Christianity

[Lamb Boy]

Pt.1

Actually, I did not derail anything by mentioning evolution. You are trying too hard to find something to use against me, you cannot even notice when I was using evolution in terms of comparison to Christianity regarding dogma, and faith. It was officially you that started off on a tangential trip about evolution, because I dared to use it in a comparison regarding dogma and faith, and how dare anyone speak like that about your cherished idea. Maybe you should be remembering what you write and post, before trying to use that as a supposed leverage in an interweb discussion.

Anon you're so FOS it's ridiculous. In post #42 you wrote about evolution twice ...

One can speak about the same arrogance of evolutionists. What is your point?"

One meaning Anon as he is the only one worth mentioning in his mind. What was your point? You can speak of the arrogance of any given stance for ppl who actually take a side and do not perpetuate some false neutrality. You didn't argue against what I posted you merely illustrated how other ppl can also be arrogant. Arrogance wasn't the topic in question ...

In the same post you mention evolution again ...

Is that why you adamantly argued with me that evolution is fact, and soo self-evident one must be a fool not to see it?

Do you expect me to not respond to your question? Yet I derailed this thread? I give my opinions on Christianity on this thread and instead of offering us your own opinions you attack mine and derail the topic by instigating a discussion on evolution. I know you'll never admit I'm right here but it's obvious to everybody else.

There is a fine line between believing in evolution, and going beyond that and declaring it as an undeniable scientific law, expressing views along the lines of "There is so much evidence, how can anyone deny it?" or "There is so much evidence, surely it must be self-evident." or "How can anyone deny it, since there is so much evidence?" You are using your own criteria as a barometer of what other should should acknowledge as undeniable truth. That maybe to you the evidence for evolution is sufficient, is pretty much scanty and limited at best for someone who is actually holding things to the strictest measure.

You are yet to actually prove that any of the evidence is not sufficient other than just saying it isn't. Still you feel somehow that you are "holding things to the strictest measure”. If you feel that the evidence isn't sufficient or faulty especially in regards to DNA then by all means show us how it is so. I have provided plenty of evidence that has been "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." yet you still will not discuss this topic on the merits of the actual evidence. Once again I state evolution is law and the mechanics are up for debate which you prove later in this post that I am quoting ...

You really should not follow in winoman's footsteps and think for yourself. The sad and desperate last refuge of the pointless is resorting to this oft-repeated and weak analogy that holds no ground. You cannot compare a metaphysical point, or something that makes claims of truth about origins, to something that is a historical event, and able to be verified, was observed and corroborated.

In much the same way that choosing to not make a decision is in fact making a decision your disbelief in evolution is also a belief making it a dogma that you practice frequently. Fossils are historical events btw Anon.

Might I suggest a course on the metaphysics or philosophy of religion? That would greatly clear things up for you. I would recommend maybe you read Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma. Further explaining this is a wasted effort, like water poured on sands.

I don't know might you? After your ambiguous modifiers like "parts" and "some" why would I listen to anything you have to say on the subject? How is pouring water on sand a wasted effort if a seed grows into a plant at the spot where you poured?

I am glad I make you laff and type "lol" on the interweb, but I felt in case you forgot, I should reiterate it and repeat it, after all repitition is the mother of all learning. Strange, that you continually feel the need to compensate by resorting to the basic of getting personal and making me the subject.

If you thought I had forgot then why didn't you mention that in the first place? Here's what I wrote ...

Next you’re going to tell me everybody’s shyt smells the same.

... and you write back ...

Actually, that is not true. In case you have been following the forum, in the Love and Romance forum there is a thread about One Armenians view on interracial marriages or something, and in it, I clearly state peoples' shyt smells different. It's only logical, I mean, different people have different diets, and different foods produce varying degrees of gas and odor, and its logical that the different foods and diets differ racially and culturally.

The fact that you're directing me where to find the thread is completely indicative that you didn't even think I knew it existed yet now you're trying to contend that somehow I had forgotten? Another example of how you're incapable of admitting you're wrong from time to time ...

Plus your argument that everybody’s shyt smells the same is also patently false as everybody to you doesn’t mean individuals as much as ethnicities. So in your mind Armenian shyt smells different than Greek shyt, but within the ethnic groups it doesn’t vary due to similarities in their diet. Your distinction isn't about individuals so much as it's about ethnicities.

Stop with the pretension and if you have legitimate issues nothing is holding you back. What do you care if some stranger online calls you a liar at worst, or at best challenges your claim?

