Christians vs. nonChristians on issues
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote: if ( GodWroteTheBible() ) Is that a majority view amongst Christians? Surely no serious theologian has believed that since the 17th century.. Certainly the debate in the Anglican Church is more along the lines of:
namespace IntellectualTennis
{
#undef NET
#define BIBLE HISTORICAL_DOCUMENT;foreach(BIBLE.OldTestament.ScaryBronzeAgeStatement) { while(ArgueAboutWhatItActualyMeans()) { Congregation -= 1; } }}
Ryan
Ryan Roberts wrote: Is that a majority view amongst Christians? No it isn't...The majority of Christians believe that the Bible is the inpired word of God. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. if(BibleIsTheWordOfGod()) Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
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Ryan Roberts wrote: Is that a majority view amongst Christians? No it isn't...The majority of Christians believe that the Bible is the inpired word of God. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. if(BibleIsTheWordOfGod()) Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
Man, I always have a hard time pciking out names for my functions!! :doh: Thanks for the clarification. :)
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote:
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
You are doing a typical beginners error here: You are forcing the rather lengthy string returned by
TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong()into abool. At least you would get a compiler warning. And that brings us to the point: Fundamental Christians are narrowing the world down to bool decisions of 'Bible' or 'evil'. They do not care for the complexity of the world. Funny, this way they overlook how great gods creation is.
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
jhwurmbach wrote: You are forcing the rather lengthy string returned by TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() into a bool Incorrect, the function returns a boolean and its value is TRUE. The Bible clearly states that the act of homosexuality is wrong (old and new testament). Where many Christians fall down is the same Bible also says that we should love everyone, including homosexuals. That, however, doesn't mean Christians should condone the act. Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
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John Fisher wrote: Historical research benefits primarily from other methods of testing truth claims. To be precise, historical research is not concerned with questions of truth at all. All history is about is interpretation of sources and sorting out what the sources tell us. Archeology, OTOH is making testable claims (like "Troy was a city in a backwater province of the hethite empire.") and then tests them against the evidence found.
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
jhwurmbach wrote: To be precise, historical research is not concerned with questions of truth at all. All history is about is interpretation of sources and sorting out what the sources tell us. If the goal isn't to find out what really happened (the truth), then why research it in the first place? Is it just fun to come up with fanciful explanations of stuff we find lying around? jhwurmbach wrote: Archeology, OTOH is making testable claims (like "Troy was a city in a backwater province of the hethite empire.") and then tests them against the evidence found. And as I meant to indicate, living researchers did not observe it being placed there. Neither does anyone have a repeatable way of showing that said evidence arrived in said location in whatever way is assumed. Instead, they are speculating based upon logical reasoning about the way things work. This is the distinction between observational science and historical science. One allows us to observe things happenening, while the other forces us to make guesses based on logic and assumptions. However, both are used when trying to determine the correct or truthful answer to a given question. John
"You said a whole sentence with no words in it, and I understood you!" -- my wife as she cries about slowly becoming a geek. -
Ryan Roberts wrote: Is that a majority view amongst Christians? No it isn't...The majority of Christians believe that the Bible is the inpired word of God. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. if(BibleIsTheWordOfGod()) Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
Figured it was just a fundamentalist thing - 'Revealed' vs 'Inspired'. I guess the latter leaves a lot more room for debate. Interestingly mainstream Islamic theology treats the Quran as the revealed word of god, and not derived from Jewish and Chistian beliefs. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. Just doing the pesky athiest thing :) Ryan
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
J. Eric Vaughan wrote: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. True. Instead we should simply accept that you believe A, and I believe B. now what are we to do about it? How can we agree to arrange a set of rules to try a nd keep us both reasobably content? BW CP Member Homepages
"...take what you need and leave the rest..."
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
J. Eric Vaughan wrote: Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. Bingo! And it a shame supposedly intelligent parents still brainwash their poor children into believing love is wrong just because some medieval buggering priest scribbled it into some dodgy book that was later made a part of the bible.
Glano perictu com sahni delorin!
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Figured it was just a fundamentalist thing - 'Revealed' vs 'Inspired'. I guess the latter leaves a lot more room for debate. Interestingly mainstream Islamic theology treats the Quran as the revealed word of god, and not derived from Jewish and Chistian beliefs. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. Just doing the pesky athiest thing :) Ryan
Ryan Roberts wrote: I guess the latter leaves a lot more room for debate Not really, even though the words have different literal meanings, I think that most Christians use them interchangeably. Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote: Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. Bingo! And it a shame supposedly intelligent parents still brainwash their poor children into believing love is wrong just because some medieval buggering priest scribbled it into some dodgy book that was later made a part of the bible.
Glano perictu com sahni delorin!
Terry O`Nolley wrote: brainwash their poor children into believing love is wrong Where does the Bible say love is wrong? Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote: Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. Bingo! And it a shame supposedly intelligent parents still brainwash their poor children into believing love is wrong just because some medieval buggering priest scribbled it into some dodgy book that was later made a part of the bible.
Glano perictu com sahni delorin!
I started to make a response, but then deleted it because you obviously completely missed the whole point of my post, which is that everyone is missing the point... BTW, I don't remember anyone saying love was wrong. If you would like to quote someone, go ahead. Otherwise, please quit representing others' views.
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I was always taught that you had to produce , at minimum, some proof for any hypothis. Take that little function DoesGodExist() for example and flesh it out - a Nobel awaits. Can you do this without resorting to the nonproveable therefore ambiguious state called "faith" ? . The function GodWroteTheBible() can be disproven historically but you do your own homework. That homosexuality is an anomaly is easily proven by simply appling what is called "the laws of nature". It does not lead to survival of the species therefore it is an evolutionary dead end. Does that make it "wrong". Probably not. But it does make it useless and therefore not something we should take a lot of time and effort on. However the same logic can be used in regards to religion. What will happen to the "current" state of religious beliefs when (A) Man creates life in the lab and/or (B) Discovers life on another planet and/or (C) Can become practically immortal and/or (D) Can raise the dead. These are all functions that have been relagated to "God".These seem like really way out things but we are getting closer and closer on a daily basis. (A) could probably be done now if not for restraints based on religion. (B) is gonna happen its just a matter of when and who discovers whom. (C) is getting a lot of research thrown at it - may not happen but who knows. (D) Happens every day in emergency rooms all over the world. Botha (A) and )B) will blow the socks off the basis of most mainstream religions. Richard "The man that hath not music in himself and is not moved with concord of sweet sounds is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; Let no man trust him." Shakespeare
Richard Stringer wrote: Botha (A) and )B) will blow the socks off the basis of most mainstream religions Unlikely, religeon fufils a human need. For some at least, I don't think I have had a 'spiritual' moment in my life, so it's difficult for me to empathise. Religeon has survived Gallieo and Darwin. For the majority of people it still seems obviously true - dispite the fact it is no longer required to explain natural world. Ryan
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I was always taught that you had to produce , at minimum, some proof for any hypothis. Take that little function DoesGodExist() for example and flesh it out - a Nobel awaits. Can you do this without resorting to the nonproveable therefore ambiguious state called "faith" ? . The function GodWroteTheBible() can be disproven historically but you do your own homework. That homosexuality is an anomaly is easily proven by simply appling what is called "the laws of nature". It does not lead to survival of the species therefore it is an evolutionary dead end. Does that make it "wrong". Probably not. But it does make it useless and therefore not something we should take a lot of time and effort on. However the same logic can be used in regards to religion. What will happen to the "current" state of religious beliefs when (A) Man creates life in the lab and/or (B) Discovers life on another planet and/or (C) Can become practically immortal and/or (D) Can raise the dead. These are all functions that have been relagated to "God".These seem like really way out things but we are getting closer and closer on a daily basis. (A) could probably be done now if not for restraints based on religion. (B) is gonna happen its just a matter of when and who discovers whom. (C) is getting a lot of research thrown at it - may not happen but who knows. (D) Happens every day in emergency rooms all over the world. Botha (A) and )B) will blow the socks off the basis of most mainstream religions. Richard "The man that hath not music in himself and is not moved with concord of sweet sounds is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; Let no man trust him." Shakespeare
Richard Stringer wrote: Botha (A) and )B) will blow the socks off the basis of most mainstream religions Let's think about this for a minute... (A) Man creates life... OK, so that proves that intelligent beings can create life. How does that prove that an intelligent being did NOT create life. (B) What does life on other planets prove? If God could create it here, why not somewhere else? Note: Neither (A) nor (B) has happened. If (A) or (B) NEVER happen, will that convince you that God exists? How long will you wait? Sorry, but you'll have to come up with something better that hypotheticals about what evidence we MAYBE, MIGHT find in the future.
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Richard Stringer wrote: Can you do this without resorting to the nonproveable therefore ambiguious state called "faith" ? There is a serious misunderstanding (even among Christians) about what "faith" means. Faith is not some ambiguous state. It just means I've seen evidence that causes me to believe something is true even though I have not personally "witnessed" or seen it. In a courtroom, no one in the jury (hopefully) witnessed the actual crime. But they can be convinced "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the crime was committed by a certain individual. Because of evidence. I've been convinced beyond a reason doubt that God created everything. Because of evidence. Not in spite (which is how most people view "faith"). Humanists, atheists, or anyone else who denies the existance of God ignore that fact that their belief is exactly that: belief. They weren't there in the beginning to witness it. So their conclusions are based on the facts that they have gathered, and they accept their conclusion by "faith" since they were there when it happened.
J. Eric Vaughan wrote: There is a serious misunderstanding (even among Christians) about what "faith" means. Faith is not some ambiguous state. It just means I've seen evidence that causes me to believe something is true even though I have not personally "witnessed" or seen it. In a courtroom, no one in the jury (hopefully) witnessed the actual crime. But they can be convinced "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the crime was committed by a certain individual. Because of evidence. Exactly, evidence, not faith. J. Eric Vaughan wrote: I've been convinced beyond a reason doubt that God created everything. Because of evidence. Not in spite (which is how most people view "faith"). Then present you evidence. The whole world is waiting..... J. Eric Vaughan wrote: Humanists, atheists, or anyone else who denies the existance of God ignore that fact that their belief is exactly that: belief. They weren't there in the beginning to witness it. So their conclusions are based on the facts that they have gathered, and they accept their conclusion by "faith" since they were there when it happened. No. I reject the concept of a god dabbling in the affairs of man because it is not needed. It doesn't explain anything that can't be explained with much simpler and testable hypothesis and it doesn't make any predictions that I can use. Therefore, it is a waste of my time. That's not anymore "faith" than the "faith" I have that the internet isn't really run by lots of tiny invisible pixies dancing across fiber optic cables. I guess you could call it "the path of least faith"?
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I was always taught that you had to produce , at minimum, some proof for any hypothis. Take that little function DoesGodExist() for example and flesh it out - a Nobel awaits. Can you do this without resorting to the nonproveable therefore ambiguious state called "faith" ? . The function GodWroteTheBible() can be disproven historically but you do your own homework. That homosexuality is an anomaly is easily proven by simply appling what is called "the laws of nature". It does not lead to survival of the species therefore it is an evolutionary dead end. Does that make it "wrong". Probably not. But it does make it useless and therefore not something we should take a lot of time and effort on. However the same logic can be used in regards to religion. What will happen to the "current" state of religious beliefs when (A) Man creates life in the lab and/or (B) Discovers life on another planet and/or (C) Can become practically immortal and/or (D) Can raise the dead. These are all functions that have been relagated to "God".These seem like really way out things but we are getting closer and closer on a daily basis. (A) could probably be done now if not for restraints based on religion. (B) is gonna happen its just a matter of when and who discovers whom. (C) is getting a lot of research thrown at it - may not happen but who knows. (D) Happens every day in emergency rooms all over the world. Botha (A) and )B) will blow the socks off the basis of most mainstream religions. Richard "The man that hath not music in himself and is not moved with concord of sweet sounds is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; Let no man trust him." Shakespeare
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote: There is a serious misunderstanding (even among Christians) about what "faith" means. Faith is not some ambiguous state. It just means I've seen evidence that causes me to believe something is true even though I have not personally "witnessed" or seen it. In a courtroom, no one in the jury (hopefully) witnessed the actual crime. But they can be convinced "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the crime was committed by a certain individual. Because of evidence. Exactly, evidence, not faith. J. Eric Vaughan wrote: I've been convinced beyond a reason doubt that God created everything. Because of evidence. Not in spite (which is how most people view "faith"). Then present you evidence. The whole world is waiting..... J. Eric Vaughan wrote: Humanists, atheists, or anyone else who denies the existance of God ignore that fact that their belief is exactly that: belief. They weren't there in the beginning to witness it. So their conclusions are based on the facts that they have gathered, and they accept their conclusion by "faith" since they were there when it happened. No. I reject the concept of a god dabbling in the affairs of man because it is not needed. It doesn't explain anything that can't be explained with much simpler and testable hypothesis and it doesn't make any predictions that I can use. Therefore, it is a waste of my time. That's not anymore "faith" than the "faith" I have that the internet isn't really run by lots of tiny invisible pixies dancing across fiber optic cables. I guess you could call it "the path of least faith"?
Wjousts wrote: Then present you evidence. The whole world is waiting..... Do you want it in one sentence? Obviously, I can't go into any detail about anything in such a forum. I can point you to some resources if you are truly interested. But from the tone of your post, I doubt you really are.
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jhwurmbach wrote: To be precise, historical research is not concerned with questions of truth at all. All history is about is interpretation of sources and sorting out what the sources tell us. If the goal isn't to find out what really happened (the truth), then why research it in the first place? Is it just fun to come up with fanciful explanations of stuff we find lying around? jhwurmbach wrote: Archeology, OTOH is making testable claims (like "Troy was a city in a backwater province of the hethite empire.") and then tests them against the evidence found. And as I meant to indicate, living researchers did not observe it being placed there. Neither does anyone have a repeatable way of showing that said evidence arrived in said location in whatever way is assumed. Instead, they are speculating based upon logical reasoning about the way things work. This is the distinction between observational science and historical science. One allows us to observe things happenening, while the other forces us to make guesses based on logic and assumptions. However, both are used when trying to determine the correct or truthful answer to a given question. John
"You said a whole sentence with no words in it, and I understood you!" -- my wife as she cries about slowly becoming a geek.John Fisher wrote: If the goal isn't to find out what really happened (the truth), then why research it in the first place? Is it just fun to come up with fanciful explanations of stuff we find lying around? No, it's to try and work out what most likely happened. If we can work out what most likely happened to say, [edit - fixed spelling] Troy, then we can build up a fairly reliable picture of our history in that region based on that information and other things we have worked out. If new historical evidence crops up, then either the existing historical theory can accomodate it without problems, or the historical theory is modified. I seem to recall this has been happening with the history of Egypt in the last few years - one historian had devised a new chronology of Egypt that he thinks better fits the evidence. I can't recall the outcome of that research though. There was a documentary on it on BBC2 a few years ago.
Ian Darling "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell
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Wjousts wrote: Then present you evidence. The whole world is waiting..... Do you want it in one sentence? Obviously, I can't go into any detail about anything in such a forum. I can point you to some resources if you are truly interested. But from the tone of your post, I doubt you really are.
Depends. Is it REAL evidence or just more "the bible says...." and/or "look how wonderful the world is, I just can't imagine how it couldn't have been created by a divine being...." and/or "I was given 6 months to live and that was 6 years ago..."? If it's the latter, I'll pass. If it's the former, I'll call a news conference for you...
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Depends. Is it REAL evidence or just more "the bible says...." and/or "look how wonderful the world is, I just can't imagine how it couldn't have been created by a divine being...." and/or "I was given 6 months to live and that was 6 years ago..."? If it's the latter, I'll pass. If it's the former, I'll call a news conference for you...
No, there is real evidence. Wjousts wrote: "the bible says...." I do get frustrated with Christians who think they prove that God exists because Genesis 1:1 says it. Can you say circular logic? Wjousts wrote: "look how wonderful the world is, I just can't imagine how it couldn't have been created by a divine being...." Although that is true, there's much more than that. I do think it's ridiculous to think that everything you see is the result of a big explosion and random coincidence. At the surface, this statement "look how wonderful..." appears cheesy and a cop out, and most people who use it haven't really looked into the Design argument, but there is validity to the truth behind it. Wjousts wrote: "I was given 6 months to live and that was 6 years ago..."? If it's the latter, I'll pass I'll pass, too. Doesn't prove anything.
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Tim Deveaux wrote: GodWroteEverthing()? And I thought it were the countless monkeys hammering on typewriters who wrote everything! :omg:
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
So in fact, if you had an infinite number of monkeys, that would equivalent to having $DEITY!
Ian Darling "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell