Here I thought protest was a staple of democracy, not an example of heinous coercion. Do people not have a right to express their views, simply because said views might be influenced by their religious convictions? Are religious people second-class citizens in that regard?
They have the right to protest. They do not have the right to interfere. Have you not attended a clinic protest before? I invite you to do so. I attended one of the Westboro protests recently with my kids. I used it to show them that, yes, those people are allowed to spew their wretched hatred but that they are not allowed to actually interfere with the event they were protesting(in this case, the funeral of a state representative).
Thats a weak, vague claim. What tactics would those be? You say "most" churches, is this from personal experience with a statistically significant number of churches, or can we file this under "anecdotal"?
Youre gonna have to define what you mean by "psychologically coercive" in the context of a local church, because I have NOT seen that.
You can file it under anecdotal, which is why I made the claim in the context of my own experience. When I talk about coercion, I'm talking in this case about manipulation, usually in the form of ostracizing members, demonizing outgroups and generally creating a cult-like, bunker mentality. I was going to post an assload of videos, ranging from preachers attacking gays, liberals, atheists, etc, as enemies waiting to snatch your children to the more moronic versions of creationism, but what's the point? If you honestly think that people like Pat Robertson and James Dobson are not good representatives of their religion, then you are willfully ignoring reality.
It doesnt, except by voting. Would you have us make it illegal to vote based on your beliefs?
Not at all. However, some fundamental issues are not up for a vote. The separation of church and state is one of things.
You are wrong, or at least you so grossly gloss over the details that your beliefs might as well be rubbish. First, you just described abiogenesis. This is not evolution. Evolution is what happens once you have replicating systems. Abiogenesis is the chemistry and historical events behind getting to that point. If your google-fu is so impotent that you can't find the mountains of evidence(including the direct observation that you blithely claimed does not exist) for evolution online, then there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to help you. There is only so much hand holding that a rational person can do.
And you aren't even right about abiogenesis. I mean, how hard is it to even bring up wikipedia?
Maybe I should stop before I beat a dead horse even deader, but isn't atheism in and of itself a religion. There fore is Dr. Dawkins attempting to promote his religion as the only true religion and all other religions as less valuable than his?
No, it is not. If you peel it back to the most basic point, atheism is simply a lack of a belief in a deity. Some people try to keep it at that level. Others wrap up the logical conclusions based upon a lack of a deity under the name atheism. This is what the whole Atheism+ fight is about. Furthermore, atheists can be religious, such as atheistic Buddhists. And, of course, some atheists are argumentative assholes(I have been called one more than once in my time), which is understandably confused with theistic argumentative assholes. But, no, atheism itself is not religion.
1) Just because SOME religions use coercion or violence, does not mean all do. Not all churches are the Westboro, and I would assert that at LEAST for christianity as it is found in the US, such acts are incredibly rare and not even remotely representative.
If you stopped at violence, I'd spot you this point. But I've seen too much coercion first hand to even remotely give credence to the idea that US Christianity is not infested with it. Whether it is high grade "in your face" coercion, like abortion clinic protests(which, I might add, were supported by literally every single church I attended during my tenure in Christianity), or the low grade group-think scare tactics used by most churches to keep members(especially young members) in line, I can't think of a single Christian church which I have been involved with in some way which was not at the bare minimum psychologically coercive.
2) Thats a really ominous statement. Would your position make using coercion to inhibit religion justifiable?
It entirely depends on what the parent had in mind. If he means outlawing religious freedom, then I would be against it. If by limits he meant that a religious group should not have the power to enforce its beliefs upon society in general, then I am completely for it.
3) The problem is that "quality of life" includes the right to worship.
No, I get your point quite clear. I just think it is obtuse and false. The spread of the theory of relativity is not an example of biological evolution. Nor is some fictional story about sin. Yes, if you decide to redefine the evolutionary history of the human species as "the completely irrational and unsubstantiated idea that my holy book's story about sin constitutes a point in biological history" then you can jump to about any conclusion you feel like. Do not mistake your fabrication as a coherent argument. And, as amusing as it is in its complete irrelevance to evolution and my point, it still contradicts Catholic theology.