My problem is when all an individual has to offer is a challenge to everybody else’s individual opinions as if we’re somehow not deserving of the way we think while at the same time never offering their own. If you want to believe that evolution isn't a law by the scientific definition of the word then that's fine with me but when you defend this dogma as truth then I will debate the topic. In my mind you're still entitled to your opinions.

You made a claim, thus it was a valid point. How you see me makes no difference to me.

Likewise ...

How many times do you repeat a catchphrase? Well, if you are Lamb Boy, more than once, that's for sure. Another case of the "the point is lost on you". Apparently, when I made an example of a specific group, you used yourself, as an exception, to somehow disprove the rule. That I admitted that scientists can hold religious beliefs, yet believe in evolution at the same time, is mutually exclusive from the group I am referring to. You do know that an exception to a rule does not in any way disqualify the rule, don't you? Winoman, more so than you, and countless other internet people I have seen in different forums, and in school, fit exactly in the mold of that category type I referred to. Stop thinking this is always about you.

I wasn't disproving the rules as much as I was illustrating your own contradiction. Besides why are you making rules for yourself or ideology? Are you creating your own religion?

I wrote this ...

[QUOTE=Me in post #61 of ]OMG, no pun, I never stated you did!! It's called an example Anon created from the catalyst you provided to me. The point is lost on you that's for sure. You're the one who first stated that scientists could also be religious and hold a disbelief in evolution, so I suppose that that's now false in your pre-packaged ideology theory?

... you end your previous response by implying that I am only thinking of myself however nothing that I wrote above indicates your absurd accusation.

Now you're comparing me to a Turk because I stated something you happen to disagree with? Resorts to such personal attacks only indicate desperation, frustration, and an inability to reason cordially, logically, basically, not emotionally. For someone that resorted to ad hominems constantly, and complaining that somehow I don't have evidence supporting me, you engage in the same thing. When someone points it out, it is discomforting..

I was comparing your weak rationalization to that which the *urks use to justify their claims to the lands in Anatolia, NOT because you disagreed with me. Now who thinks that it is always about them? I did reason cordially in that respect you just took it as a personal attack. I can't be held responsible for the manner in which you perceive the things I say to you. It obviously must be discomforting to you that I referred to your tactics as that of a *urk.

What evidence is there, to corroborate the claim, that the Chinese government had motives to exterminate (a word used mostly for genocidal claims and connotation), Buddhist monks? Before you get emotional about this, bear in mind no one is denying China's harsh policies and persecution of Buddhism, after all, what else do you expect of a Communist government? The same was in the Soviet Union as my parents would tell you. The point is, which was implied by you initially that somehow China had a golden plan of exterminating Buddhist monks.

What evidence is there Anon? This is taken directly from the mouth of the Dalai Lama himself on 10 March 1994 Dharamsala ...

"I have not forgotten that 1.2 million Tibetans have died and that Tibet has suffered immeasurably since the occupation of our country by Communist China."

Now I suppose that you think you have a better idea of what has transpired in Tibet since the occupancy of China but have you ever been to Tibet OR China OR lived in either like the Dalai Lama? I haven't and I also don’t pretend to know more than the ppl who were actually there …

Here is some more evidence Anon ...

]International Commission of Jurists Report on:
The Question of Tibet
The rule of Law
Geneva, 1959
(EXCERPT)

Introduction to the evidence on Chinese activities in Tibet
The allegations against the People's Republic of China can be fitted into three broad legal categories:


1) Systematic disregard for the obligations under the Seventeen-Point Agreement of 1951;

2) Systematic violation of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the people of Tibet;

3) Wanton killing of Tibetans and other acts capable of leading to the extinction of the Tibetans as a national and religious group, to the extent that it becomes necessary to consider the question of Genocide.

Now I hope you're capable of realizing that the tactics you employed are the same as the tactics *urks utilize to defend their right to take the lands of Anatolia. I'm sure you'll just laugh this evidence off in your juvenile manner in an effort to deny what is a truthful claim on your rationalization. Talk about an ad hominem.

And as far as sacrifice and religion, I am not aware of any religion that stresses gluttony, indolence, selfishness and hedonism as salutory marks for the soul, perhaps you can name me some that I am not aware of. Otherwise, almost all the religions that I know of, preach some sort of idea of selflessness and sacrifice beyond the mere self-gratification of yourself and something greater than yourself.

I asked you to point out to me specifically where in Christian doctrine the followers are asked to literally commit suicide for their religion. The point you're trying to make is completely moot. You're just correlating blanket generalities and being vague and technical at best.

Are you not satisfied that I, unlike you, admitted to incorrectness? It does not matter what religion you are, and I merely clarified the point which was perhaps vague at first pass, namely that, from what you have offered, I have gathered more spitefulness toward Christianity than Buddhism. You don't have to like it, but that is the way you came off.

