But if you had been raised into an Aztec culture, you obviously wouldn't see anything "wrong" with human sacrifices at all. It's all relative.

ye get a cookie!

And sarn - vin diesel was great in pitch black!

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WAITER: Here’s your green salad, sir.
ANAKIN: What? You fool, I told you NO CROUTONS! Aaaaaaargh!

[This message has been edited by Flexor (edited July 19, 2004).]

No, as an Atheist I can look at the situation objectively. Potentially inflammatory material ahead, do not read if you don't want to hate me forever.

Is homosexuality harmful to others? No. Can gays reproduce? No. That's a good thing, because the population is exploding (which is a bad thing). They can, however, adopt children who would otherwise be left in orphanages or on the streets. I don't adhere to arbitrary prejudices because I read them in a book. Making homosexuality a sin is just an excuse to oppress someone who is different from yourself. Fear of the unknown is one of humanity's base instincts, but failure to overcome this instinct by thinking it through with your brain is a failure to completely fufill your potential as a sentient animal. Morals don't come with religion, they come with civilization. Placing discrimination alongside simple good behavior is obviously suspicious, and accepting it without question is...brainwashing. I can't think of a more polite term for it than that. It seems like you can't understand the concept of doing the right thing without promise of reward. This makes me very sad.

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

Thrawn, if your an Atheist it's doesn't make a lick of difference whether it harms others or not. It like saying this rock over here is better than that rock over there. Your judging things on Christian morals, so that makes you inconsistent. The reason that people have compassion, and are horrified at the bad things people do, is a very good argument for the existence of God. If your an Athiest THERE IS NO RIGHT THING! NOTHING matters. Even your happyness is just a chemical in your head! EVERY THING is meaningless!
I am a Christian so I belive it does metter.

Hey Sarn_Cadrill, I agree on your position very closely. What's your position on Justification by faith alone? And what denomination do you belong to? I'm a reformed Baptist, who is currently going to a OPC church.

Ok, my whole point here is that it is inconsistent for an atheist to live by ethics, or accuse others of being bad, for doing something. Every one lives by some kind of an ethical code because God gives them a conscience. Atheism is, itself inconsistent. I'm just pointing out how people behave inconsistently to their beliefs.


[This message has been edited by Obi_Kwiet (edited July 19, 2004).]

I'm curious where you are getting this information. Pretty much every history and western civ course i have taken that covers that era grants that there were Hebrew captive peoples in Egypt for a goodly while, and these are predominantly agnostic/secular humanist professors and texts we are working from.

The placement is difficult, as written records from the suspected time periods are very scarce and were often lost or outright destroyed. This would particularly be the case were they to have been there under what may have been the last Hyksos pharoah during the second intermediate period [1700s if i recall], the Hyksos were then finally driven out of Egypt and native dynasties returned for a while at least, however they left behind them compound bows and chariots.

Alternatively they are thought to have been under Rameses II.

There is another school which believes they were the Habiru or 'Apiru who were referenced in various Egyptian and other texts. Somewhere around 1200-1400 would be the time period that would include the time they spent in Egypt. There are references to them as nomadic people in Sumerian tablets, as a captured labour force in Egyptian monuments [referring specifically to labour under Rameses II i believe].

http://www.seminary.georgefox.edu/courses/bst550/reports/LPrice/Habiru.html

http://www.imninalu.net/Habiru.htm

http://www.free-definition.com/Habiru.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habiru

The 'Apiru thing is hardly conclusive, but those three things are at least a few things to think about. Though there are specific references to Israel in egyptian texts [should be covered in one of those links].

In response to Sarn's question about well who built the pyramids then.... wellll.. youre partly correct. Egypt /did/ have a fairly persistant population of various foreign peoples pressed into service [as did virtually every ancient civilization], and they did do manual labour, and domestic labour and so forth. However it was also part of an Egyptian citizens civil/patriotic duty to put a certain amount of time and labour into civic projects, notably building monuments and so forth.

Also, it is important to keep in mind, that the ancient world was not precisely exhaustively chronicled, nor were royal records at least necessarily accurate per se, ie at least one of the pharaohs has scribal records of him personally slaying hundreds of thousands of one of their current enemies. Even up through Herodotus, kingly and national histories, specifically those written by scribes who had to make their current ruler look good on pain of death, tended to have more attention paid to the fantastic and the glorious and such than than reality per se.

