Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Good points.>> ^Fletch:

^ Sure, you could, I guess, but you'd have to argue that religion was merely a front for the Inquisition, the Crusades, witch hunts, etc. Religion is not "necessarily" a cause, but I think it's more than reasonable to blame religion when these things were done explicitly in God's name or under the direction of the church. When "atheism" is blamed, you're implying atheism is a some belief system with tenets that direct or justify said atrocity. It's not. I'm pretty sure Pol Pot didn't believe in leprechauns, but I've yet to hear anyone claim that he killed 3 million Cambodian citizens because of it.

^ Sure, you could, I guess, but you'd have to argue that religion was merely a front for the Inquisition, the Crusades, witch hunts, etc. Religion is not "necessarily" a cause, but I think it's more than reasonable to blame religion when these things were done explicitly in God's name or under the direction of the church. When "atheism" is blamed, you're implying atheism is some belief system with tenets that direct or justify said atrocity. It's not. I'm pretty sure Pol Pot didn't believe in leprechauns, but I've yet to hear anyone claim that he killed 3 million Cambodian citizens because of it.

@NetRunner -
I like the way that you've made your case here, but I still personally think Politifact's stance/take on the statement was OK. Particularly the revised "mostly true" rating, but even the "half-true" rating was acceptable depending on how you interpret it.

The sentence that I think is specifically subject to some scrutiny is:
"And we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect."

You can take that as a fairly straightforward logical statement -- that from the time that Obama entered office until whatever time that it is determined that his "policies were in full effect", 4 million more jobs were lost. If a specific date can be set that all observers would agree on for the "policies in full effect" bit, the whole sentence could be evaluated as a statement of fact, true or false. Just like the following bits about A and B, that Politifact certified as true.

However, I think that it is quite reasonable to assert that there is a heavy implication in that sentence that Obama's policies were largely or entirely responsible for the following upturn in jobs. That is something that is impossible to rigorously prove. I'm happy for Obama to say it, and I think that it is also quite reasonable for him to feel vindicated by it. But I also think that it is worth applying some small print to explain that more fully to anyone who is inquiring about it, for example someone looking it up at Politifact.

Consider this: before I was born, the Inquisition, Crusades, and Holocaust happened. In the 30+ years that I have been alive the global standard of living, as independently measured by the Human Development Index has been steadily climbing in every region evaluated to current all-time highs around the world.

There are two sentences there, basically 2 statements of fact. They are both true. Am I the pinnacle of evolution? Has the world been collectively basking in the glory of my mere presence on earth, matching the implication that I am responsible for or at least contributing to those facts? ...Probably not. I rate my own statements as only "half true" or perhaps "mostly true" ( I am pretty goddamn awesome, so who knows ).

I’m going to respond to your last comment in two parts. The first part regards the god argument in which you have mischaracterized me as being closed minded and of having a bias. I can easily show that I am neither and this is my view on the whole god thing so you can at least understand my view if for nothing else. The second part I will address my primary contention against your methods of argument.

I am willing to listen, however, on its face the statement "I don't care about the whole god argument" indicates both bias and closed-mindedness. It also shows an intellectual incuriousity.

I admit that I don’t believe in a god or gods, or even advanced aliens. I just don’t see any reason to believe any of it. This doesn’t mean that I am saying that god doesn’t exist; I’m saying “I don’t know, but I highly doubt it and I don’t buy it.” What do you find confusing about that?

We have no real reason to suppose from direct evidence that a god, or gods, exist. Do all effects have a cause? Do all causes have an effect? If yes, why do you suppose it’s a god who caused all of the effects that you attribute him to such as the “fine tuning” or “the appearance of design”, why can’t it be something else? By resting on a god hypothesis as the answer to mysterious phenomenon, you are precluding all other answers that are just as good as a god, that have the same amount of direct evidence.

Scientific evidence indicates that time, space, matter and energy all had a finite beginning, making the cause of the Universe timeless, spaceless, unimaginably powerful and transcendent. Those are all attributes of God, and fit an unembodied mind. The fine tuning, information in DNA and appearance of design all point to a creator. Logic itself tells us that the first cause of the Universe must be eternal because nothing comes from nothing and you can't have an infinite regress of causes. Frankly I think it is ridiculous to believe that Universes just happen by themselves, and especially, as the greatest minds of our time are suggesting, out of nothing. Can't you see that when someone says that, it means the emperor has no clothes?