Was this a single person? I think so. The population in 1905 was much higher than in prehistoric times, yet there was a single Einstein, and he's at the root of all subsequent relativity knowledge (even if folks like Poincarre could have shared practically the same knowledge, they just didn't.) I don't see any logical reason to believe it was any different for the knowledge of good and evil.
And, again, the whole point zooms past you. There were never two human beings on the planet. Never. Not once. Ever. Ignore the whole sin angle which is apparently confusing the hell out of you.
The Catholic church claims that there were only two people at one point, though they claim that these could have been drawn from a group of proto-humans. These people were the progenitors of the rest of the human race. Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Physically. They had kids who married each other and had more kids. No human who is not descended directly from this couple has existed. The point of my whole post, which has escaped you, is that this is the salient fact: the Catholic church requires that this bit of Genesis be interpreted LITERALLY. And this point is LITERALLY false.
So I do not believe that the passage you quote condemns the scenario, on the contrary. It says we have all reasons to believe that there was a first sin. It says something more important, which is humanity and sin coincided.
I think you are missing the point. The point is not whether there was a first sin. The point is, was that first sin committed by a single individual who is also the progenitor of the entire human race?
To use your fire example, sure, some human somewhere harnessed fire for the first time. But it is completely silly to belive that there existed at one point ONLY one couple of humans, who invented fire and passed it on to their children. You are creating a metaphorical approach to the text, which is exactly what the Catholic church claims cannot be done.
To be clear, it is NOT the idea that there was a "first sin" that is the problem(though I think the whole concept of "sin" as presented in Christianity is wrong). It is the fact that the Catholic church claims that there were two people who were the first humans. The whole "sin" angle is largely irrelevant to the claim, though it is central to the reason behind making such a claim.
In case you didn't actually read it, that passage explicitly condemns your scenario:
Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own.
That phrase means that there was one man, who was the father of all men, who sinned and passed that sin to his children. This is the explicit Catholic belief on the matter. And there was NEVER a single human male who fathered everyone else. For that matter, there was never a single proto-dolphin who "returned to the sea." There would have been populations which lived in water for longer and longer stretches of time. There was never a time when you could point at a parent and say "that's not a dolphin" while pointing at a child and say "that is a dolphin."
Putting it simply, your opinion about how good or bad something has been engineered has no real impact on whether or not that Creator exists. The equivalent is to say that I do not believe in the person that coded a line of script because I could make it better or because I can perceive flaws in it.
Oh, don't misunderstand me. My mockery of the supposed engineering abilities of your deity are not the basis of my disbelief. The bit where there is zero evidence of a deity is the part where we deviate on that point.
Regarding the rest, its is all supposition that you believe and I don't. I claim God as fact and you don't. Neither of us can prove the other wrong because we see the evidence and arrive at different conclusions.
No. I can't prove you wrong because you offer nothing to disprove. Perhaps you need some remedial Sagan to catch up, like this.
However, the fact that you can consider a particular object good or bad depending upon who made is is a bit intellectually dishonest. If it is crude, it is crude, whether by Creation or Evolution.
If my toddler draws a somewhat anatomically correct picture of a dog, I'd be thrilled. If a professional artist drew the same picture, I'd critique it as crude. Do you really not understand the basic difference here?
Additionally your understanding of crude will change as your understanding of things change, so it only goes to show that we as humans constantly judge things with the shortest possible sight we can muster, while believing we have considered all that should be considered.
Given that you can't prove the relevance of the mythological framework that you think makes these deeper understanding valid, you are left with nothing to prove. Again.
I Believe in God but I have no qualms with Science until it starts to posit unrealistic things like, Science and Christianity are at odds. The only Christians at odds with Science are the ones that have problems with their own Faith. And the only Scientists that have problems with Christians are the Pseudo Scientists.
