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RFM · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 2:33 pm Post subject:

To Holebender,
1. What is irrational is not the content of a book but the notion that a reader should "believe" in the book or its content. I do not understand what you mean exactly when you say "believe" in a book and I do not think you do either. Further the Bible is not the only book ever published with fanciful stories or contradictions; that does not and should not prevent anyone from evaluating it on its own merits.

2. People, including you no doubt, have always accepted as true propositions and assertions without a single shred of proof or evidence. Very few people for instance have ever looked through a microscope or if they did ever understood what exactly they were looking at, yet people who regard themselves as intelligent readily accept the microbe theory and the assertion that microbes cause illness. Very few people have ever proved to themselves exactly why radio and television signals propagate through the world, nor would they understand it if it was explained to them. People have lived in terror for years of thermonuclear war, but have never proved to themselves, or done anything more than take someone else's word for the truth of the matter, that atoms exist and nuclear fission is a fact. You for instance cite the phenomenon of gravity as something you have possibly proven to yourself. If that is so tell us please why when a boy throws a ball into the air it comes right back down to him rather than someplace else if given the earth's rotation gravity is the mere attraction of objects on the surface. Tell us why an electron has mass and is therefore influenced by gravity but a photon has none. Are these matters that you have accepted without proof, but the notion of a deity sticks in your throat?

Scott2006 · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 3:27 pm Post subject:

A Deity or Deities if they were to exist would be several billion years old - would have no interest or even concept of life as we can describe it.

All religions as laid down are fanciful - a sop for the superstitious.

Perhaps God is a concept that mankind can rise to comprehend or supersede through ever greater understanding of the new mathematics of higher dimensions and natural philosophy whether biological, chemical or a harnessing of long life technologies and controlled nuclear fusion.

The Bible itself is over-studied and is a fundamentalist collection of life studies that are not entirely relevant. The final book of the Bible is as informative as Nostradamus. Interpretation varies so widely that any tract or text can be given primacy by any sect to explain their actions.
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sandmountainslim · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:38 pm Post subject:

The comments of Hole Bender and others PROVE that Atheism itself IS a religion!
Atheism is just as dogmatic as any of the established religions and it's followers are just as closed minded to other viewpoints. Of course the followers cannot see this and see themselves as enlightened and full of reason but a religion it is!
WP
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Holebender · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:32 am Post subject:

sandmountainslim · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 12:49 pm Post subject:

Reverend Holebender continues with his Great Crusade, all the time not realizing that he follows a type of religion Smile

WP
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William Potter
ScotWatch International
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scotwatch/
Jefferson Republican Party
http://jeffersonrepublicanparty.com
http://jeffersonrepublican.blogspot.com/

Scott2006 · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 1:16 pm Post subject:

I do not believe in religion - but I am open to contemplating scenarios which are open-ended possibilities.

The great and, as some might see, scary advances in medicine do not rule out - in a timescale of the next hundred years or so a POSSIBILITY of anybody achieving for them a re-injection of life - to a corpse dead for 3 days - with successful regeneration of the structure of the bodily organs and fluids. Cell death may be tricked and re-started. Some POSSIBILITIES not BELIEFS.

If reality overtakes your religion - what do you do? Does that re-inforce your belief system or cause you to question your assumptions?

Pre-judgement, Pre-determinism, blind dogmatic acceptance are not rational stances to justify without a degree of evidence.
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Scotland deserves a First rate Parliament for a First rate People
The Scottish Parliamentarians who voted for Treaty of Union in 1706 and signed away Independence had been voted for by less than 2% of the Scottish population

RFM · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 5:33 pm Post subject:

To Holebender;
I notice your writing style has undergone a substantial change for some reason; no matter the response is quite good.

The Bible, like any other book, has its fans and interested readers. There are several reasons to believe that much of it is grounded in historical fact, in much the same way that Homer's poems, the Scandanavian sagas and other works are also. It is indeed unfortunate that illiterates have come to deem it a sort of "magic" book, but that is their choice and it need not be mine or yours. As I said, it deserves to be read and evaluated on its own merits just like any other book.

Religion is one of the great issues of history, particularly the Christian religion. It has been eagerly adopted by many nations and cultures, largely for the reason that it holds out the promise of a moral, decent and fulfilling life to its adherents. All the sneering about the need for proof, evidence, and something substantial to see and handle before it can be accepted is impeached by the long historical time line of its acceptance and growth. I hope you will pardon my saying so, but the new self-styled cynics are in the historical and intellectual minority. Go and read what thinkers have had to say about religion before you clamor for proof and evidence; they understood those problems 500 to 2500 years before you were born. Begin there if you think there is some safety in adopting the views of specialists, as though that were some sort of an excuse for your own proclaimed need for proof.