Does the god that you believe in have a cause? If not, how so? By what mechanisms does your god exist but without having had a cause? How can your belief be proven and why should anyone believe it based on rational information? What evidence is there that compels you to believe that your god indeed doesn’t have a cause? These are the kinds of questions that I think you should be asking for yourself. If you resort to “just needing to have faith” as an answer then you are actively avoiding exercising critical thinking faculties.

God is eternal, and He has no beginning or end, so no He doesn't have a cause. A God that was caused by something else wouldn't be God. My evidence is from logic which demands an eternal first cause. Otherwise, you're left explaing how you get something from nothing, which is logically absurd.

Unlike you, I don’t see the appearance of design in the complexity of biological systems or in anything found in nature. I study evolutionary biology, astrophysics, and chemistry for myself because I find it the mechanisms fascinating, not because I’m trying to disprove god.

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.

Francis Crick Nobel Laureate
What Mad Pursuit p.138 1988

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.

Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker p.1

Even hardcore skeptics concede there is an appearance of design.

There is inherent beauty in all of it and it’s a shame that most people are ignorant of what we do actually know. While I’m open to the idea that a god designed the system then put it in motion, there just isn’t direct phenomenological evidence that suggest that’s what happened.

The information in DNA is direct evidence that a higher intelligence designed the system.

There is enough information that we do know about speciation to suggest that evolution through natural selection does happen, is happening, and will continue to happen. The genetic code is enough to suggest common ancestry between all living things in a tree like family lineage.

natural selection can weed out some of the complexity and so slow down the information decay that results in speciation. it may have a stabilizing effect, but it does not promote speciation. it is not a creative force as many people have suggested.

Roger Lewin Science magazine 1982

The genetic code also suggests a common designer. As far as your tree claim, you need to research the cambrian explosion. It is quite a let down for gradualists, unfortunately. All the major body types, including the phylum Chordata (thats our phylum), were there from the beginning. We actually have less diversity today, not more.

(on the cambrian explosion)
And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists.

Richard Dawkins - The Blind Watchmaker 1986 p.229

Certainly, we do not know yet exactly how the whole process of DNA or RNA reproduction started, but if we postulate that a god started the process without sufficient evidence, only on the basis that there is no better answer, then we can also postulate that it was an advanced inter-dimensional race of ancients who populate planets with the seed of genetic mechanisms. If we don’t have the answer to how the mechanism got the whole thing started, what’s the difference between those two different origin hypotheses?

I don't postulate that God 'started the process'. I postulate that God spontaneously created everything. You rule out God apriori and thus you accept this just-so story about how life got here. In your eyes, it must have happened. Interpreting the evidence to fit the conclusion isn't very scientific, is it?

Also unlike you, I don’t see what you call “fine tuning” and I also study all sorts of physics, my favorite being astrophysics personally. The term “fine tuning” implies that something above the system changed some dials to a perfect goldilocks range to support what we have right now. This is an interesting idea however I find it to be more prudent to see it the other way around; that what has formed, has only formed because the conditions allow for it, that the environment dictates what can exist. Wherever you look at an environment and find life, you find life that fits into that environment and we also see that when environments change, so to do species change to adapt to the new conditions. We never see an environment change to fit the species.

I don't think you're understanding the fine tuning argument. Many of those finely tuned values, if even moved an inch, would make life impossible in this Universe. Not just improbable, but impossible. The fine tuning is extremely fortuitous to an incomprehensible degree. The odds of these values randomly converging is virtually impossible. For instance, for physical life to exist, the mass density of the Universe must be fine tuned to better than one part in 10 to the 60th power. For space-energy density, it is 10 to the 120th power. That's just two out of dozens of values.

You claim that we haven’t seen macro-evolution taking place? Are you sure about that, how exactly do you know this is true, where did you read this? How do you know that what you are calling macro-evolution is the same thing as what evolutionary biologists call macro-evolution? The fact of the matter is that the fossil record has nothing to say about the most recent research on macro-evolution. It’s a fascinating material and I would suggest that you get out there and find it for yourself. Talk Origins has as list of the studies done on macro-evolution, you can start there if you like.

