The point of religion is that the Few (ie, the Vatican) control the many through fear.
The Catholics are only half of Christians, the vatican has no sway over the rest of us. What you say has been true in many eras of the Catholic church, but does not apply to Christians who aren't Catholic.
Sin and you'll go to hell.
You miss Christianity's most important tenet: all of us sin, even the popes and saints, but your sins are forgiven, paid in blood by Christ. The "guy in a hat" doesn't absolve you of sin, God does. Escaping hell only involves believing Christ is son of God and your lord and savior, and repenting your sin erases it.
What do you see when you look in a church? You see a few rows of chairs, all facing a raised platform. That puts one man above all others in the entire room.
Why is a performing musician on a raised platform? Why is a comedian on a raised platform? So you can more easily see and hear him or her.
He is the most important being in there.
No, God is. The preacher teaches the word and prays for and with the congregation.
Because according to that self same individual's claim, his is the only voice in that room that speaks the Word of God. Everybody else listens and obeys.
I suspect that you were raised as a Catholic, and am starting to understand why so many of the fallen I've met -- hookers, thieves, dope dealers -- were raised in Catholic families. What you describe is nothing like any church I've attended, and I've attended churches of many denominations (the one I attend now is nondenominational).
Isn't it strange how he also drives the nicest car in town?
You're certainly not describing Eddie, the lead pastor at my church, but it's true of too many preachers. And the church I attend is a very rich church, we sent $90,000 to Africa last year, plus more around the world, the US, and our own community. When you see a preacher in a $4000 suit he's most likely in it for his own ends, and may not even really believe in God. I always say never trust a preacher who wears a tie, because the necktie is a symbol that the wearer worships money and power. Notice that all bankers, lawyers, and politicians wear expensive suits and all wear ties? That's one thing that really pisses God off -- idol worship.
Isn't it disturbing how everybody trusts him to the point where they allow him unrestricted access to their children?
Yet you're not disturbed that we allow public scholl teachers unrestricted access to our children?
Don't for one minute think I'm singling out the Catholic Church. They're all guilty of it.
"Don't for one minute think I'm singling out the black men, all blacks are guilty of it." See what happens when you judge one man on what another man does?
Modded Troll? Looks like I was wrong, that's pretty much evidence that the GP was right about the angry athiests. Now mod this one down too, and make my point even stronger.
Remember: "Bradley broke the law" is precisely what this dude in Germany is doing.
Manning temporarily gave up his rights to free speech when he joined the military, and what he did was actual theft if he took paper documents. Nothing at all like Germany, where a civilian is not allowed to speak positively about Nazism. When you join the military, you give up a LOT of your rights.
Actually, the right to life is enshrined in both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independance. The latter says "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and the former says "life, liberty, and property". However, if you get a speeding ticket they can take your property, if you rob a bank they'll take your liberty, and if you mass murder someone in a state with the death penalty you can forfeit your life.
Whoever made that typo must have a really weird keyboard; what layout has the I anywhere near the A? My guess is it wasn't a true typo but a bit of dyslexia caused by not paying attention, seeing "aral" but reading "arial".
There is a small percentage of Christians, such as myself, who adamantly believe in both evolution and Christianity.
Citation? Even the Catholic Pope believes evolution is real. I do, most Christians I know do. I think it's a small minority of Christians who think evolution is incorrect (mosly in backwater places like Kansas).
See what happens when you go for "funny"? Mods, he's referring to South Park after Mr. garrison gets a sex change operation. I have no idea what it has to do with Dawkins, though. Offtopic maybe, overrated maybe, but I don't think he's trolling.
I came here to ask a completely different yet related question: what is conscousness, what is sentience, and how could one prove their existance? Even insects are sentient; ants farm fungi, ranch aphids, and build homes. But that doesn't prove sentience, since robots build cars yet are not sentient.