Where/when did you admit to being incorrect about anything? I admitted to incorrectness when I first stated that evolution was a theory when in fact it is not. That fact alone completely contradicts your previous statement.

How do you know that I came to a conclusion and I had my mind made up already, before the debate ever started? Are you psychic? If so, please tell me more, I would love to know my future. Other than that, do not make any spurious assumptions, since the conjecture boomerang that you throw at me only comes back to you. I'm sorry you don't like to accept the fact that in this world, there is something called disagreement. It seems like the eternal struggle for you, on how to deal with this.

I am cool with disagreement but as I pointed out before that's all you ever have to offer. You are yet to enlighten us all with your own viewpoints, other than you think we were created by aliens. It would seem that the only opinion you have is an antithesis to everybody else’s individual viewpoint(s). How noble. It's like you're incapable of an autonomous thought without a catalyst in the form of someone else’s opinion to begin with.

I am glad you found my advice helpful and/or useful. But what else am I supposed to think, when one expresses the views such as you have, that somehow evolution is undeniable, and a scientific law? I can only and reasonably assume that you succumb to it as somehow the truth of truths. Please correct me if I am wrong, did you not state that it is undeniable if one somehow accepts the evidence? Did you not also state that it is a scientific law?

Yes I did ... proof is within the pages of the the Evo thread for anyone who cares to read. You admitted before that we're probably just debating definitions of the word "law" at the end of the day so you can chalk it up to that if you like.

[Lamb Boy]

all of you will burn in hell.... how can you deny the fact that god created the universe.. it is all around us..see that bird.. it is flying and that proves there is a god.. do you really believe that bird was some kinda frog once upon a time... what a imagination

Before I post the 2nd part of my reply I'd like to point out once again the intolerance of Christians. The intolerance stems directly from the religion itself ...

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" Otto.

Btw Otto birds come from dinosaurs ...

[Lamb Boy]

pt. 2

I am glad you are paying attention Lamb Boy, you will learn much yet. I never claimed I am neutral, and that quote is not only taken out of context, but it is also misunderstood. It is meant to convey that all the things we come to believe about origins and so forth, are all beliefs, whether you believe yours to be undeniable laws - like a Christian or a Muslim who believes that his belief is somehow an infallible law and word of God - or not. Claiming that I believe in aliens, is not the same thing as claiming aliens are undeniable and it is a scientific fact and law that they exist and have caused our creation. Having a neutral opinion precisely means admitting to a belief, but knowing that you do not somehow possess the elixir of man's questions.

You don’t have to claim neutrality when you constantly are or pretend to be. I understand the quote as taken at face value Anon. I just took it a step further and thought the quote through in respect to applying it to anyone's lifestyle. Sorry if that was too much for you to observe/absorb.

I have read philosophy, and I do like philosophy, but it was not my major and I believe I have mentioned I was a history major somewhere.

If I ever find it I'll bring it to your attention but for now I concede that I was probably wrong about that point. It also might have been another member. See I admitted I was wrong twice!

I am glad you are using my catch phrases. By the way, the things you posted are not evidence of anything other than preconceived minds. They don't show me evidence of anything other than a limited claim withing the myriad of claims in evolution.

Are you pretending that you actually read the article? They are preconceived minds huh? Now who is a psychic? They came to their own conclusions through science not bias.

So, since we know that you would never like to or will admit to fault or incorrectness, why would you admit that you derailed the thread by going off about evolution, when I merely brought it up, not for the truth of the matter, but for the effect in terms of comparison within the rubric of the discussion?

You brought it up twice as I have shown above and posed a question that I suppose you would have preferred I didn't answer. You instigated the discussion of Evo I just followed your lead.

What is your point? Christianity has been revised? So has evolution. At one time Darwin's gradualism was touted as somehow the truth. And when they were desperately searching for intermediate forms, they believed they had found the silver bullet when they found gemules, bathybius, and eozoon, only to have those turn up as not being intermediate forms at all? What about desperate attempts to try to pass off things such as the forgery of Piltdown Man, as somehow a legitimate fossil? And when evidence for Darwin's gradualism could not be affirmed, the theory had to be revised yet more, since the facts could not be brought to support an immutable theory, the theory had to be revised to fit the facts, to remain immutable. Then Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldridge came to the rescue with their evolutionary cape, positing 'punctuated equilibria'. Since Darwin's gradualism was getting boring, tiresome and couldn't be affirmed, they moved from gradualism to radicalism - change from one species to another, in other words, was drastic and sudden, as opposed to gradual and slow. So before you harp on another ideology for its revisions, please consider your own ideologies revisions.