Yes, evolutionists are trying to dump the fossil record in favor of genetic evidence because the fossil record is actually evidence against their theories. As I've said, common genetics also indicate common designer.

Darwin made a great discovery, that creatures can adapt to environmental conditions. That's something that has hard scientific evidence. What didn't have any evidence was his extrapolation from that to the theory of all life having a common ancestor. He was counting on the fossil record to prove his case but it didn't, which is why he said this:

innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ..why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?

Geologoy assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Charles Darwin
Origin of the Species

Here we are 150 years later with billions of fossils and there still isn't any evidence. If Darwin was right, we should have indisputable proof that one species changed into another, but we don't. All we have is a smattering of highly contested transitionals which are all "more or less" closely related, but no true ancestors. When the facts don't match the theory it is time to throw that theory away, but the theory of evolution is the cornerstone of the secular worldview, and it isn't going to die without a fight, no matter how loudly the facts cry out against it.

The question becomes, if there was/is a designer, what was designed first, the creature or the environment? To me, you are suggesting that humans were designed first in the mind of god, and then the environment was finely tuned in order to sustain the idea that god already had for us. Don’t you think this is a little bit too egotistical of a view? If that’s true, what makes everything else necessary? I don’t know if you study astrophysics or astronomy at all but there is a massive amount of stuff out there that has nothing to do with us and if we’re a part of god’s plan, he sure did create a lot of waste.

I'm saying He created all of it at the same time, in six days as Genesis describes. Why is the Universe so large? It could be for a number of reasons, such as that it gives us room to grow. If we were just hitting some sort of wall in space, it would also be a wall in knowledge that we could acquire. If it wasn't as large and complex as it is, we wouldn't be where we are today. Why are solid objects actually mostly composed of empty space? Isn't God wasting all of that space? Or is it integral to His design? Does the fact that almost everything is made up of empty space reduce the significance of solid objects? The size of the Universe doesn't say anything about our importance relative to it. The Heavens also declare the glory of God:

Psalm 19:1-2

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

To me, if the Christian beliefs are the most accurate representation of reality, god isn’t a very good designer. There millions of ways that he could have done a better job if he is all powerful. Of course, you can revert back to, “we can’t know the mind of god”, or “god works in mysterious ways”, but those aren’t answers, they are just ways of maintaining a pre-existing belief by silencing further inquisition.

Have you ever created a Universe? If not, how then would you know what a superior design would look like?

“Unless you can demonstrate a purely naturalistic origin of the Universe, you have no case against Agency.“

Agency needs to prove itself and so far it isn’t doing a very good job. Science as a whole isn’t making a case against agency and neither am I by suggesting that there are likely to be naturalistic causes. Agency simply isn’t necessary. That is what I think that you don’t understand. It’s that I don’t accept the case for agency until agency can be proven. A suspended judgment is better than an accepted unverifiable and untestable claim.

You can rule out the necessity of Agency when you can explain origins. To say that it is not necessary when you don't know what caused the Universe is not something you can determine.

If you are in any way the kind of person who culturally relates to Christianity then there is nothing that anyone can do for you. It is very difficult to have an intellectually honest conversation with someone whose basis for belief is deeply tied to a sense of culture or social belonging. Challenging your beliefs is synonymous to asking you to become someone else if your beliefs are tightly woven into your identity. The only thing I can ask of you is to ask yourself if what you believe determines how you will process new information that comes to you.

I'll give you a little background on me. I grew up without any religion, and until a few years ago, I was an agnostic materialist who didn't see any evidence for God or spirit. Growing up, I hoped to become an astronomer. I have studied all the things you have mentioned, and although I am just a layman, I know quite a bit about biology, astronomy, physics, etc. Like you, I assumed because of my indoctrination in school and society, that the theory of evolution and other metaphysical theories were well supported by hard evidence. When I became a Christian, I was willing to incorporate these theories into my worldview. It is only upon investigation of the actual facts that I was shocked to find there not only is there no real evidence, but that much of what I had been taught in school was either grossly inaccurate, intentionally misleading, or outright fradulent.

So, you're not dealing with someone who grew up outside of your worldview, who feels threatened by it and is trying to tear it down. You're talking with someone who was heavily invested in it, and even willing to compromise with it, and has turned away from it because of my research, not in spite of it. If it was true, I would want to know about it. Since it isn't, I don't believe in it.