There's a line from Chief Dan George's character in Little Big Man that I may be misquoting but has stuck in my mind (and, what is a mind?) for a long time: The Indian thinks everything is alive; people, buffallo, trees, rocks. The white man thinks everything is dead, and will kill anything he thinks might be alive."
Is it possible to fully comprehend the world scientifically, and foster a mechanistic perception of the universe, and still foster a faith at the same time?
Considering that half of scientists consider themselves Christians, I'd say that's a yes. I doubt Dawkins would agree with me, though.
still sometimes worry that there is something (non-specific) waiting to attack me when I turn out the downstairs lights before going to sleep.
That reminds me of an amusing thing I saw the other day: "When I was a child I was afraid of the dark. Now that I'm grown, when I get the electric bill I'm afraid of the light!
Even if evolution has many facts confirming it, the big problem is in the first cell.
I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the first cell was probably a collection of viruses that somehow built a cell wall around themselves.
Humans capable of believing theories of any sort very probably have a survival advantage over humans that aren't capable of believing anything about the world.)
Hmmm... my dad always told me "don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see." He's managed to survive for 81 years so far. Actually, he told me that when I was small, it still seems wise to me.
THIS is the sort of educated comment I come to slashdot for! Since DNA methylation plays an important role for epigenetic gene regulation in development and disease, I'd like to hear what the doctor says also.
I haven't heard about changing the phenotype without the genotype, I'm not a biologist but that sounds interesting as well. Hmm... wikipedia, here I come!
Moses' law pertains to God's chosen people, the descendants of Abraham. That means Jews and Muslims only; Christians have a new and different covenant, and different commandments. I find it amusing that Moses' 10 commandments are decimal, while Christ's 10 commandments are binary (someone here has that in their sig). Note that Jews and Moslems have the same strict dietary guidelines, while Christians' guidelines are pretty loose (no drinking blood allowed).
" Atheists seem to be very, very angry at everything even remotely related to a religion " That's becasue you only know of the ones who are very angry. It's a bias, look it up.
Indeed it is; those who hate are going to be far more vocal. And it's not athiests the GP is talking about, even though he thinks it is, rather it's antitheists.
I have noticed that even in the most polite conversation atheist get tagged with 'Angry' by people who loose a debate.
Do you believe a democratic society can exist which has no form of religion in its laws, or within government?
They say there's no such thing as a stupid question and I've always said that myself, but you've proven me wrong. It's Richard Dawkins, fergawdsake. Of course he believes a democratic society can exist which has no form of religion in its laws, or within government.
And even though I'm Christian, I would agree with him on this. The US laws aren't religious and the US isn't a Christian nation, or marijuana would be legal and adultery would be a felony. So I'd say that unless you live in a Muslim country, you already live in such a country.
Indeed, belief in God isn't necessary to explain the world around us, and I say that as a Christian.
Why do you think that so many people around the world still feel the need to rely on a personal god?
Because of personal experience. When a religious person strays from God, catastrophe usually happens. When he's close to God he usually prospers. Of course, I'm sure this doesn't hold true for athiests and agnostics, and probably not for Hindus and Bhuddists, who have no single god per se, but instead worship life itself.
My father was indoctrinated as a child and despite being a software engineer and so demonstrably more than capable of logical thinking and understanding he could never abandon Islam. Are people like that beyond help, I wonder.
No. I know a man who was raised as an athiest and who swears that God touched him; he's now a Christian. On the other hand, I know another man who was raised in a strict Christian family in Kentucky (Bible Belt) who is now a die-hard athiest. A woman I know was raised as a Catholic and still considers herself a Catholic, yet believes that God doesn't exist (now there's a logical disconnect if I ever saw one).
I would bet that most athiests were raised in religious families. People tend to rebel against their parents and their beliefs at a point in their lives.
And what, exactly, is your basis for postulating that life is rare?
We have yet to find any. It's pretty rare right here in the solar system. You have to have a planet that has a stable orbit in just the right spot around its star, with the right chemical composition, and quite possibly may need something to cause tidal forces to mix the chemicals.