As I stated in the first part that you would debate the mechanics of evolution as if you were actually debating evolution itself ... here we have proof. I have stated that the mechanics are completely theoretical where the fact that evolution actually occurs is the law. Natural selection and punctuated equilibria are both mechanisms of evolution. They are not evolution as you might think just the means by which it takes place. I think you're incapable of separating the two ...

I'm sorry kind sage, but from my perspective, anyone who claims something about origins and how we came to be as undeniable, and a scientific law, to me, that smacks of a know-it-all.

Exactly what I had posted before ... that somehow, to you, if anybody speaks of knowledge of either evolution, or now religion, then somehow they become omniscient to every topic. I don't pretend to know everything. What I stated in this thread are my opinions on, primarily, Christianity ... I mean that was the topic of this thread until you instigated the evolution discussion.

EDIT: Hey Anon I forgot to address the question you posed about what's wrong with revisions to the Bible. Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the Bible was supposed to be written, or at the very least guided by the hand of God. That's what makes belivers out of the followers and becomes a source of power for them as well. So how does one revise the words of God and not make a mockery of the fact that the Bible was written by God? I can never understand that part ... to me it diminishes the validity.

[Otto3]

Before I post the 2nd part of my reply I'd like to point out once again the intolerance of Christians. The intolerance stems directly from the religion itself ...

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" Otto.

Btw Otto birds come from dinosaurs ...

then dinos come from frogs...

the incredible thing about religion as i see is while talking about tolerance somehow it manages to make people fanatically intolerant.... i think its because everybody feel the lack of logic in religion... and unable to find a way out they hold on to the system and try to protect it and they show no mercy... i say if it is true why try to proove it? no one argues over a duck if it is a duck or not... arguments happen to be over uncertain things like love, religion and stuff... so if we are arguing then it is enough evidence that religion sucks so if religion sucks then why believe... either this is a failure of god or god is just sick or whatever we have more important thing to do i guess... how are we gonna solve the energy problem... my vote is on atomic batteries

[Otto3]

so here is my stuff.... pls forgive my lack of english in advance.... being so popular these days i can tell that britney spears (or other fabricated stars) has nothing to offer to music...so is being so popular evidence of being good in music?... thats a NO... and lest talk about democracy.. what do we have here is a tayyip the prime minister and what you got in armenia is some one you dont like very much as far as i can tell and it is not neccesary to talk about bush the w. goerge.

we witnessed some idiots believed that some ufo would take them to heaven and suicided together... there was a charlatan that encouraged them do that (i dont remember his name)

so in those old days there was a mohammed( you can switch the names for christian version) and he told people blah blah blah and made them believe him (messenger of god.. you have to aim high dont you) and by luck he became popular... i am not trying to prove anything here... you can believe what ever you like... main thing is that dont have any doubt about it... thats insane... you are no more than my toaster if you dont have any doubt inside... press the button to make them praise the god... press the second button to toast...

[Lamb Boy]

I don't think being spiritual is a bad thing at all. Perhaps true religion is the process by which individuals assign a spiritual meaning to their own existence by their own means. Maybe coming to terms with life as we know it is part of "whatevers" plan. I actually think that reincarnation paints a really depressing portrait with the cycle of life. I mean it never ends unless you're capable of breaking the cycle of misery and pain.

To me I don't feel that the Christian God is really all that benevolent. His first angel and the one loved most above all turned into what we now refer to as Lucifer. So with that logic God created both good and complete evil!

I guess by stating what I am going to next I fall into that "Oh poor pitiful me" category but so be it ...

Imo none of us directly asked to be alive. Now what's perverse about Christianity is that when you consider what I just wrote the idea of being judged for your actions on Earth and potentially sent to a fiery eternity for someone else’s moral and ethical standards is completely absurd. I suppose that's looking a gift horse in the mouth so to speak but is life truly a gift?

Unfortunately happiness comes in small packages like Dennis Leary commented on in his stand-up routine. Is life equally happy and miserable or does the pain and suffering outweigh the happiness and good?

Who here would be upset if you knew that at the end of your life it was just that ... the end with nothing more? Is it human nature for self preservation? Of course just like any other animal. We as humans can move past the physical realm and for this reason imo created an idea of an afterlife for self assurance. I personally feel that there is something after all this and in my best thoughts feel that some or all of life's questions will be answered. I also believe that perhaps "God" is a more of an abstract notion like all the energy in the universe at all the time.