At the very least, you can see now that I am not diametrically opposed to the idea of a creator or agency behind everything. The notion is interesting but I don’t believe that there is enough real credible information to suggest that it’s true.

You are more openminded than I originally gave you credit for, but you definitely have a huge evidence filter made out of your presuppositions.

There are enough logical arguments against the idea of a god or gods existing that the whole notion is worth dismissing.

The only logical argument of any value that the atheists have is the argument from evil, and that has been soundly debunked by plantigas free will defense. Feel free to bring one up though, because I have never seen an atheist offer any positive evidence for his position. "Worth dismissing" = close minded and biased, btw.

If there is as god or gods, they aren’t doing a very good job of making themselves known or knowable.

Do you think that is why 93 percent of the world believes that God exists?

The simple fact is that naturalistic explanations are more useful ideas than any god concept because they provide both predictions that we can verify and help us make decisions about where to study next. No god hypothesis has ever provided either, therefore, in the pursuit of knowledge; the idea of god is useless.

Did you know that the idea that we can suss out laws by investigating their secondary causes is a Christian idea, based on the premise that God created an orderly universe governed by laws? Did you know that modern science got its start in Christian europe? Doesn't seem so useless to me. Science now must assume a little thing called "uniformity in nature" to even do science without the belief that there is a Creator upholding these laws. How do you get absolute laws in an ever changing Universe? What is the evidence the future will be like the past? Can you explain it?

Now you see why naturalistic explanations are predominate in science as the default standard.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin, Harvard
New York Review of Books 1/9/97

No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.

Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182

I have faith and belief myself... I believe that nothing beyond those natural laws is needed. I have no evidence for this. It is simply what I have faith in and what I believe.

Isaac Asimov

I see why you say that, and now you know why you believe that, because those who teach you these ideas are doing exactly what I have been saying all along. Suppressing the truth.


>> ^IAmTheBlurr:

I’m going to respond to your last comment in two parts. The first part regards the god argument in which you have mischaracterized me as being closed minded and of having a bias. I can easily show that I am neither and this is my view on the whole god thing so you can at least understand my view if for nothing else. The second part I will address my primary contention against your methods of argument.

I admit that I don’t believe in a god or gods, or even advanced aliens. I just don’t see any reason to believe any of it. This doesn’t mean that I am saying that god doesn’t exist; I’m saying “I don’t know, but I highly doubt it and I don’t buy it.” What do you find confusing about that?

We have no real reason to suppose from direct evidence that a god, or gods, exist. Do all effects have a cause? Do all causes have an effect? If yes, why do you suppose it’s a god who caused all of the effects that you attribute him to such as the “fine tuning” or “the appearance of design”, why can’t it be something else? By resting on a god hypothesis as the answer to mysterious phenomenon, you are precluding all other answers that are just as good as a god, that have the same amount of direct evidence.

Does the god that you believe in have a cause? If not, how so? By what mechanisms does your god exist but without having had a cause? How can your belief be proven and why should anyone believe it based on rational information? What evidence is there that compels you to believe that your god indeed doesn’t have a cause? These are the kinds of questions that I think you should be asking for yourself. If you resort to “just needing to have faith” as an answer then you are actively avoiding exercising critical thinking faculties.

Unlike you, I don’t see the appearance of design in the complexity of biological systems or in anything found in nature. I study evolutionary biology, astrophysics, and chemistry for myself because I find it the mechanisms fascinating, not because I’m trying to disprove god. There is inherent beauty in all of it and it’s a shame that most people are ignorant of what we do actually know. While I’m open to the idea that a god designed the system then put it in motion, there just isn’t direct phenomenological evidence that suggest that’s what happened. There is enough information that we do know about speciation to suggest that evolution through natural selection does happen, is happening, and will continue to happen. The genetic code is enough to suggest common ancestry between all living things in a tree like family lineage. Certainly, we do not know yet exactly how the whole process of DNA or RNA reproduction started, but if we postulate that a god started the process without sufficient evidence, only on the basis that there is no better answer, then we can also postulate that it was an advanced inter-dimensional race of ancients who populate planets with the seed of genetic mechanisms. If we don’t have the answer to how the mechanism got the whole thing started, what’s the difference between those two different origin hypotheses?