I believe in science(no capital letters, it's not a being in itself). I have no qualms with Christianity(or any other religion) until makes unrealistic claims about the universe. Even then,if it is not trying to push those mythological ideas on the rest of society, I'm content to let them wallow in their own ignorance. But, somehow, they always show up and try to do just that....
Well...affirming belief in literal biblical creation, heaven and hell isn't exactly going off the whacky scale on religion. Those tend to be pretty much accepted tenants in some way of a majority of religions. Things like women on their periods needing to not have contact with anyone during that time, that may be a questionable literal thing...
Whether it is whacky or not is beside the point. The parent was pretending to be unaware that a large contingent of his fellow Christians believe in literal interpretations of scripture. This is factually untrue.
I would, however, disagree that those things are whacky. The idea of heaven and hell has been used to control populations for centuries. It's a horrid practice.
And the Catholics, which are number one, don’t. Ergo your arguments fails, and we can concluded that Christian don’t believe the bible is the literal truth.
How depressing that I have to lead you through this. The parent of my post said:
But who on earth is silly enough to take the bible literally?
AND
I've also not met a single Christian who takes the bible literally (and I even went to Sunday school).
To which I replied with links to a large group of Christians who, in fact, take that very stance.
I also added that most Christian groups, including the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, have sections of the bible, including the Old Testament, which they claim have to be interpreted literally. In Catholic theology, for example, it is a tenet of the faith that Adam and Eve were actual people, and not metaphors:
That is from the papal encyclical "Humani Generis," linked from the Vatican website. And what was my claim, from my post? Let's revisit that, shall we?
The Eastern Orthodox and Catholics also have sections of the bible which they believe MUST be interpreted literally, including pieces of the Old Testament.
Well, hell, unless the Vatican is hosting fake documents on their website, then my point stands exactly as I said. As for the Eastern Orthodox, they haven't had an ecumenical council to deal the issue, so there is no single official stance on it. However, when researching the issue, I have found no Eastern Orthodox teachings which deviate strongly from this position, either. Feel free to find some contradictory information on that point. I'd find it interesting.
You are welcome to produce a superior being any time you feel up to it. Too often people have a propensity to judge others works that they lack the expertise to reproduce or fully understand.
Because I can't create a god, your god exists? Is this what you are pretending to posit here?
Our bodies are technically designed to repair themselves and live forever, yet for some unknown reason those functions are arbitrarily limited as well.
The rational person would at this point figure out that our bodies were not, in fact, designed at all, technically or otherwise.
Regardless of the God I worship it seems to be that most like you hold the notion that nature and evolution are pretty awesome while turning around and calling the idea of a Creator as being a bad engineer.
Very much so. Perhaps you have a problem conceptualizing the difference. Take yourself, for example. As a product of unguided evolution, you aren't so bad. You are a primate who is able to hold an abstract conversation across an impersonal medium. If someone engineered you, though, I'd point out that they didn't do a good job on the logic unit. It's prone to category errors.
Besides, if I really thought the god of the creationists actually existed, I'd be too busy condemning it as the most vile, genocidal being in the universe to worry about the lack of basic engineering skills.
So you see as much as you cannot believe in a Creator is the same that a rock could not believe you can create a stone for it has also noticed your horrible engineering as well.
You need to work on your grammar and writing clarity, too.
even the otherwise very conservative Catholic church has no problem with evolution or the big bang.
Not quite true. While the Catholic church famously holds that some form of evolution is "more than just a theory," they still require a literal interpretation of the existence of Adam and Eve and the subsequent "Fall." This, of course, should come as no surprise, since the whole point of the later human sacrifice of Jesus is predicated upon that primordial event.
As someone who writes scripts I reuse a lot of code and I am sure the Creator was intelligent enough to do the same thing to save on time and effort like any intelligent being would do.
The god you worship must be the worst engineer in the universe(well, pretty much by definition). He couldn't even figure the simple reroute fix for this. Granted, I've met developers this dense before....