IE, there may not necessarily be records of exactly who and wherefrom the various captured peoples that were labouring for a pharaoh were, what mattered was the pharoah and what the people were building, not what their names were most likely.

Two: Obviously not everyone spoke the same language, so ie there may be records of the SA.GAZ or whatever were slaves unto x pharoah, there may be no way of knowing /who/ that is actually referring to, especially given ancient Egyptian's tendency towards ambiguity and metaphor and such unless one is extremely knowledgeable about it, and even then, it is an old enough language that it is very difficult to render into a modern language and still have it maintain the same meaning and context and such. [for a very interesting coeverage of that, actually, take a look at Snow Crash of all things by Neal Stephenson, there's a very strong focus on the alienness or incomprehensibility and such of Sumerian mythos to the modern mind].

Three: Even the records that /did/ exist and were made, were not necessarily preserved. And it was not at all uncommon to outright destroy them. I alluded to this previously, but especially among Egyptian dynasties, it was not at all uncommon when a new pharoah or dynasty came into power to destroy any records or such that would make their predecessor for instance look better than they, or to efface things from record which might make them look bad [for instance losing a substantial captured labour class, moreoever being looted by those people as they left]. Not to mention that ie with the Hyksos expulsion, there was a lot of damage and such done during that time, and certainly many things were destroyed and lost with simply that, as well as that the Egyptians had developed an extreme antipathy to those foreign overlords and likely effaced many things out of spite and so forth.

Now i am not presenting all that as utter concrete evidence or such, but simply things that need to be taken into account. Simply because there aren't inscriptions all over Egypt saying 'Moses + YWHW wer heer!' doesn't in any ways mean that the Hebrews were never a captive people in Egypt.


I also realize that with a couple of those points i left it /wide/ open for people to say: 'look you just said that the bible as a record of those times is obviously unreliable, hahah zing'. Well. Yes and no.

Yes in that any documents and records need to be looked at critically, especially ones from so long ago where there was a different idea of how to record history. However no in several ways. Initially there are scores of books and references on consistency and theories of validity for biblical texts and so forth, which i am not going to even attempt to enumerate or summarize here.

However, there are two very notable [to me at least] distinctions between the general trend of ancient histories, and biblical texts.
1: Most of the biblical books were not written by commission scribes by kings on pain of death. In fact there is utterly /no/ compunction with them to try to mask or hide or gloss over issues faults problems and such with the subjects of their records, no attempt is made to make anyone king or commoner out as perfect or faultless, they almost go out of the way to make it very clear the fallibility and humanity of the people.
2: The mundanity and comprehensiveness. While i won't say the old testament is full of boring stuff, it is /full/ of things which are not glorious wars and epic heroes and huge treasure hoards like the majority of other ancient texts tend to cover. There are pages and pages upon pages of things as commonplace and everyday [and just as important] such as instructions on how to make antibacterial handwash for use after being exposed to unclean things, or how far away from camp and water supplies to dig a latrine, or about a guy making a very early vineyard and accidentally getting hammered on the results.

I am not presenting those either as utterly conclusive or whatever, but i think they do definitely need to be borne in mind, it's very different stylistically and focus-wise than the norm.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

No, but i think it would be very hard to justify that all the various cultures they sacrificed from would just be totally cool with it being all culturally subjective, i'm sure they were giving a thumbs-up to Cultural Diversity as they were getting thorny cords pulled through their flesh.

And i am not entirely convinced that there /weren't/ Aztecs who thought it was wrong as well..

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

Are you saying its Bush's fault? And if so, then why didn't Clinton make it legal in his 8 years in office? Or any lib pres before him?



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Fear is here, where's the beer?

No, I'm judging things by my own morals. It may come as a surprise, but Christians didn't invent morals.

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

No, I mean not alloying gays to marry means they don't get the same benefits as married couples. Less to pay for is all I'm saying.

Although I guess he could be doing it for other reasons, personal even, wasn't there someone who said the first cabinet meeting ever, Bush said he wanted to do something to Iraq? Or was that just a rumor?