Holebender · Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 10:56 am Post subject:

Aventinian · Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 12:48 pm Post subject:

Aventinian · Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 12:51 pm Post subject:

RFM · Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 12:53 pm Post subject:

To Holebender,

Sorry to hear you are under the weather, I wish you speedy recovery.

As Soren Kierkegaard put it,"I believe because it is irrational". He was making the point you keep avoiding, that belief is by definition not based entirely on reason, but it certainly has enough evidence to support its existence. For instance, what is now known as "gut feeling" is regarded as instinct, or belief if you will, with little or no evidence to support it. It is not only necessary for our survival, it serves as a useful tool when there is little or no opportunity to inquire or investigate. That does not make it irrational in the sense you imply as being an abberation. The rationalist feels uncomfortable with undefined and uncontrolled feelings and rejects it as superstition.
In other words if it can not be conceptualized, it should be condemned.

Of course no single source of information can be taken as fact without corroboration. Historically, from the 19th century on there has been much time and effort invested in investigating the Bible from a secular perspective, much of which has been enlightening for those who are interested in the subject. From the viewpoint of belief, the message of the Bible has been, and remains, the story of an evolution in human morality, ethics, family relationships, and citizenship, which many people believe to be worthy of emulation. "To believe" in the Bible is essentially an admonition to emulate, to adopt, to behave in like manner. When you consider that very few people have the intellectual resources or even the inclination to work out a personal system of ethics and beliefs, the message of the Bible becomes apparent to all except the obstinate and the illiterate. To insist on being rational in this day and age is simply to insist on a form of subjective self interest, that is I believe that which suits my immediate needs.

Neil · Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 2:49 pm Post subject:

RFM · Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 3:13 pm Post subject:

To Adventian,

You do great disservice to Descartes; he was actually picking up on a topic originated by Plato. To simplify extremely, Plato concluded that if a person believes God exists, then by definition, God exists. Decartes was trying to extrapolate when he named as a first principle, "I think, therefore I am" (Cogito ergo sum in Latin, the language of learning in 18th century europe).
He also concluded it was not possible to extrapolate backwards in the hypothetical question of why does one think God exists at all?

This is all quite shocking to me; when I was last in Scotland I met as a tour guide in Edinburgh a young man who told me that first year students in the University are required to study Philosophy for the reason that it taught them to think. If they were unable to do that it was best to find that out at the outset.

RFM · Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 9:27 pm Post subject:

To Scott 2006;

In the Eastern Orthodox Church the Apostle's Creed is recited "...that Jesus was crucified,
suffered and was buried...".

Holebender · Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 3:59 pm Post subject:

While I accept that none of you will be persuaded by this thread I will point out that none of you has given any rational basis for believing what you believe. You believe in the absence of evidence, indeed you often believe in spite of the evidence.

An example; there are people who believe that the entire universe is about 6000 years old because someone once sat down and calculated its age based on stories in the bible. There is only one source for this belief, and ample evidence to contradict this belief yet young earth creationists put all their faith in the one source and ignore the many. The only applicable word for that sort of behaviour is irrational.
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RFM · Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 5:36 pm Post subject:

Actually Holebender, your notions are so simplistic as to be breathtaking.

You assume that there is only one explanation and one set of facts that explains everything. To use your example of the age of the earth; what set of facts do you point to as the only reliable evidence that can be believed? Or you are possibly not aware of the controversies that have raged for years in geology and paleontology? Or where is man descended from in the genus Homo? Or does life as we know and understand it exist on other planets?

You think it clever to ridicule people who see the world in Biblical terms, but it was you who admitted that you accept the opinions of "specialists" whatever they might be, in matters which you have never investigated for proof. Yet you deny that by that definition, a preist, a rabbi and a minister would all be 'specialists".

Jimbo · This is Ma' Life! Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 628

I don't see how a priest, rabbi or minister could be classed as a specialist other than in being well read in their individual religious doctrines. These men who you give as examples are not exactly scientists but people who have probably been brainwashed from an early age into the doctrines of their particular church/es and are now probably incapable of seeing beyond their own personal beliefs.

I'm with Holebender on all of this. As far as I'm concerned religion is the anesthetic for the weak mind, something to look forward to to allay the fear of death.