Also unlike you, I don’t see what you call “fine tuning” and I also study all sorts of physics, my favorite being astrophysics personally. The term “fine tuning” implies that something above the system changed some dials to a perfect goldilocks range to support what we have right now. This is an interesting idea however I find it to be more prudent to see it the other way around; that what has formed, has only formed because the conditions allow for it, that the environment dictates what can exist. Wherever you look at an environment and find life, you find life that fits into that environment and we also see that when environments change, so to do species change to adapt to the new conditions. We never see an environment change to fit the species.

You claim that we haven’t seen macro-evolution taking place? Are you sure about that, how exactly do you know this is true, where did you read this? How do you know that what you are calling macro-evolution is the same thing as what evolutionary biologists call macro-evolution? The fact of the matter is that the fossil record has nothing to say about the most recent research on macro-evolution. It’s a fascinating material and I would suggest that you get out there and find it for yourself. Talk Origins has as list of the studies done on macro-evolution, you can start there if you like.

The question becomes, if there was/is a designer, what was designed first, the creature or the environment? To me, you are suggesting that humans were designed first in the mind of god, and then the environment was finely tuned in order to sustain the idea that god already had for us. Don’t you think this is a little bit too egotistical of a view? If that’s true, what makes everything else necessary? I don’t know if you study astrophysics or astronomy at all but there is a massive amount of stuff out there that has nothing to do with us and if we’re a part of god’s plan, he sure did create a lot of waste. To me, if the Christian beliefs are the most accurate representation of reality, god isn’t a very good designer. There millions of ways that he could have done a better job if he is all powerful. Of course, you can revert back to, “we can’t know the mind of god”, or “god works in mysterious ways”, but those aren’t answers, they are just ways of maintaining a pre-existing belief by silencing further inquisition.

“Unless you can demonstrate a purely naturalistic origin of the Universe, you have no case against Agency.“

Agency needs to prove itself and so far it isn’t doing a very good job. Science as a whole isn’t making a case against agency and neither am I by suggesting that there are likely to be naturalistic causes. Agency simply isn’t necessary. That is what I think that you don’t understand. It’s that I don’t accept the case for agency until agency can be proven. A suspended judgment is better than an accepted unverifiable and untestable claim.

If you are in any way the kind of person who culturally relates to Christianity then there is nothing that anyone can do for you. It is very difficult to have an intellectually honest conversation with someone whose basis for belief is deeply tied to a sense of culture or social belonging. Challenging your beliefs is synonymous to asking you to become someone else if your beliefs are tightly woven into your identity. The only thing I can ask of you is to ask yourself if what you believe determines how you will process new information that comes to you.

At the very least, you can see now that I am not diametrically opposed to the idea of a creator or agency behind everything. The notion is interesting but I don’t believe that there is enough real credible information to suggest that it’s true. There are enough logical arguments against the idea of a god or gods existing that the whole notion is worth dismissing. If there is as god or gods, they aren’t doing a very good job of making themselves known or knowable. The simple fact is that naturalistic explanations are more useful ideas than any god concept because they provide both predictions that we can verify and help us make decisions about where to study next. No god hypothesis has ever provided either, therefore, in the pursuit of knowledge; the idea of god is useless. Now you see why naturalistic explanations are predominate in science as the default standard.


>> ^shinyblurry:

FedEx Public Relations is going fall on this guy like the Spanish Inquisition.


Not so much for what he did, but for letting it get caught on camera.

you seem to be advocating a theocracy based on biblical principles to establish a religious based government.
the idea of something like that frightens me more than dealing with any single despot or tyrant and history has shown that theocratic rule is anything but righteous,fair or benevolent.
see:
dark ages.
the inquisition.
the crusades.
even as recent as ireland in the 70's and 80's.
when the church dominated the politics of europe,before the reformation,there was more :murder,rape,torture,oppression under an iron-fisted authoritarian rule than any despot could even HOPE to match.
all in the name of god.

I am advocating a theocratic kingdom, headed by Jesus as King, and nothing else. No government run by human beings is trustworthy. I prefer a capitalist democracy to a dictatorship any day. Unfortunately, that is where we are headed with the one world government.

freedom of religion is one the best and all encompassing tenants of american society because not only does it give you the RIGHT to worship how you choose but gives your neighbor the RIGHT to either worship under a different doctrine,or not at all.
the LAW is the great equalizer (and one of the things that is being corrupted and a main reason for OWS).