Evolution is a well tested theory that has so far held up exceptionally well, but evolution doesn't explain life's beginnings. If you know of any decent theories that explain its creation, I'd like to read about them.
I find it odd that so many believe without doubt that there is extraterrestrial life despite no indication that there is (note, I think there there probably is, considering how many planets there must be, but accept that this rock may possibly be the only one alive), yet are just as certain that God doesn't exist, despite witnesses to the contrary.
So what is your favorite misunderstanding that may have ended up as a headline, news story or that you've found on the internet?
On that note: "One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding."
My question is, which religion? My bible says "fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Proverbs 1:7). "Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart."
These passages are shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims, so it's none of these religions. What religion values ignorance?
In Thailand (I assume China is very similar even though the Thais hate the Chinese), the day you are born you are one year old rather than zero years old -- they're counting the time you were in the womb.
Not as a kind of dual planet, although it will be in the future. The orbit of the moon and Earth has its center inside the Earth, making the moon a satellite. It is very slowly moving away from the Earth so at one point the pair's center of orbit will be outside the Earth, at which time it will be a dual planet.
I'm not sure about now, but several years ago MS Word exasperated me with its inability to handle large documents that Word Perfect had no problem with. I wrote The Paxil Diaries in Oo without any problems at all.
I seem to recall, from reading about other similar situations, that the British government considers all finds of this nature to be the property of the government. Kind of like how in the U.S. the Feds now consider anything that falls from the sky and lands on Federal land to be federal property.
The difference is that Federal property is public property -- the government owns that property, so of course if something falls there, they own it. But if that meteorite falls in your back yard, YOU own it. If it falls in a Brit's back yard, the crown owns it, not the property owner.
Slashdot Mirror
The point of religion is that the Few (ie, the Vatican) control the many through fear.
The Catholics are only half of Christians, the vatican has no sway over the rest of us. What you say has been true in many eras of the Catholic church, but does not apply to Christians who aren't Catholic.
Sin and you'll go to hell.
You miss Christianity's most important tenet: all of us sin, even the popes and saints, but your sins are forgiven, paid in blood by Christ. The "guy in a hat" doesn't absolve you of sin, God does. Escaping hell only involves believing Christ is son of God and your lord and savior, and repenting your sin erases it.
What do you see when you look in a church? You see a few rows of chairs, all facing a raised platform. That puts one man above all others in the entire room.
Why is a performing musician on a raised platform? Why is a comedian on a raised platform? So you can more easily see and hear him or her.
He is the most important being in there.
No, God is. The preacher teaches the word and prays for and with the congregation.
Because according to that self same individual's claim, his is the only voice in that room that speaks the Word of God. Everybody else listens and obeys.
I suspect that you were raised as a Catholic, and am starting to understand why so many of the fallen I've met -- hookers, thieves, dope dealers -- were raised in Catholic families. What you describe is nothing like any church I've attended, and I've attended churches of many denominations (the one I attend now is nondenominational).
Isn't it strange how he also drives the nicest car in town?
You're certainly not describing Eddie, the lead pastor at my church, but it's true of too many preachers. And the church I attend is a very rich church, we sent $90,000 to Africa last year, plus more around the world, the US, and our own community. When you see a preacher in a $4000 suit he's most likely in it for his own ends, and may not even really believe in God. I always say never trust a preacher who wears a tie, because the necktie is a symbol that the wearer worships money and power. Notice that all bankers, lawyers, and politicians wear expensive suits and all wear ties? That's one thing that really pisses God off -- idol worship.
Isn't it disturbing how everybody trusts him to the point where they allow him unrestricted access to their children?
Yet you're not disturbed that we allow public scholl teachers unrestricted access to our children?
Don't for one minute think I'm singling out the Catholic Church. They're all guilty of it.
"Don't for one minute think I'm singling out the black men, all blacks are guilty of it." See what happens when you judge one man on what another man does?