So intelligent scientists were able to design an experiment that created organic matter from inorganic chemicals, and you think that proves evolution?
Yes, because intelligent people know that intelligence is required to recreate a probable event from the past in order to prove that it was possible.
You should know this. You are able to post on slashdot, after all. And you show an uncanny ability to bold words, which is something a random idiot shouldn't be able to do.
But who on earth is silly enough to take the bible literally? I was brought up a Christian, and not once did anyone tell me that the bible is a literal documentary on events, but rather a collection of stories written after they happened (especially the old testament, which is basically cobbled together from bits of the torah, and some other things). I've also not met a single Christian who takes the bible literally (and I even went to Sunday school).
Allow me to introduce you, then.
Here it is from the official website of the Southern Baptist Convention(in the context of the discussion of a book outlining creation):
Therefore be it RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, June 10-12, 1980 reaffirm our belief in a literal biblical creation and a literal heaven and hell
That's the 2nd largest denomination in the USA. Most of the so called Evangelical churches have also embraced it. If I were to write up a list of the churches in my town alone, I would feel completely comfortable laying money on the fact that a random selection from that list will believe in the literal interpretation of the bible.
And that is just one, albeit large, Protestant group. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholics also have sections of the bible which they believe MUST be interpreted literally, including pieces of the Old Testament. Indeed, the majority of Christians(I'd say 100%, but I'm sure there is some sect out there that says, "yeah, we're christian but we think it's all a metaphor") uphold a literal interpretation in some form. Tenets of the faith like Original Sin and the entire point of the blood sacrifice of Jesus are based on such interpretations.
Seconded. And they have shields and sensors for damned near everything. We start playing with Gameduino, but we're also messing about with the motor shields(with hacked up RC vehicles), mp3 shields and a touchscreen.
I don't think that anyone is accusing the big dogs of the GOP of being idiots. Sure, some of the mouthpieces are real pieces of work(Palin, Bachmann, Akin, Perry), but the real movers are not. The common accusation is that they are selfish plutocrats who are willing to sell the country out to the religious right while pushing the middle class and poor under in the bus. Sure, the general stance in regards to science that is associated with the GOP as a whole paints them in a dim light, but I think that that is largely just pandering to ignorant voters(with some obvious exceptions, such as are listed above).
Reducing it to "just a simple medical procedure" I believe is an extreme devaluation of what is happening.
Please do not misquote me with quotation marks. I do not minimize the depth of the decision either way. I was disputing the idea that an abortion is in any way a "punishment" for an action.
But one thing that always gets me is the assumption that -all- rape victims abort any pregnancy that occurs as a result. And that's just flat out not true; I've known more than a few that not only bore the child, but also kept it (vs adoption).
And who, exactly, made this assumption? Certainly not me.
I'm not saying force them all to bear the kid. But I will say, stop and think for a second about what is actually being thrown away in that medical "waste" bin.
Great. Leave it in the hands of the woman involved, and you and I have no disagreement.
he just sucks at off-the-cuff words
I suggest that you review his congressional record, specifically the bills he co-sponsored with Ryan. There is a reason why he is under fire right now, and it's not just because of a one-off gaffe.
There is NO moral equivalency between Christianity and Islam. Stop trying to draw a false one.
In the 1st World countries, you are correct. Christianity has largely been neutered(sure, there are throwbacks calling for blood, but secularism and increasing Christian liberalism is slowly rooting them out; until that process is complete, I'll still be fighting against the evangelical and fundamentalist branches of Christianity). If we can import Enlightenment values into the Islamic world view on a larger scale, they might get more civilized as well.
While not disagreeing with your conclusion, that's faulty logic. Society absolutely can (and does) decide which medical procedures to allow. For instance, witness the current nearly-universal condemnation of female circumcision. It's performed on young women with their consent, or at least the consent of their parents/guardians, but is still decried as barbaric and unacceptable.