I agree, everyone should have a right to choose what they believe. That is a God given right, which the founders supported. We also have the right to deal with the consequences of those beliefs. I agree this is being corrupted in modern society (mostly because the moral framework provided by the bible is being pulled out from under us)

what about me?
you already know that i would considered an apostate to the christian church.
would you watch them burn me?
would you watch in horror as my flesh fell of me like melted ice cream and made yourself feel better by reminding yourself that it was gods will and if only i had accepted the "right" way to be a christian? why did i have to be so stubborn and not see god the way that you did.read the gospel the way you did? believe in the way you did?
would you watch?

Of course not. If they were murdering you, I would be the first one to jump in and try to save you from that madness. We are not judges of one another. Only God is the judge of our lives

and i have to say that i dont fully believe your sincerity when you say jesus would not choose sides,because you know full well that christ walked,talked and ministered to the underbelly of his society at the time.he broke bread with pagans,oracles,the diseased and unwanted.he railed with a savagery against the dominance of the church in his time,the aristocracy and the money makers.
he offered a hope and a freedom.a salvation from those who oppressed.
he pointed to the hill of those in power and told the disenfranchised "my father does NOT reside on that hill.you are NOT forsaken.it is THEY who pretend to hold the key that are lost...but YOU can be found.but not through them but rather through me".(paraphrasing of course).he was the way and the light.

I agree with everything you say here, and it is well put, but that was His first coming, where He came to live on Earth as one of us, and to ultimately suffer and die for our sins. On His second coming, He is returning with power and great glory as sovereign King over this world and as judge of the living and the dead. This is the equation He left us with:

Matthew 12:30

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

And this is the question on His mind:

Luke 18:8

I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of
Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

what makes jesus even more intriguing is that,contrary to a common misconception perpetrated by the church (of course).jesus came from an affluent family.
yes..he did.dont argue.
a carpenter now may be seen as common labor but back in jesus's day a carpenter was a craftsman.the ability to build things not only was held in high regard but was usually someone of affluence,wealth and influence.
how humbling is that?
jesus walked away from wealth,power and influence to bring truth to the poor,oppressed and enslaved and started a movement of his own 2000 yrs ago that slowly and totally underground became one of the most powerful messages even to this day.

I'm not sure about His material wealth, but Jesus certainly was rich..and it humbles me that he gave it up to take on the lowly status of a human being:

Hebrews 2:9: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.”

Philippians 2:7-9 Jesus “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name” that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,to the glory of God the Father

now of course over the years those who sought power and influence saw the potential of jesus's message and took it over,perverted it and sold it as somehow being divine. so not only do i think jesus would stand with those at OWS (and all over the world for that matter) i think he would rebuke the church as well.

I think He would rebuke both. However, this conspiracy theory of yours doesn't make any sense. If you think the bible has been altered since the 1st/2nd century, that isn't true. We have the early manuscipts and they all match up. If you're talking about the disciples, all but one were all martyred for the gospel. This is very good evidence for the facts of the gospel, because they certainly wouldn't all willingly die for something they knew to be a lie, especially when they could have recanted at any time. The gospels were also written in the memory of living witnesses. So, I'm not sure how you fit your conspiracy in there..because the early church is filled with martyrs who were direct witnesses and felt the evidence was good enough to die for.

The claims of Jesus are unequivocal..He said he was the Messiah who was from Heaven, Gods very Son, and that He was there to take away the worlds sin, and after His resurrection, to take a position at the right hand of power..and to return as King and judge over the whole world. You can't really get great teacher or hero for social justice out of any of that. He was all of those things, but foremost He is Gods Son.

oh the delicious irony if that ever really happened.it tickles me to no end.
in any case.
i always appreciate when you respond my friend.

Anytime bro. It's always enjoyable to engage with you. And it *will* happen, so you need to be ready for it..the signs are all there, especially with the reformation of Israel in 1948.


>> ^enoch:
@shinyblurry
BR>
oh the delicious irony if that ever really happened.it tickles me to no end.
in any case.
i always appreciate when you respond my friend.

@shinyblurry
thank you for your response..though in bullet form (blech).
i still find your premise a bit flawed but at least now i have a much clearer understanding where you are coming from,which is the nugget is was searching for.

the debate/discussion concerning politics can be boiled down to one simple question:what should we do as a society?
thats it.
i could go in to much further detail but that would make a comment in to a small novel and i am much more interested in your concluding statements.

you seem to be advocating a theocracy based on biblical principles to establish a religious based government.
the idea of something like that frightens me more than dealing with any single despot or tyrant and history has shown that theocratic rule is anything but righteous,fair or benevolent.
see:
dark ages.
the inquisition.
the crusades.
even as recent as ireland in the 70's and 80's.
when the church dominated the politics of europe,before the reformation,there was more :murder,rape,torture,oppression under an iron-fisted authoritarian rule than any despot could even HOPE to match.
all in the name of god.

freedom of religion is one the best and all encompassing tenants of american society because not only does it give you the RIGHT to worship how you choose but gives your neighbor the RIGHT to either worship under a different doctrine,or not at all.
the LAW is the great equalizer (and one of the things that is being corrupted and a main reason for OWS).

but you propose a theocratic government.
ok.
lets think about that for a moment shall we?
what about the hindus? or buddhist?
are they allowed to worship and pray as is their custom?
or will their be forced chrsitian worship and force them to behave one way in public and worship in secret and private under fear of...what?
what would be the government sanctioned punishment for not adhereing to christian dogma?
death? prison?banishment?
would you REALLY support the criminalization of differing religious beliefs?
is the irony lost on you that early christians had to do hide and skulk in fear of reprisal,even death,for even having the gospel in their midst?worshipping in dark caves in the middle of the night.

and what about catholics?
people banter about the word "christian" as some kind of badge of honor but what about differing theologies?
what if those "christians" are not the right kind of "christian"?
do we segregate the right kind from the 'wrong"?
or are those "wrong" christians just ostracized like a social stigma and we give birth to a new kind of racism.one not based on skin color but rather religious theosophy.

what about me?
you already know that i would considered an apostate to the christian church.
would you watch them burn me?
would you watch in horror as my flesh fell of me like melted ice cream and made yourself feel better by reminding yourself that it was gods will and if only i had accepted the "right" way to be a christian? why did i have to be so stubborn and not see god the way that you did.read the gospel the way you did? believe in the way you did?
would you watch?

and i have to say that i dont fully believe your sincerity when you say jesus would not choose sides,because you know full well that christ walked,talked and ministered to the underbelly of his society at the time.he broke bread with pagans,oracles,the diseased and unwanted.he railed with a savagery against the dominance of the church in his time,the aristocracy and the money makers.
he offered a hope and a freedom.a salvation from those who oppressed.
he pointed to the hill of those in power and told the disenfranchised "my father does NOT reside on that hill.you are NOT forsaken.it is THEY who pretend to hold the key that are lost...but YOU can be found.but not through them but rather through me".(paraphrasing of course).
he was the way and the light.

what makes jesus even more intriguing is that,contrary to a common misconception perpetrated by the church (of course).jesus came from an affluent family.
yes..he did.dont argue.
a carpenter now may be seen as common labor but back in jesus's day a carpenter was a craftsman.the ability to build things not only was held in high regard but was usually someone of affluence,wealth and influence.
how humbling is that?
jesus walked away from wealth,power and influence to bring truth to the poor,oppressed and enslaved and started a movement of his own 2000 yrs ago that slowly and totally underground became one of the most powerful messages even to this day.

now of course over the years those who sought power and influence saw the potential of jesus's message and took it over,perverted it and sold it as somehow being divine.
so not only do i think jesus would stand with those at OWS (and all over the world for that matter) i think he would rebuke the church as well.

oh the delicious irony if that ever really happened.it tickles me to no end.
in any case.
i always appreciate when you respond my friend.

Nobody expects the Savannah Inquisition!

"It's no different than the Spanish Inquisition all over again."

>> ^EMPIRE:
I know sometimes the future seems bleak, but then I think about all the stupid shit humanity has already gone throught, and somehow it seems things are actually getting better.
World War 1, World War 2, Bubonic Plague, The Inquisition, etc.. etc..


Ah---so true. At least we still have the hope for 77 virgins...

I know sometimes the future seems bleak, but then I think about all the stupid shit humanity has already gone throught, and somehow it seems things are actually getting better.