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Oh, so now this thread turns into political name calling. Great. No more disscussion of the isues. It look like politics get dumber, as the National IQ avridge gets lower. "Caption we've hit 0 and were still going!"

No, but if one allows for the existence of an eteranal god who created the universe long before Christians were around, then there is no contradiction in saying that morals derive from god, never mind that they obviously don't derive originally from Christians

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

For the record, no, I'm not Catholic. And what the hell is a "Catholic expansion pack"? Boondock Saints is a movie, one which I strongly suggest you see (along with Dogma).



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Some of you should learn to think a bit and discover - *gasp* - that someone can dislike Michael Moore, Kerry, and Bush!
-Wolfy

Hey Fear! Nice to see you back mate

Sarn: Newsflash, your opinion ain't fact sir, I don't believe all men are corrupt and selfish, you do, obviously this is part of your faith, and that's just fine and dandy, just don't expect everyone else to belive it or live by it.

And for the second time (not to you) read what I said in reply to Mort-Hog. It's an example of me doing something selfless, for the benefit of two people, and to the detriment of myself. People do things like this all the time. I don't believe good Christians do it as a "good work," nor do I believe atheists do it beacuse they get some thrill out of doing good, I have faith that men are good, and capable of doing selfless acts for no good reason. Sorry if something so optimistic don't float yer boat.

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If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.

Darn you Dormouse...how do I argue with that?

Oh well, time to go listen to some Marilyn Manson.

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

Maybe the first step should be to learn to spell?

I hate you all for posting so darn much!
(I would've stopped in more, but I spent the night at my chuch (until 5:30 this morning) rebuilding our sound system, reorganizing power/audio chords, and making sure audio cables didn't pass by transformers.)
You're starting to sound like Obi by not doing actual study of what you're saying. No offense.
The OT was given to Jews, not gentiles. The NT was given to both. Do you realize that apparently, none of the others fit the OT prophecies of Jesus, or there would be more religions that offered salvation? Let me tweak your assumptive statement a bit:
Are you telling me that half of the things you read in the bible are possible without God?
If there's no God, then inddeed, the stories within the book are quite absurd. But it doesn't really make sense to pull a religious story from the Bible, remove the aspect of a diety, and expect it to make sense - which is precisely what you tried to do. You assume too much. Probably the fact that his tomb was guarded. See what Sarn said. Hmm... lets see. All-knowing God knows the outcome of his actions compared to a human who only knows what it can see and understand. That's a tough one. *cough*
Moses wrote the first five books. I'm not personally sure of who wrote Kings, Judges, and Chronicles. David wrote Psalms (and I think a couple other books, Solomon wrote a few books. The rest of the OT was written by the people the book was named after. The NT was written by the apostles.

I'd also like to add that the Bible, like some other religious books, has been shown to be hisotically accurate. If you have a problem with that, take it up with historians, religious practitioners. ...
That makes evolution a bit complicated. :-/
(And no, I don't believe evolution and religion contradict. Unlike most Christians, I just don't see a contradiction there.) I do. But then again, I was alway 'in the closet', so to speak. No. Murder can be shown to be wrong. You can see the damage done. Try proving homosexuality as "wrong". It can't be done. And because an athiest doesn't believe in a spiritual effect of actions, he/she concludes that homosexuality is not wrong. Most religions (I think) teach that it is a sin. A sin, as I said before, is something that displeases God. It may be 'wrong' because of damage done spiritually, but humans cannot examine this.
Understand the difference between sins and morals. I'd like to add that this doesn't justify child abuse. The idea is to cause enough pain (a quick slap on the hindquarters) to cause correction. Repetitive hitting is abuse. To once and for all prove that Christians don't believe doing good gets us into heaven:
Romans 14:23 - "...and everything that does not come from faith is sin."
Even good deeds are sin without faith.
It's love, for God, and for our fellow man, that gets us into heaven. And love for God cannot exist without faith. It is through love that we do good deeds, not the other way around. I don't mean to be rude, but could you please quit telling other people what they believe.