I don't intend to compare abortion with female circumcision. I just want to point out that there's already accepted precedent for what you say we (as a society) shouldn't be doing. I've heard many convincing reasons why abortion should be kept legal and accessible, but this isn't one of them.
No, it is a needless operation performed on children who are incapable of giving informed consent. If an adult woman wishes, of her own volition, to have such a procedure done, that would be well within her rights. If it were medically indicated to resolve a real problem, it would also be a different issue. It is not. Furthermore, I am making the assumption that we are discussing women's rights, and not complicating it with questions about the relative rights of parents and children.
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Here I thought protest was a staple of democracy, not an example of heinous coercion. Do people not have a right to express their views, simply because said views might be influenced by their religious convictions? Are religious people second-class citizens in that regard?
They have the right to protest. They do not have the right to interfere. Have you not attended a clinic protest before? I invite you to do so. I attended one of the Westboro protests recently with my kids. I used it to show them that, yes, those people are allowed to spew their wretched hatred but that they are not allowed to actually interfere with the event they were protesting(in this case, the funeral of a state representative).
Thats a weak, vague claim. What tactics would those be? You say "most" churches, is this from personal experience with a statistically significant number of churches, or can we file this under "anecdotal"?
Youre gonna have to define what you mean by "psychologically coercive" in the context of a local church, because I have NOT seen that.
You can file it under anecdotal, which is why I made the claim in the context of my own experience. When I talk about coercion, I'm talking in this case about manipulation, usually in the form of ostracizing members, demonizing outgroups and generally creating a cult-like, bunker mentality. I was going to post an assload of videos, ranging from preachers attacking gays, liberals, atheists, etc, as enemies waiting to snatch your children to the more moronic versions of creationism, but what's the point? If you honestly think that people like Pat Robertson and James Dobson are not good representatives of their religion, then you are willfully ignoring reality.
It doesnt, except by voting. Would you have us make it illegal to vote based on your beliefs?
Not at all. However, some fundamental issues are not up for a vote. The separation of church and state is one of things.
but correct me if I'm wrong
You are wrong, or at least you so grossly gloss over the details that your beliefs might as well be rubbish. First, you just described abiogenesis. This is not evolution. Evolution is what happens once you have replicating systems. Abiogenesis is the chemistry and historical events behind getting to that point. If your google-fu is so impotent that you can't find the mountains of evidence(including the direct observation that you blithely claimed does not exist) for evolution online, then there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to help you. There is only so much hand holding that a rational person can do.
And you aren't even right about abiogenesis. I mean, how hard is it to even bring up wikipedia?
Maybe I should stop before I beat a dead horse even deader, but isn't atheism in and of itself a religion. There fore is Dr. Dawkins attempting to promote his religion as the only true religion and all other religions as less valuable than his?
No, it is not. If you peel it back to the most basic point, atheism is simply a lack of a belief in a deity. Some people try to keep it at that level. Others wrap up the logical conclusions based upon a lack of a deity under the name atheism. This is what the whole Atheism+ fight is about. Furthermore, atheists can be religious, such as atheistic Buddhists. And, of course, some atheists are argumentative assholes(I have been called one more than once in my time), which is understandably confused with theistic argumentative assholes. But, no, atheism itself is not religion.
Dammit, why did I have to post before seeing this. Some mod the parent up!
1) Just because SOME religions use coercion or violence, does not mean all do. Not all churches are the Westboro, and I would assert that at LEAST for christianity as it is found in the US, such acts are incredibly rare and not even remotely representative.
If you stopped at violence, I'd spot you this point. But I've seen too much coercion first hand to even remotely give credence to the idea that US Christianity is not infested with it. Whether it is high grade "in your face" coercion, like abortion clinic protests(which, I might add, were supported by literally every single church I attended during my tenure in Christianity), or the low grade group-think scare tactics used by most churches to keep members(especially young members) in line, I can't think of a single Christian church which I have been involved with in some way which was not at the bare minimum psychologically coercive.