World War 1, World War 2, Bubonic Plague, The Inquisition, etc.. etc..

>> ^goemon:

@SDGundamX Thanks for the additional background check on the video.
So, do you think the Japanese government is doing all it can to inform and protect their citizens?


I see little evidence of some big cover-up going on, as some have suggested. But there are clearly lots of mistakes being made. I would compare it to Katrina in the U.S. because it seems like the same kinds of difficulties are being faced--slow response times, bureaucratic management issues, lack of a clear plan, etc. The current political situation in Japan (Kan is currently a lame duck Prime Minister who refuses to step down) makes getting anything done extremely hard. Complicating matters even more is the fact that Tokyo Electric is a private company and not government-owned and they apparently aren't coordinating that well with the government in formulating a response, which sometimes results in press conferences where Tokyo Electric says one thing only to be completely contradicted by a Japanese government official in a subsequent press conference.

Certainly Fukushima residents have lots to complain about. For example, in the full version of the meeting, the government officials get asked if the government is taking into account internal radiation exposure (from inhaling or ingesting radioactive materials like Cesium) when determining "safe" radiation exposure levels (currently set at 20 mSv/year for Fukushima residents outside the mandatory evacuation zone). It's a great question. The government's response was along the lines that they are still investigating the issue, but that it is complicated by the fact that there's lots of research on "safe" external exposure levels but not nearly as much on internal exposure levels to the the types of materials (Cesium-137, for instance) that were released in the accident. That makes it difficult to determine a "safe" limit. Clearly that's not an answer that's going to put any Fukushima resident's mind at ease.

EDIT:

Just wanted to add that I give props to the government guys who showed up for this meeting. If you watch the 2.5 hour vid, you'll see they calmly put up with all of the interruptions and try their best to honestly answer the questions posed to them. Many of them show sincere sympathy to the people gathered there and express their understanding of the frustration they are facing. They look like they actually came expecting a dialogue rather than an inquisition. I probably would have walked out after the 1st hour but they remain until the very end of the meeting. The vid posted here makes it seem like they abruptly left but in the full version you can see the person who is chairing/MC'ing the meeting thanks them for coming and concludes the meeting. It was after the conclusion of the meeting that the urine-chasers appeared.

You know, it is interesting that he so freely acknowledges that experimentation may be a part of discovering sexuality... gotta wonder what he's experimented with...


As for the alegation that he only meant children, total bunk. He qualified his statement very clearly "we have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures..." which I take to mean that the responsibility of a parent to educate a child is tantamount to the responsibility of the reigning authority to educate the citizens it governs.

Regardless, even if we were to take him at his word, referring to childrens' inquisitive nature as "Barbarian" isn't exactly great either... Not to mention that he was talking about children in the context of being sexually curious, so therefore it is pretty much the same thing...

Meh, I'm actually glad we have these total nutjobs. I feel it is actually good for the right wing to expose this shit now. One day they will divorce themselves from these types of people and we may actually get a viable candidate who is fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. I'd vote republican.

>> ^legacy0100:

...wtf is this bullshit. This man is spewing diarrhea out of his mouth. He is basing his argument solely on what little he knows about his own little world. I highly doubt this man has ever done any professional research over these matters, not even data collection. He's just conjuring up a theory solely based on what he has read and heard over the news media sitting in his own living room.
What he said towards the end really bothered me the most. "some religions have never had these extremists", what sources does he have?


You, sir or madam, are the one who apparently knows little to nothing about both Islam and Sam Harris. May I suggest you read "The End of Faith", or any of Harris' excellent (and researched) books, before "spewing diarrhea"-like criticisms without knowing what you're talking about.

As for Islam, look up one or many of the following effects of Islam in the world today: honour killing, fgm, suicide attacks, stoning, hate crimes, hate speech, punishments for "adultery", etc...

@bareboards2: yes, "at this moment" is a key phrase; when Christianity had Islam's age it was still all about the Inquisition and inter-faith massacres (oh, and witch-burning). But there can be no "redemption" for any religion whose core fundamentals are flawed, there can only be a watering down of its craziness with secular morality.

On the false problem of fundamentalists: http://videosift.com/video/The-problem-is-not-fundamentalists-but-the-fundamentals