RFM · Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 12:46 am Post subject:

Nobody claims they are men of science, but what leads you to the idea that science has the answers to everything? Scientists I observe are often utter incapable of abstract thought unless they can visualize it in their minds or it has something to do with science. Further science has no answers or explanations for many things, as any scientist will readily admit. Further who in this entire world is not driven by their own personal interests? Are you familiar with the race to decode the human genome, for instance?

The reason I list preists, rabbis and ministers as specialists was because Hoelbender was unable to deny that there were many things he did not have personal proof for and had taken other peoples word for their existence, such as matters of science. His response was that these were explained by "specialists" who reported and sought to explain these things. However if it is outside the realm of science, different rules apply. Why so?

Neil · Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:42 am Post subject:

Since there is no actual evidence of the existence of a God the nearest we could come would be to study His alleged creation.

Thus I would accept Stephen Hawking as the nearest thing we have to an expert & deny this title to priests, rabbis, ministers, Popes, witchdoctors, Aleister Crowley, Anton LeVey, L Ron Hubbard & others who make a living claiming to be able to get him to alter the universe in favour of those who give them money.
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The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
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Scott2006 · Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:17 pm Post subject:

I think I have made my position clear as the murky conditions allow.

To RFM

As an understanding of groups with influence or even complete dominance in the law and politics of a state or states - you obviously have to comprehend the thinking processes of those who are "book-bound" in their local or world view.

If we take the many religions branching out from just considering what has led up to our various interpretations of christianity, take for example a movement from South Korea where mass weddings are the norm. Without drawing obvious comparisons or even getting beyond generalities of 3 differing but overlapping "books" - as you can remember Lincoln and McKinlay and two brothers.
As the Soviet Union was leading in the Space Race a new leader of a new country (relative to religious established doctrine timescales) made a rash proclamation which could have elevated him to a level of authority that challenged certain "book-ish" types.
This man and his younger brother were sent on their way to having names of airports and legal buildings and schools etc named in their honor (your spelling I believe-is-the-usual-practice) - a heresy is needed to be resolved.
Every cloud has a silver lining, usually, but as you remember the Vietnam conflict from a certain time in history had a result of having a leader step down from doubling up his leadership - wisely I would say. He was in the strange period in a country where he was in office but his replacement had already been voted for through a college system and popular vote of that country. The third "book" in a series of three very 'beliefable' books has a passage relating in a way in direct reference with the final month in the year I was thinking of - that gave a different view of and from the world.
The world changed even more within less than 6or 7 months when a tricky much recorded event that lasted for just a few days resulted in this newer leader of a very new country - having to visit the ocean on a naval vessel to be accepted, I repeat accepted, by three individuals of strong beliefs as the leader that made or accepted responsibility for over-turning some extremely strongly held beliefable indoctrinaire religious positions.

If I can state the obvious - the nativity of the 2nd "book" - if used as a template in the need for informing events of almost 40 or so years past - is leaving room for a profit/prophet position to be elucidated.
This takes me back to the third bookable position - 'a certain movement that asks A Question of their supreme being' - I will refer for speed of typing to A Question as AQ.
The human species has a 9 month period of time from a coupling or other arrangement to the delivery into the world of a new member of that species.
Putting this 9 month factor into historical observation - we can see febmar of one year is about the right length of time before 1 event. If a second event is in the last month of the first half or first month of the second half of the following year then 9 months before that is calculable. Allowing for the 9 months to contine after that second event - we see a limited time from 9 months before event 1 and 9 months after event 2 of avrilly short time of about 2 years where the revealer, if you will indulge me, of the passage in a classical language much repeated by devout people, see those who have undermined their religion as enemies unworthy of mention in the same breathe as that passage of text.

Within the 2 year period above, where both events overlap allows for a conception of an idea where event 1 is the start and takes in event 2 arriving at curious species revealed event 3 back on the ground.
This event 3 (depending on which interpretation of which calendar and shorter or longer natural delivery of the offspring etc) puts it in a certain year - which required an answer to A Question approximately 32 years later (see "book" 2 which sometimes gives 33 years in some versions as the life of that prophetic individual or leader of a good life that as you refer to in your previous post addressed to my given forum name)

Of course I wish I could have sufficiently explained this very rough interpretation of events earlier to the appropriate individual etc - but I did try.
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Scotland deserves a First rate Parliament for a First rate People
The Scottish Parliamentarians who voted for Treaty of Union in 1706 and signed away Independence had been voted for by less than 2% of the Scottish population