2) Thats a really ominous statement. Would your position make using coercion to inhibit religion justifiable?
It entirely depends on what the parent had in mind. If he means outlawing religious freedom, then I would be against it. If by limits he meant that a religious group should not have the power to enforce its beliefs upon society in general, then I am completely for it.
3) The problem is that "quality of life" includes the right to worship.
Indeed.
No, I get your point quite clear. I just think it is obtuse and false. The spread of the theory of relativity is not an example of biological evolution. Nor is some fictional story about sin. Yes, if you decide to redefine the evolutionary history of the human species as "the completely irrational and unsubstantiated idea that my holy book's story about sin constitutes a point in biological history" then you can jump to about any conclusion you feel like. Do not mistake your fabrication as a coherent argument. And, as amusing as it is in its complete irrelevance to evolution and my point, it still contradicts Catholic theology.
Was this a single person? I think so. The population in 1905 was much higher than in prehistoric times, yet there was a single Einstein, and he's at the root of all subsequent relativity knowledge (even if folks like Poincarre could have shared practically the same knowledge, they just didn't.) I don't see any logical reason to believe it was any different for the knowledge of good and evil.
And, again, the whole point zooms past you. There were never two human beings on the planet. Never. Not once. Ever. Ignore the whole sin angle which is apparently confusing the hell out of you.
The Catholic church claims that there were only two people at one point, though they claim that these could have been drawn from a group of proto-humans. These people were the progenitors of the rest of the human race. Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Physically. They had kids who married each other and had more kids. No human who is not descended directly from this couple has existed. The point of my whole post, which has escaped you, is that this is the salient fact: the Catholic church requires that this bit of Genesis be interpreted LITERALLY. And this point is LITERALLY false.
When God shows up, the world will know.
IAnd He will touch you with His Noodly Appendage at that point!
I think you are missing the point. The point is not whether there was a first sin. The point is, was that first sin committed by a single individual who is also the progenitor of the entire human race?
To use your fire example, sure, some human somewhere harnessed fire for the first time. But it is completely silly to belive that there existed at one point ONLY one couple of humans, who invented fire and passed it on to their children. You are creating a metaphorical approach to the text, which is exactly what the Catholic church claims cannot be done.
To be clear, it is NOT the idea that there was a "first sin" that is the problem(though I think the whole concept of "sin" as presented in Christianity is wrong). It is the fact that the Catholic church claims that there were two people who were the first humans. The whole "sin" angle is largely irrelevant to the claim, though it is central to the reason behind making such a claim.
That phrase means that there was one man, who was the father of all men, who sinned and passed that sin to his children. This is the explicit Catholic belief on the matter. And there was NEVER a single human male who fathered everyone else. For that matter, there was never a single proto-dolphin who "returned to the sea." There would have been populations which lived in water for longer and longer stretches of time. There was never a time when you could point at a parent and say "that's not a dolphin" while pointing at a child and say "that is a dolphin."
Putting it simply, your opinion about how good or bad something has been engineered has no real impact on whether or not that Creator exists. The equivalent is to say that I do not believe in the person that coded a line of script because I could make it better or because I can perceive flaws in it.
Oh, don't misunderstand me. My mockery of the supposed engineering abilities of your deity are not the basis of my disbelief. The bit where there is zero evidence of a deity is the part where we deviate on that point.
Regarding the rest, its is all supposition that you believe and I don't. I claim God as fact and you don't. Neither of us can prove the other wrong because we see the evidence and arrive at different conclusions.
No. I can't prove you wrong because you offer nothing to disprove. Perhaps you need some remedial Sagan to catch up, like this.
However, the fact that you can consider a particular object good or bad depending upon who made is is a bit intellectually dishonest. If it is crude, it is crude, whether by Creation or Evolution.
If my toddler draws a somewhat anatomically correct picture of a dog, I'd be thrilled. If a professional artist drew the same picture, I'd critique it as crude. Do you really not understand the basic difference here?