All religions practice it otherwise religion would be hoisted on its own petard (as it deserves to do),
Do you realize how content-free your comment was? No citations, no rational arguments, just "na na boo boo you're wrong!"
Good way to argue against you own point.
Modded Troll? Looks like I was wrong, that's pretty much evidence that the GP was right about the angry athiests. Now mod this one down too, and make my point even stronger.
Remember: "Bradley broke the law" is precisely what this dude in Germany is doing.
Manning temporarily gave up his rights to free speech when he joined the military, and what he did was actual theft if he took paper documents. Nothing at all like Germany, where a civilian is not allowed to speak positively about Nazism. When you join the military, you give up a LOT of your rights.
Actually, the right to life is enshrined in both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independance. The latter says "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and the former says "life, liberty, and property". However, if you get a speeding ticket they can take your property, if you rob a bank they'll take your liberty, and if you mass murder someone in a state with the death penalty you can forfeit your life.
Whoever made that typo must have a really weird keyboard; what layout has the I anywhere near the A? My guess is it wasn't a true typo but a bit of dyslexia caused by not paying attention, seeing "aral" but reading "arial".
There is a small percentage of Christians, such as myself, who adamantly believe in both evolution and Christianity.
Citation? Even the Catholic Pope believes evolution is real. I do, most Christians I know do. I think it's a small minority of Christians who think evolution is incorrect (mosly in backwater places like Kansas).
See what happens when you go for "funny"? Mods, he's referring to South Park after Mr. garrison gets a sex change operation. I have no idea what it has to do with Dawkins, though. Offtopic maybe, overrated maybe, but I don't think he's trolling.
I came here to ask a completely different yet related question: what is conscousness, what is sentience, and how could one prove their existance? Even insects are sentient; ants farm fungi, ranch aphids, and build homes. But that doesn't prove sentience, since robots build cars yet are not sentient.
There's a line from Chief Dan George's character in Little Big Man that I may be misquoting but has stuck in my mind (and, what is a mind?) for a long time: The Indian thinks everything is alive; people, buffallo, trees, rocks. The white man thinks everything is dead, and will kill anything he thinks might be alive."
Is it possible to fully comprehend the world scientifically, and foster a mechanistic perception of the universe, and still foster a faith at the same time?
Considering that half of scientists consider themselves Christians, I'd say that's a yes. I doubt Dawkins would agree with me, though.
still sometimes worry that there is something (non-specific) waiting to attack me when I turn out the downstairs lights before going to sleep.
That reminds me of an amusing thing I saw the other day: "When I was a child I was afraid of the dark. Now that I'm grown, when I get the electric bill I'm afraid of the light!
Even if evolution has many facts confirming it, the big problem is in the first cell.
I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the first cell was probably a collection of viruses that somehow built a cell wall around themselves.
Humans capable of believing theories of any sort very probably have a survival advantage over humans that aren't capable of believing anything about the world.)
Hmmm... my dad always told me "don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see." He's managed to survive for 81 years so far. Actually, he told me that when I was small, it still seems wise to me.
THIS is the sort of educated comment I come to slashdot for! Since DNA methylation plays an important role for epigenetic gene regulation in development and disease, I'd like to hear what the doctor says also.
I haven't heard about changing the phenotype without the genotype, I'm not a biologist but that sounds interesting as well. Hmm... wikipedia, here I come!
The Bible defines life as beginning with breath,
Indeed it does
while tattoos are explicitly prohibited.
Moses' law pertains to God's chosen people, the descendants of Abraham. That means Jews and Muslims only; Christians have a new and different covenant, and different commandments. I find it amusing that Moses' 10 commandments are decimal, while Christ's 10 commandments are binary (someone here has that in their sig). Note that Jews and Moslems have the same strict dietary guidelines, while Christians' guidelines are pretty loose (no drinking blood allowed).