(Unrelated to this):
What I've seen from you, I can probably guess that you were born and raised Christian. You've probably not been exposed to unchristian things. You don't know how other people think and function. You really need to open your mind at least far enough to develop understanding of other people and their beliefs, because as it is, all you understand is Christianity, and you can't seem to understand that other people's beliefs are not necessarily a result of it. Maybe you're just putting too much emphasis on the words "corrput" and "selfish". When you think of these words, I can pretty much guarantee you think of them on a much larger scale than what they are intended to mean. There are varying degrees of corruption and selfishness.

[edit: filled in the quote I accidentally left out, and fixed the tag, fixed a grammatical typo.]

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For a healty meal, eat mashed potatoes, peas, and catloaf.
"Massassi's cuttin' into my free time, man."

Valuable Life Lesson: Frog + Potato Gun = Blindness

[This message has been edited by DogSRoOL (edited July 20, 2004).]

I get your meaning - the "corrupt" was just a reference to the poem (London if you can't be bothered to wade through the thread, and I wouldn't blame you ) and I wasn't really concerned about it, it was the selfish nature of humans and it's relevance to Obi's argument I was trying to explain!

i.e. that people are capable of truly selfless acts. That's the long and short of it. Obi didn't seem to grasp this - you know, people who run into burning buildings to save children, who wind up with 1st degree burns. They don't think about it, they just do it. Selflessness isn't an impossible ideal, which is what Obi was saying.

Am I going round in circles yet?

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If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.

Well, yeah...but I was referring to Mr. Kwiet.

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

It seemed like you were saying Christians in general thought like that. I should really pay more attention.

My friend kalimonster and i had a very long discussion about subjectivisim and so forth, inspired by Mort's and my's 'arguing'. Basically i think it boils down to his:

Corrolational Conclusion to the Gliridic Aztec Abstraction Thought Experiment. Your right to disagree with my disagreeing about your cultural beliefs and practices stops an inch away from digging my heartmeats out with an obsidian axe.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

Jedi Hunter, The Cathloics some times add books to thier Bible.

Actually Thrawn, God created morals. But you have no reasn to keep morals. I'm saying it is inconsistant for you to keep morals. Well, not so much Morals, but like you say ealier doing "the right thing with out promice of reward". Unless your reward is to feel good. But I realy don't know why it would make you feel good to help others. Why should you?

It's really nice how you seem to wanna pick and choose what god helped them do. He helped moses part the sea, he helped Noah with his Ark, but he couldn't have helped them get Jesus out. If we're supposed to take the entire bible litterally, then say so. If we're being held back by the constraints of mankind, then say so. But if we've got an omnipotent guy helping us, he helps us every step of the way.

And by the way, why has there not been one miracle in the past 2000 years or so?

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I figure that one day I'll either be famous, or in prison. But I guess if I'm going to prison, I should probably try to do something that would make me famous anyway.

God came to the earth to GET crucified! Duh! He paid for our sins! He says over and over that he could send down angles to free him, but he dosen't becuase he's paying or our sins!

Wrong. Look the word "morals" up in a dictionary. Morals are social guidelines. God created Christian morals. I evaluated and chose my own morals.




Uh...wow. I think I just won the debate right there.

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

[This message has been edited by Thrawn42689 (edited July 19, 2004).]

If helping people mattered it should make you feel good, but since your an athiest it shouldn't. It does make you feel good becuase it matters, but it would if there were no God you wouldn't care. You assume that there is something that makes killing people bad but accoring to athiesm there isn't! You measure things accoring to a standerd but if thier is no God or no absolute, there is no standerd.

And dude you keep assuming that the things that I would belive as an Athiest I belive now. I belive those things are bad because I'm a Christian. You don't have a basis to belive they're wrong. Quit assuming I'm an athiest. Its distracitng from the main point.

If you choose your own morals you're your own abslute, so basicly your worshiping your self.

[This message has been edited by Obi_Kwiet (edited July 19, 2004).]

People have empathic and sympathetic faculties. Hello.

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"Look at me! I'm Tracer! BLAHBLAHBLAH!"

-MBeggar

Okay then, I'll bite. What WOULD you believe if you were an atheist?

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

You know I'd type out yet another reply to this guy if I thought for one second he'd read and comprehended anything said previously.

Maybe I'll go an eat some babies instead, it is almost lunchtime.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonkmeg
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

EDIT post v. 2.0 I forgot to proofread.