Additionally your understanding of crude will change as your understanding of things change, so it only goes to show that we as humans constantly judge things with the shortest possible sight we can muster, while believing we have considered all that should be considered.
Given that you can't prove the relevance of the mythological framework that you think makes these deeper understanding valid, you are left with nothing to prove. Again.
I Believe in God but I have no qualms with Science until it starts to posit unrealistic things like, Science and Christianity are at odds. The only Christians at odds with Science are the ones that have problems with their own Faith. And the only Scientists that have problems with Christians are the Pseudo Scientists.
I believe in science(no capital letters, it's not a being in itself). I have no qualms with Christianity(or any other religion) until makes unrealistic claims about the universe. Even then,if it is not trying to push those mythological ideas on the rest of society, I'm content to let them wallow in their own ignorance. But, somehow, they always show up and try to do just that....
Well...affirming belief in literal biblical creation, heaven and hell isn't exactly going off the whacky scale on religion. Those tend to be pretty much accepted tenants in some way of a majority of religions. Things like women on their periods needing to not have contact with anyone during that time, that may be a questionable literal thing...
Whether it is whacky or not is beside the point. The parent was pretending to be unaware that a large contingent of his fellow Christians believe in literal interpretations of scripture. This is factually untrue.
I would, however, disagree that those things are whacky. The idea of heaven and hell has been used to control populations for centuries. It's a horrid practice.
How depressing that I have to lead you through this. The parent of my post said:
AND
To which I replied with links to a large group of Christians who, in fact, take that very stance. I also added that most Christian groups, including the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, have sections of the bible, including the Old Testament, which they claim have to be interpreted literally. In Catholic theology, for example, it is a tenet of the faith that Adam and Eve were actual people, and not metaphors:
"When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own.
That is from the papal encyclical "Humani Generis," linked from the Vatican website. And what was my claim, from my post? Let's revisit that, shall we?
Well, hell, unless the Vatican is hosting fake documents on their website, then my point stands exactly as I said. As for the Eastern Orthodox, they haven't had an ecumenical council to deal the issue, so there is no single official stance on it. However, when researching the issue, I have found no Eastern Orthodox teachings which deviate strongly from this position, either. Feel free to find some contradictory information on that point. I'd find it interesting.
When your god shows up for an interview, let the world know.
Because I can't create a god, your god exists? Is this what you are pretending to posit here?
The rational person would at this point figure out that our bodies were not, in fact, designed at all, technically or otherwise.
Very much so. Perhaps you have a problem conceptualizing the difference. Take yourself, for example. As a product of unguided evolution, you aren't so bad. You are a primate who is able to hold an abstract conversation across an impersonal medium. If someone engineered you, though, I'd point out that they didn't do a good job on the logic unit. It's prone to category errors.
Besides, if I really thought the god of the creationists actually existed, I'd be too busy condemning it as the most vile, genocidal being in the universe to worry about the lack of basic engineering skills.
You need to work on your grammar and writing clarity, too.
Not quite true. While the Catholic church famously holds that some form of evolution is "more than just a theory," they still require a literal interpretation of the existence of Adam and Eve and the subsequent "Fall." This, of course, should come as no surprise, since the whole point of the later human sacrifice of Jesus is predicated upon that primordial event.
The god you worship must be the worst engineer in the universe(well, pretty much by definition). He couldn't even figure the simple reroute fix for this. Granted, I've met developers this dense before....
So intelligent scientists were able to design an experiment that created organic matter from inorganic chemicals, and you think that proves evolution?
Yes, because intelligent people know that intelligence is required to recreate a probable event from the past in order to prove that it was possible.
You should know this. You are able to post on slashdot, after all. And you show an uncanny ability to bold words, which is something a random idiot shouldn't be able to do.
But who on earth is silly enough to take the bible literally? I was brought up a Christian, and not once did anyone tell me that the bible is a literal documentary on events, but rather a collection of stories written after they happened (especially the old testament, which is basically cobbled together from bits of the torah, and some other things). I've also not met a single Christian who takes the bible literally (and I even went to Sunday school).