" Atheists seem to be very, very angry at everything even remotely related to a religion "
That's becasue you only know of the ones who are very angry. It's a bias, look it up.
Indeed it is; those who hate are going to be far more vocal. And it's not athiests the GP is talking about, even though he thinks it is, rather it's antitheists.
I have noticed that even in the most polite conversation atheist get tagged with 'Angry' by people who loose a debate.
I don't think you said what you thought you said.
Do you believe a democratic society can exist which has no form of religion in its laws, or within government?
They say there's no such thing as a stupid question and I've always said that myself, but you've proven me wrong. It's Richard Dawkins, fergawdsake. Of course he believes a democratic society can exist which has no form of religion in its laws, or within government.
And even though I'm Christian, I would agree with him on this. The US laws aren't religious and the US isn't a Christian nation, or marijuana would be legal and adultery would be a felony. So I'd say that unless you live in a Muslim country, you already live in such a country.
Indeed, belief in God isn't necessary to explain the world around us, and I say that as a Christian.
Why do you think that so many people around the world still feel the need to rely on a personal god?
Because of personal experience. When a religious person strays from God, catastrophe usually happens. When he's close to God he usually prospers. Of course, I'm sure this doesn't hold true for athiests and agnostics, and probably not for Hindus and Bhuddists, who have no single god per se, but instead worship life itself.
My father was indoctrinated as a child and despite being a software engineer and so demonstrably more than capable of logical thinking and understanding he could never abandon Islam. Are people like that beyond help, I wonder.
No. I know a man who was raised as an athiest and who swears that God touched him; he's now a Christian. On the other hand, I know another man who was raised in a strict Christian family in Kentucky (Bible Belt) who is now a die-hard athiest. A woman I know was raised as a Catholic and still considers herself a Catholic, yet believes that God doesn't exist (now there's a logical disconnect if I ever saw one).
I would bet that most athiests were raised in religious families. People tend to rebel against their parents and their beliefs at a point in their lives.
And what, exactly, is your basis for postulating that life is rare?
We have yet to find any. It's pretty rare right here in the solar system. You have to have a planet that has a stable orbit in just the right spot around its star, with the right chemical composition, and quite possibly may need something to cause tidal forces to mix the chemicals.
Evolution is a well tested theory that has so far held up exceptionally well, but evolution doesn't explain life's beginnings. If you know of any decent theories that explain its creation, I'd like to read about them.
I find it odd that so many believe without doubt that there is extraterrestrial life despite no indication that there is (note, I think there there probably is, considering how many planets there must be, but accept that this rock may possibly be the only one alive), yet are just as certain that God doesn't exist, despite witnesses to the contrary.
So what is your favorite misunderstanding that may have ended up as a headline, news story or that you've found on the internet?
On that note: "One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding."
My question is, which religion? My bible says "fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Proverbs 1:7). "Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.
O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart."
These passages are shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims, so it's none of these religions. What religion values ignorance?
they start counting at 1, like Fortran
In Thailand (I assume China is very similar even though the Thais hate the Chinese), the day you are born you are one year old rather than zero years old -- they're counting the time you were in the womb.
Not as a kind of dual planet, although it will be in the future. The orbit of the moon and Earth has its center inside the Earth, making the moon a satellite. It is very slowly moving away from the Earth so at one point the pair's center of orbit will be outside the Earth, at which time it will be a dual planet.
I'm not sure about now, but several years ago MS Word exasperated me with its inability to handle large documents that Word Perfect had no problem with. I wrote The Paxil Diaries in Oo without any problems at all.
I seem to recall, from reading about other similar situations, that the British government considers all finds of this nature to be the property of the government. Kind of like how in the U.S. the Feds now consider anything that falls from the sky and lands on Federal land to be federal property.
The difference is that Federal property is public property -- the government owns that property, so of course if something falls there, they own it. But if that meteorite falls in your back yard, YOU own it. If it falls in a Brit's back yard, the crown owns it, not the property owner.