Of course people are empathetic. That's because there is a God. I’m backing all I say off of logic from the point that there is no God. Not what people would actually do. People don't those things because they don't realize the full logical implications if atheism, or because is grosses them out. You guys should read Nietzsche or Machiavelli some time.
Give me one reason why you should do anything that you don't want to. (If you believe in atheism) You set up moral codes for yourselves because you want to and you keep them because you want to. It's just sometimes illogical to keep them.


[This message has been edited by Obi_Kwiet (edited July 19, 2004).]

You should read your posts some time. Preferably before posting. Seriously, what the hell did you just say?

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"The moral of the story? No means no, especially when it comes to the English language. It's not into the kinky stuff you want it to do, and therefore you should not force it." - Darko

Just to point something out...

I'm assuming you're referring to the apocrypha. Note that the apocrypha pre-dates Luther's separation of from the Church. Note that the apocrypha is a collection of Old Testament accounts that were not considered divinely-inspired, and thus not included. Note that these are not "added" books.

Just a bit of information. No, I'm not Catholic, if you're going to ask; I'm non-denominational Christian. Also, please -- please just open up some word processor, copy and paste what you type into it, and run spellcheck before clicking "Submit Reply."

Please.

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<ubuu> does hitler have a last name?
<jipe> .. yes, Ubuu, we're racist commy nazi jews, and we hate male pattern baldness
<Professor`K> Sorry, but half-way through your logic, my head exploded

[This message has been edited by Wolfy (edited July 19, 2004).]

Ok, maybe so. I heard about that some where.

Ok, about the spelling I'm not that good it. I use the word processor most of the time but some times I forget to proof read. I'll try to do better.

Uh, no. I'm sure any of the residing history buffs could point out cultures which are largely atheist (or no believe at all, like neutral) that consider killing to be wrong. You don't need a god to tell you that killing is wrong, you don't need a god to teach you about compassion. My dog is very compassionate and caring, and somehow I doubt she is at all aware of any higher being.

You should really stop while you can. I'm sure your foot tastes lovely, but it's going to be a lot worse when you're choking on it three pages from now.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Ugh... Maybe it was just the rest of the movie that sucked.

Oh, is that why God did it? I'm glad that you know God's motives for choosing a moral code, Thrawn. Seriously though, I've just realized the reason we're having so much trouble communicating. You're coming from the assumption that Christian morals were created by man. I'm coming from the assumption that Christan morals were *given* to man.

Why among us is discriminating? I believe most (if not all) of the Christians here have said that they're against banning gay marraiges, simply because it's not our place to force others to conform to our standards. Furthermore, I don't discriminate against homosexuals. I love them just as much as I love every sinner (and by sinner I mean everyone else in the world). I have known several homosexuals, and, though they all know I think they're living in sin, I don't try to force them to put aside their homosexuality. I know that I don't have that right. I've told them it's sin, but from that point on, it's God's job to convict them of it, and my job to be there to help them out when He does.

Of anyone, Christians should understand this best. Look at the example Jesus set for us. Even when he was on the cross, he was praying for the forgiveness of those crucifying them. Why? He could have killed every last one of them without breaking a sweat, or at the least taken himself from the situation. Besides which, the very crucifixion was done for us. All Jesus got out of it was a heck of a painful/traumatic time, seperation from His Father, and a good number of scars. We're the ones that get to enjoy eternal life because of that sacrifice. I think Obi understands the concept of doing right without reward perfectly, he just doesn't believe (and neither do I) that normal human beings will naturally take that course.

I go to a Vineyard church, which is non-denominational. Check this out for info on how we believe. As far as Justification by faith, my simple version is that if you're living your life through faith properly, what we call "good works" will be a natural result. Thus, works are a good way to determine if we're walking in faith, but do not in themselves garuntee anything.

Thanks Dor. While I admit I'm not nearly as knowledgable on the subject as you seem to be, I wasn't suggesting that the Jews were completely responsible for the construction of the Pyramids/other monuments, merely that the Egyptians did indeed have an enormous slave force, and it's therefore not any kind of stretch to believe that the Jews were a part of that.