Allow me to introduce you, then.
Here it is from the official website of the Southern Baptist Convention(in the context of the discussion of a book outlining creation):
Therefore be it RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, June 10-12, 1980 reaffirm our belief in a literal biblical creation and a literal heaven and hell
That's the 2nd largest denomination in the USA. Most of the so called Evangelical churches have also embraced it. If I were to write up a list of the churches in my town alone, I would feel completely comfortable laying money on the fact that a random selection from that list will believe in the literal interpretation of the bible.
And that is just one, albeit large, Protestant group. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholics also have sections of the bible which they believe MUST be interpreted literally, including pieces of the Old Testament. Indeed, the majority of Christians(I'd say 100%, but I'm sure there is some sect out there that says, "yeah, we're christian but we think it's all a metaphor") uphold a literal interpretation in some form. Tenets of the faith like Original Sin and the entire point of the blood sacrifice of Jesus are based on such interpretations.
Seconded. And they have shields and sensors for damned near everything. We start playing with Gameduino, but we're also messing about with the motor shields(with hacked up RC vehicles), mp3 shields and a touchscreen.
I don't think that anyone is accusing the big dogs of the GOP of being idiots. Sure, some of the mouthpieces are real pieces of work(Palin, Bachmann, Akin, Perry), but the real movers are not. The common accusation is that they are selfish plutocrats who are willing to sell the country out to the religious right while pushing the middle class and poor under in the bus. Sure, the general stance in regards to science that is associated with the GOP as a whole paints them in a dim light, but I think that that is largely just pandering to ignorant voters(with some obvious exceptions, such as are listed above).
At which point, if you are honest, you would have thrown away both the Bible and the Quran. They are rubbish.
Reducing it to "just a simple medical procedure" I believe is an extreme devaluation of what is happening.
Please do not misquote me with quotation marks. I do not minimize the depth of the decision either way. I was disputing the idea that an abortion is in any way a "punishment" for an action.
But one thing that always gets me is the assumption that -all- rape victims abort any pregnancy that occurs as a result. And that's just flat out not true; I've known more than a few that not only bore the child, but also kept it (vs adoption).
And who, exactly, made this assumption? Certainly not me.
I'm not saying force them all to bear the kid. But I will say, stop and think for a second about what is actually being thrown away in that medical "waste" bin.
Great. Leave it in the hands of the woman involved, and you and I have no disagreement.
he just sucks at off-the-cuff words
I suggest that you review his congressional record, specifically the bills he co-sponsored with Ryan. There is a reason why he is under fire right now, and it's not just because of a one-off gaffe.
There is NO moral equivalency between Christianity and Islam. Stop trying to draw a false one.
In the 1st World countries, you are correct. Christianity has largely been neutered(sure, there are throwbacks calling for blood, but secularism and increasing Christian liberalism is slowly rooting them out; until that process is complete, I'll still be fighting against the evangelical and fundamentalist branches of Christianity). If we can import Enlightenment values into the Islamic world view on a larger scale, they might get more civilized as well.
While not disagreeing with your conclusion, that's faulty logic. Society absolutely can (and does) decide which medical procedures to allow. For instance, witness the current nearly-universal condemnation of female circumcision. It's performed on young women with their consent, or at least the consent of their parents/guardians, but is still decried as barbaric and unacceptable.
I don't intend to compare abortion with female circumcision. I just want to point out that there's already accepted precedent for what you say we (as a society) shouldn't be doing. I've heard many convincing reasons why abortion should be kept legal and accessible, but this isn't one of them.
No, it is a needless operation performed on children who are incapable of giving informed consent. If an adult woman wishes, of her own volition, to have such a procedure done, that would be well within her rights. If it were medically indicated to resolve a real problem, it would also be a different issue. It is not. Furthermore, I am making the assumption that we are discussing women's rights, and not complicating it with questions about the relative rights of parents and children.