But there are many questions science cannot answer to my satisfaction. BUt before getting into them lets lay a framework based on abiogenesis. That framework is essentially based on assertions that before there was complex life, there was relatively simple life. Before simple life there were non-living organic compounds and inorganic compounds. And before there were organic and inorganic compounds there were elements. And before their were elements there were subatomic particles floating around.

Question 1 - where did the subatomic particles come from? If from smaller particles, what is the origin of those particles?

Question 2 - where did "space" come from?

In other words, how did the universe come to be?

An even greater question (for all religious folks to ponder) is - "where did your god come from?" Who or what created it?

In my view the answers to those questions are unknowable. At least by a mere human mind. I therefore believe in something greater than humanity, which I call god. The fact that I may not understand what god is or how god acts upon me and the rest of the universe is no surprise, because I do not have the capability of understanding. But I am intelligent enough to wonder about these fundamental questions. . . and to realize that at some point scientific and/or rationale explanations just do not hold up.

If everyone followed your way of thinking society would still be killing people for thinking the earth was not the center of the universe. And the world would be in a perpetual dark age.

Rather than go to Church watch Cosmos several times. Much more productive.