But they're not your morals. They're your family's/your culture's/your nation's/etc. morals. We've already determined that if you lived in the Aztec culture your morals would be different. So, what it comes to is, I let God determine my moral system through interpretation of His Word, and you let society determine your moral system.

Yes it is part of my faith, but I think justification can be seen for it in the actions of humanity both currently and throughout history. Also, don't you realize that you're contradicting yourself? First you also say that morality is relative. Now you're saying that there *is* a standard we can judge men against to determine whether they're corrupt or not. Assuming such a standard exists, it would have to be universal, since men come from all different walks of life. If the scale keeps shifting and sliding how can you make any such claim?

Again, you must have some universal definition of "good" if you want to make that claim. To the aztecs, good means sacrificing men to gods. To Americans, good means respecting other people's freedom. Which "good" is good? I should warn you, as soon as you start trying to define "good" you'll be arguing against your belief in relative morality.

woo, fun. I was going to be hanging speakers today at my church, but we put it off until later.

Actually, I would say that "most Christians" don't even bother to think about it, but those that do, either see a contradiction or don't, depending on their (or their Church's) interpretation of Scripture. I personally, have my own speculations on the matter, but I don't share them usually because, quite frankly, my beliefs regarding evolution aren't going to make one bit of difference to my salvation, so why waste the energy trying to argue or figure it out?

I think you mean "doesn't believe..." Might want to fix that... (Unless perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say.)

See 1st Corinthians 13 for further clarification on this too... (It's an awesome passage I would highly suggest that all of you take 3 or 4 minutes to read it)

Intriguing argument, but it doesn't really hold water. Why would God tell us that Jesus would raise from the dead, then use His omnipotence to help people hide Jesus' body when it didn't happen? If He's omnipotent He'd have been able to raise Jesus from the dead and thus He'd have done it. If He's not omnipotent, then He'd not have been able to help out in getting Jesus' body moved and hidden. (note: I'm using a distinction between God and Jesus here just to keep things simple)

Who says there hasn't? I've seen plenty myself (from people who were paralysed regaining full body movement to broken bones being mended in such a way that the X rays show that the bone was *never* broken, to people having their teeth turn to gold inside their mouths). I could give you example after example if you'd like. Just because you haven't seen (or heard of) a miracle in 2000 years doesn't mean they've never happened. Once again, I'd sugged you do some research before making blanket claims like that.

Riiight... And the dictionary is the end-all authority on the subject... Haven't you seen Matrix Revoloutions? The word itself doesn't matter. It's just a word. It's the *connection or idea that the word implies* that matters, so why don't we stop trying to use dictionaries to express philosophical points?

Hello. But why? If there's one thing that nature has shown, it's that survival of the fittest leaves no room for empathy and sympathy... And yet we humans (the only beings who exhibit these characteristics) are at the top of the chain... How'd that happen?

Let's also not judge him based on his typing skills. You guys are the ones preaching (for lack of a better word) acceptance.

Your dog is not compassionate and caring. Your dog has engrained in her a pack mentality, that gives the appearance of her being compassionate and caring.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Out of what? The tomb? The idea was for Jesus to be resurrected after 3 days. I think I'd want a God who keeps His word, not one that changes His mind. Right.
Just a suggestion: maybe you should actually *read* the Bible to establish a character trait of who God is according to it. What would you classify as a miracle, and what makes you think you'd recognize one even by your own definition? Most likely, you could give a definition of a miracle, the exact thing you defined could happen, and you'd still find a way to dismiss it. Am I wrong in this assupmtion? Most athiests I've discussed religion with seem to operate in this fashion. Indeed.
Even so: No. It would be far more illogical to set up your own moral codes and *not* keep them. Not only illogical, but pointless. Perhaps he was, but there is a Catholic 'version' of the Bible. Coincidentally, it's called the Catholic Bible. And I have trouble trying to see the need for a denomination to slap it's name on a religious book. If Vineyard is a collection of churches, wouldn't that technically make them a denomination called 'Vineyard'? That's what I meant. I fixed it now. So would I, because it gives good insight to Christian love, and relates to a lot of things said here already.

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For a healty meal, eat mashed potatoes, peas, and catloaf.
"Massassi's cuttin' into my free time, man."