PPl talk about the streets in heaven being paved with gold but I'm like Why? Because gold has value in Heaven or Earth? That idea gives credence to the ppl who think that we are the previous slaves of aliens sent here to mine for gold! I forget their names but their followers are seriously strange. I think that they also believe that "heaven" or something is the planet that these creatures live on which circles our sun every million years or something. Anyway in all honest what makes their theory less or more credible than anything else that is around (other than heaven would be a block of ice) ... the number of followers?

We're all alive so to claim truths about what lies after this world is ridiculous.

Anyhow sorry to go off on a tangent.

[ace]

so here is my stuff.... pls forgive my lack of english in advance.... being so popular these days i can tell that britney spears (or other fabricated stars) has nothing to offer to music...so is being so popular evidence of being good in music?... thats a NO... and lest talk about democracy.. what do we have here is a tayyip the prime minister and what you got in armenia is some one you dont like very much as far as i can tell and it is not neccesary to talk about bush the w. goerge.

we witnessed some idiots believed that some ufo would take them to heaven and suicided together... there was a charlatan that encouraged them do that (i dont remember his name)

so in those old days there was a mohammed( you can switch the names for christian version) and he told people blah blah blah and made them believe him (messenger of god.. you have to aim high dont you) and by luck he became popular... i am not trying to prove anything here... you can believe what ever you like... main thing is that dont have any doubt about it... thats insane... you are no more than my toaster if you dont have any doubt inside... press the button to make them praise the god... press the second button to toast...

Your right, Britney Spears and Jesus have more in common than I thought.

[winoman]

That idea gives credence to the ppl who think that we are the previous slaves of aliens sent here to mine for gold! I forget their names but their followers are seriously strange.

Anunnaki

I think that they also believe that "heaven" or something is the planet that these creatures live on which circles our sun every million years or something.

Nibiru - I think is is supposed to orbit the sun once every several thousand years - not million....

Consider the following:

THE CASE OF THE LURKING PLANET

"Far beyond the solar system's nine known planets, a body as massive as Mars may once have been part of our planetary system -- and it might still be there;”

Source: It is the lead paragraph in a report in Science News of April 7, 2001 headlined "A Comet’s Odd Orbit Hints At Hidden Planet.”

The article reports the conclusions of an international team of astronomers who have studied an unusual comet discovered last year, designated 2000 CR/105. It follows a vast elliptical orbit around our Sun – an orbit that takes it way out to some 4.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, and brings it back at its closest to the Sun to the vicinity of Neptune; it is an orbit whose period “takes roughly 3,300 years” (according to Sky&Telescope News of April 5, 2001).

“Such an oblong orbit is usually a sign that an object has come under the gravitational influence of a massive body," wrote R. Cowen in Science News. Was this the gravitational pull of Neptune? In a study to be published in the Journal Icarus, the team of astronomers (led by Brett Gladman of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice, France), after analyzing all the possibilities, does not think so. An alternative solution, they say, is that “the comet's orbit could be the handiwork of an as-yet unseen planet” -- as massive as Mars -- "that would have to lie some 200 AU from the Sun," in the so-called Kuiper Belt of cometary and other planetary debris. This would also explain "why many members of the Belt have orbits that angle away from the plane in which the nine known planets orbit the Sun."

“Undoubtedly, something massive knocked the hell out of the Belt," Harold F. Levison of the Southwest Research institute in Boulder, Colorado, told the magazine. “The question is whether it is still there now."

“Comet’s Course Hints at Mystery Planet,” was how the journal Science headlined the discovery news in its issue of 6 April 2001. The special report, written by the Dutch astronomer Govert Schilling, summed up the findings in the following lead paragraph:

"A Supercomet following an unexpectedly far-flung path around the sun suggests that an unidentified planet once lurked in the outermost reaches of the solar system, an international team of astronomers reports. What's more, the mysterious object may still be there."

and check out:

http://xfacts.com/x1.htm

Anyway in all honest what makes their theory less or more credible than anything else that is around (other than heaven would be a block of ice) ... the number of followers?

There are many aspects of the claim that are entirely credible - more so then many other even more fanciful (Chritian/Muslim & so forth) explanations...who really knows (yet) - eh?

Enki be praised...Hail THOTH progenator of mankind!

[winoman]

Your right, Britney Spears and Jesus have more in common than I thought.

Actually not - isn't Britney Spears a real person - though I could be mistaken? WHo knows really?

[ace]

Actually not - isn't Britney Spears a real person - though I could be mistaken? WHo knows really?

Well...his existence is actually historically recorded. You can choose whether or not he is actually the person depicted in the bible/qu'ran...but you must acknowledge him as a real person in history.

Britney Spears is probably alot hotter than Jesus too.