Valuable Life Lesson: Frog + Potato Gun = Blindness

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<landfish> FastGamerr > Satan

Sarn:



Where? When? I'm baffled! And just a few posts ago I'd said that I only said "corrupt" for completeness when I was describing a poem, and couldn't care less about how corrupt I/other people am/are. Please read all my posts before responding to me, because often someone picks me up on semantics and I amend things further down the page for clarity.

It's very simple, all I was saying to Obi is that I was challengeing his belief that only God is capable of completely selfless. I'm not talking about "good" although I've probably used that very word out of context.

I firmly belive that ordinary people are capable of completely selfless acts - instinctive actions, and premeditated actions. Like someone said, Jesus (according to your faith) went through Hell (figuratively speaking) for us. Not for himself. Perhaps him being the son of God this is a bad analogy, but people have run into burning buildings to save children without thinking, parents sacrificed themselves in war time so that their children (Jews) could escape opression.

Things like that.

Is that clearer? I've no personal specific belief in relative good, whatever that is. I'm talking about selflessness.

I suppose I don't believe in original sin, because I like babies, and I don't believe that without God, men are so tainted as not to be granted some form of reward after life. My "beliefs" are all over the place. Despite the fact that I'm not Christian, I hold most of their beliefs to be true, the ones about living and getting on with folk. I just get to pick and choose when I see that Christians need to pull their fingers out of their ears, and their heads out of the bible and look at the effects of their beliefs. i.e. I belive homosexuals should be allowed to marry, and not discriminated against.

*Last ditch effort to re-rail the thread*



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If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.

Wolfy's right. The Catholic Church changed nothing, the Protestants adopted the Jewish canon for their OT, which removed Tobit and some of the historical books, and Luther originally removed St. James' Epistle, simply because it denied something he wanted to teach; mainly the idea that works meant nothing and faith was everything.

You misunderstand what the word "catholic" means. It describes the Church, catholic meaning "universal." The four marks of the Christ's Church are "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostalic." It can't be divided, it must have been created by God and not a man, it is for everyone who will accept it, and it must have descended from the Apostles entrusted by Christ to spread the word in the first place. Jesus described what his Church would be throughout his ministry. He obviously didn't intend it to be divided, since it was to be in union with himself (a body with Him as the head was His example, I believe), He instituted it, making it Holy, He commanded it be spread to all the nations, and he entrusted his Apostles to do this.

He may have mentioned the marks directly in prayer during His agony in the Garden, I'll check.

You alter the truth Christ originally taught, even a little, and it becomes a lie. That is why heretics had no place in the Church, and why the Church doesn't accept protestantism as true. If you believe something to be true, you believe an altered version to be false. You believe protestantism to be true, and that's all well and good for you, but I'd appreciate your thought about what you're saying before you assail other's beliefs with "facts" that a little reading would prove lies.

I'm not even gonna touch the rest of this debate.

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Steal my dreams and sell them back to me.....

[This message has been edited by Bounty Hunter 4 hire (edited July 20, 2004).]

I think I got what Mort-Hog and you said confused. I apologize. So for the record, do you believe in some form of abesolute morality?

The problem he has is not that it's illogical to set up a moral code and then keep, but that's illogical to set up a moral code in the first place. Without God, everyone's moral code would logically be, "I do whatever I think is best for me."

I wonder about that myself, but it hasn't really been around that long (about 30-40 years) so I think that's why it's not a denomination... Perhaps with more time..

Ironic, coming from someone defending Catholicism...

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

I just wanted to quickly comment on the Noah's Ark example from the last page. I don't think that if someone came up to me and said, "I have physical, undeniable proof that Noah did not have millions and millions of animals on an Ark," that it would alter my faith in the slightest. Of course it didn't happen that way! It was an inspired story that was truthful which was passed down through oral tradition for generations and generations! Of course it's not going to be that same inspired event written in every precise detail. What's important is the lesson we can learn from the story. That's what all the stories in the bible are for.
Jesus' parables never happened, they were just ways he illustrated points. Maybe God didn't create a man and a woman and a garden and a snake. The important part is that he created mankind.

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"Windows [n.]
A thirty-two bit extension and GUI shell to a sixteen bit patch to an eight bit operating system originally coded for a four bit microprocessor and sold by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition."