O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in school

[FirmaFan]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

I disagree with your claim that "Pound for pound, there is more evidence for the theory of evolution by natural selection than there is for the theory of gravity" -- there's never been anything that contradicts the theory of gravity (though some evidence lately has suggested that the mathematical formula for gravitational attraction may not be entirely accurate).

It's not that I am claiming something has countered the theory of gravity, just that the amount of evidence for it, when compared to evolution, is smaller. Gravity still has many unknowns: what actually is gravity? What is the interaction between two bodies that cause the attraction based on their mass? The theoretical "graviton" is thought to explain this, but has yet to be discovered. Why, also, is gravity such a weak force, when compared to all the other forces that govern the universe? To put it another way, we know less about how gravity works than we do about how evolution by natural selection works.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Indeed. A fact that seems to bounce of thier thick coat of logic armour whenever it's thrown at them.

"So god was...a cunt back then, but now he loves us all?"

"No god is love, he's always loved us."

"Yeah but he used to sanction genocide, rape, the most horrendous forms of capital punishment for minor infractions, like adultery, buggery and givin' yer old man a bit of back-chat...and he loves us?"

"Yup, yup, yup!"

Morons...

No, the morons are the ones who pass judgment without studying the matter.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Quote:
Originally Posted by smelter
The Theory of Evolution will eventually pass or fail by provable scientific facts.

Ken Miller acknowledges that it is only a theory. I agree that the factual evidence is so overwhelming that it should be elevated to accepted fact. If the scientific community is not prepared to drop the qualifier of 'Theory' then I'm not either.

I think you need to listen to the presentation again. Dr. Miller said that "theory" as used of things like evolution and such "is truer than fact", because facts are just isolated pieces of information but a theory not only ties them together and makes sense of them but tells us facts to look for that we didn't even know about before. So when you say "only a theory", you're misrepresenting his explanation.
Evolution will never be "elevated to accepted fact", because a fact is a piece of observed information -- just as the theory of gravity will never be "elevated" to the "fact of gravity". Theories are models, frameworks, systems that ties facts together and can make predictions; facts just sit there are wait to be assessed and tied together with other facts; theories are conceptual explanatory frameworks, while facts are just data points.


edit:

It occurs to me that the problem here arises from popular misuse of the term "theory". In movies and novels it's used where what's really meant is "hypothesis" or even "conjecture". So once again, evolution is misunderstood due to sloppy use of language!

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

A scientific theory is higher than accepted fact. You are still skewing the definition of what a scientific theory actually means.

www.notjustatheory.com

Nice link!

It is a common fallacy that atheism is seen as much of a faith based belief system as any religion.


But I can recall a few times where people think "hmm, I'll go kill that guy, god says I should."

Atheism is as much faith-based as any religion, but you're right that it has no system; it only has one point of faith, a negative.

There have been communists who killed people because according to atheism, people have no souls, so their deaths don't matter; there's no real value to people. They wouldn't have said that atheism told them to kill the people, but they would say that atheism said, "So what?" (my source is a book by a former KGB officer that I read, from my mom's book club; I don't know the title -- the book has been passed around the family, and I don't even know who has it now)

As far as killing because "God said I should", I don't know of any religion that could be the source of such a thing, so that's really not an item relevant to evaluating religion -- unless you want to maintain that any mention of God/god is religious.

 

[EwanSF]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

No, the morons are the ones who pass judgment without studying the matter.

But I have...and I'd bet all that I own that your god could have done anything in that book, no matter how vile, and you'd still be bending over backwards to give him a pass and accomadate his shambolic, morally berefft behaviour. Christ, the only thing he didn't do was fuck children, in terms of outrageous behaviour...oh hold on, what age was Mary supposed to have been again when she concieved, oh-so-immaculately?

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

First, you are interpreting the conclusion of the Jerusalem Council found in Acts 15--either that or you just don't know how to read. The Jerusalem Council did not abolish all the Law with respect to gentile Christians. It specifically imposed circumcision and abstinence from fornication and eating animals that were strangled upon all Christians. Paul was there. He was well aware of these strictures. Nevertheless, his response was to ignore at least part of their conclusion. He continued his ferocious campaign against circumcision in shockingly strong terms in Galatians. Also notice his failure to impose circumcision on Titus. The only reason he required it of Timothy was so that Timothy could be admitted to the temple. Thus there was disagreement about how much of the law had been abolished.

I'm going to assume you mis-typed; the Council specifically said circumcision was not imposed.

Now look at the thesis before the Council: that Christians must follow "all the Law of Moses".
And the result of the Council: a letter that said, "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell."

"No greater burden" means that these are the only things being imposed. Contrasting that with the thesis, the conclusion is that everything else in the Law of Moses is not imposed.

So there goes the Law of Moses -- according to "The Holy Spirit".

Further, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew 5-7 that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it--that not one jot or tittle would pass away from the law. Thus at least one of the gospel writers did not believe that the Law was abolished.

It wasn't abolished, it was set aside. "Fulfill" means it's completed, and no attention has to be paid to it any more. If I hiked from the Aleutians to Tierra del Fuego, and announced, "I fulfilled my dream!", that would mean I achieved it, and it's done -- not that I have to keep doing it.

Further still, Paul himself asserted the usefulness of the Law to reveal sin in Romans chapter 7. Even Paul, who rejected circumcision, found a use for the Law.

Finding a "use" isn't the same as having it in force. Fulfilled, it's an exhibit sitting on the shelf, and can be learned from -- which is what Paul says the Old Testament is now for, and then goes on to show that it's the principles which count.

On this basis as well as the fact that the primitive Christians continued to cite and use the Old Testament (including the Law) as authority, it is perfectly acceptable to cite the Old Testament against the morality of God.

If you cite the Law as a way to show that God is immoral, then you haven't done your homework. Every item in the Law teaches mercy, because they all reduce penalties, harms, etc. allowed or imposed under the existing culture.
If you cite it to show what God thinks, you also haven't done your homework: it no longer applies.

I would only add that this god does not love everyone. See Romans chapter 9 where he quotes Malachi, the Old Testament prophet, who said, "Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated." Malachi was using the ancestor to show that God hates all Edomites. God does not separate the sinner from his sin. He hates both of them. Fred Phelps is correct, at least in principle. God's love is restricted to those he chose, not on the basis of anything foreknown in the creature but on the basis of his own whimsical grace.

I'm not going to give in to the urge to dig out my Theological Dictionary and write a long thesis on the word "hate" in the Old Testament and Hebrew; I'll limit myself to a summary statement that "hate" in that context does not mean what it does in our normal usage -- the word is used because the other alternative is to insert a lengthy essay into the text.

As for God separating the sinner from the sin, that God does so is exactly Paul's argument in Romans -- "You are dead to sin" comes to mind.

Phelps, and you, are in error: God loves the whole world; God showed his love by dying for those He loves, and it plainly says that He died for all.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

But I have...and I'd bet all that I own that your god could have done anything in that book, no matter how vile, and you'd still be bending over backwards to give him a pass and accomadate his shambolic, morally berefft behaviour. Christ, the only thing he didn't do was fuck children, in terms of outrageous behaviour...oh hold on, what age was Mary supposed to have been again when she concieved, oh-so-immaculately?

From this paragraph, I have to say you haven't studied it -- because you don't have the slightest idea what it means to be God, according to it.

As for Mary, she was 14 -- a quite marriageable age back then, considering that a lot of people didn't live past about forty.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Who cares what it says, you can't even agree with other Christians what it says. Nor can you provide one teeny tiny little bit of proof any of it is anything more that fairy stories. Your opinion of what it says is just your opinion, you don't speak for all other Christians.

It's Christians trying to jam religion into science, not scientists trying to jam science into churches.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Who cares what it says, you can't even agree with other Christians what it says. Nor can you provide one teeny tiny little bit of proof any of it is anything more that fairy stories. Your opinion of what it says is just your opinion, you don't speak for all other Christians.

It's Christians trying to jam religion into science, not scientists trying to jam science into churches.

It says what it says.

Using the principles of "interpretation" that some who claim to be Christians apply, your first paragraph above could be seen as a plea to take the Bible seriously -- I kid you not. Such approaches do violence not first to theology, but to language.

"My opinion" is just explaining what the words and grammar mean.



I'm not going to address your second topic here.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

It says what it says.

Using the principles of "interpretation" that some who claim to be Christians apply, your first paragraph above could be seen as a plea to take the Bible seriously -- I kid you not. Such approaches do violence not first to theology, but to language.

"My opinion" is just explaining what the words and grammar mean.



I'm not going to address your second topic here.

Which is more of your opinion. Other Christians say you're wrong, why should we believe you?

Neither are you the arbiter of who is Christian and who isn't.

Don't put words in my mouth.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

And now that the rant has ranted, this may or may not interest you, I had a parochial education through high school, so obviously religion in school does not necessarily turn a person into a drooling sycophant. However it was a pretty liberal Episcopal school that taught religion as theology and not as indoctrination. We also studied world religions. Of course I didn't pay all that much attention to this stuff in high school.

So I'm not opposed to teaching comparative theology, I'm very opposed to going into science classes and saying god did it.

 

[bankside]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Kulindahr, there are many of us who not only disbelieve the stories that are told by believers in god, but who also feel that if the stories were actually true, then god would be a very unpleasant person indeed.

When we point out why, your response is predictably to brush off the criticism by saying, predictably "well you obviously don't understand it" or "you've read it wrong" without actually countering the points, or explaining what we supposedly should understand, or just how we have misread it.

It's like pulling teeth to get answers out of you on those points. Sometimes your method of dealing with atheism seems to reveal that you only have one article of faith yourself, a negative; that atheism is just wrong.

 

[construct]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

I'm going to assume you mis-typed; the Council specifically said circumcision was not imposed.

Now look at the thesis before the Council: that Christians must follow "all the Law of Moses".
And the result of the Council: a letter that said, "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell."

Look to my next post to see that I did not mistype. I admitted my faulty memory of the passage and provided an example of Paul's loose enforcement of the Counsel's directive.

"No greater burden" means that these are the only things being imposed. Contrasting that with the thesis, the conclusion is that everything else in the Law of Moses is not imposed.

So there goes the Law of Moses -- according to "The Holy Spirit".

Not all of it. See your own quotation from the Counsel's general letter.

It wasn't abolished, it was set aside. "Fulfill" means it's completed, and no attention has to be paid to it any more. If I hiked from the Aleutians to Tierra del Fuego, and announced, "I fulfilled my dream!", that would mean I achieved it, and it's done -- not that I have to keep doing it.

Nevertheless, what was done was your original plan just as God fulfilled his original plan including hardening Pharoah's heart (see Romans chapter 9, once again using Old Testament language, this time from Exodus).

Finding a "use" isn't the same as having it in force. Fulfilled, it's an exhibit sitting on the shelf, and can be learned from -- which is what Paul says the Old Testament is now for, and then goes on to show that it's the principles which count.

In that case, its image of God remains in force. Remember the part about God's causing David to take the census so that he could punish the people for David's breaking the law (I Sam. 24; I Chron. 24). (It's not mentioned what the people did to deserve this.) Here you have an example of corporate guilt. All those laws in Exodus 20-23 and Leviticus (including the dietary code) tells us what kind of a god this is. This is a god who drowns little babies while saving Noah. This is a god who burns babies while saving Lot and his daughters at Sodom. This is the god who killed little children by sending two she-bears after them for insulting a prophet. This the same god who hated Esau.

If you cite the Law as a way to show that God is immoral, then you haven't done your homework. Every item in the Law teaches mercy, because they all reduce penalties, harms, etc. allowed or imposed under the existing culture.
If you cite it to show what God thinks, you also haven't done your homework: it no longer applies.

I'm not going to give in to the urge to dig out my Theological Dictionary and write a long thesis on the word "hate" in the Old Testament and Hebrew; I'll limit myself to a summary statement that "hate" in that context does not mean what it does in our normal usage -- the word is used because the other alternative is to insert a lengthy essay into the text.

There is no evidence it means anything other than God's visiting his wrath upon the objects of his hatred and takes pleasure in it. (See Isa. 66:24.)

As for God separating the sinner from the sin, that God does so is exactly Paul's argument in Romans -- "You are dead to sin" comes to mind.

Unless you are taking Romans 5 to affirm universalism (there is no doctrine of hell in Paul's writings), God's sending sinners to hell shows that he does not separate the sin from the sinner.

Phelps, and you, are in error: God loves the whole world; God showed his love by dying for those He loves, and it plainly says that He died for all.

He did not die for all men. He died only for the elect. "All" in the "new Adam" passages in Paul refers to all the elect. Every single person for whom Christ died will be saved. Whether that is Calvinism or universalism, take your pick. Christ's death actually effected everything it was intended to do.

I am more moral than the biblical god. The god of the Bible is not worthy of our worship.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Which is more of your opinion. Other Christians say you're wrong, why should we believe you?

Neither are you the arbiter of who is Christian and who isn't.

Don't put words in my mouth.

All you have to do is read.

Most 'Christians' who disagree do "interpretation" by their feelings -- all you have to do to know that is sit in on some of their Bible studies: I've been in hundreds, and how they "feel" about the text determines what it means.

I know that to liberals these days it's a hard concept, but people who seriously want to study something stick to the premise that words actually mean something the way they were written, and that grammar puts parameters on that. To get what I'm explaining about the Bible, you have to learn grammar, and be able to get glimpses of the Greek and Hebrew behind the English translations, and know something of the history, and it's pretty plain.

An arbiter? Well, I can tell you that Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses aren't Christians, nor are Christian Scientists, with certainty, and that anyone who believes that following Old Testament laws will get them to heaven isn't a Christian... but those are pretty plain cases.

"Words in your mouth"? I didn't.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

So I'm not opposed to teaching comparative theology, I'm very opposed to going into science classes and saying god did it.

I keep saying the same thing.
But my point along with it is that it isn't necessary to degrade other people's beliefs, and thereby attack other people, in order to uphold that. That was the flaw in the original post -- and my points about atheism were meant to illustrate that horrid accusations about all atheists and atheism can be made just as easily, using the same tactics.

This thread didn't need to be an attack on religion; it could have specified the item found objectionable, i.e. Creationism. Then I wouldn't have to be opposing a batch of God-bashers and explaining why a lot of the bashing is without substance -- kind of like a lot of evolution-bashing is without substance... because those doing the attacking don't actually understand what they're attacking, so their attacks are foolish.

And to someone who has actually studied and grasped what the Bible is about, most of the attacks in this thread are about on par with the "it's just a theory" crap aimed at evolution.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

All you have to do is read.

Most 'Christians' who disagree do "interpretation" by their feelings -- all you have to do to know that is sit in on some of their Bible studies: I've been in hundreds, and how they "feel" about the text determines what it means.

I know that to liberals these days it's a hard concept, but people who seriously want to study something stick to the premise that words actually mean something the way they were written, and that grammar puts parameters on that. To get what I'm explaining about the Bible, you have to learn grammar, and be able to get glimpses of the Greek and Hebrew behind the English translations, and know something of the history, and it's pretty plain.

An arbiter? Well, I can tell you that Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses aren't Christians, nor are Christian Scientists, with certainty, and that anyone who believes that following Old Testament laws will get them to heaven isn't a Christian... but those are pretty plain cases.

"Words in your mouth"? I didn't.

More opinion. All those other Christians you disagree with are reading the same book, they don't agree with you. Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses and whoever else you're referring to there all claim to be Christians.

Claiming greater scholarship as some kind of bona fide lending you greater weight is pointless. That book is studied by people in all of those sects you dismiss, and I'm sure there are plenty who can argue with you point for point. They still disagree with you. I'd go so far as to say that the bible is probably the most extensively studied book in all of western history and yet still, there are schisms and disagreements.

Give me a definitive definition of "Christian" that all can be judged by, that all denominations agree on.

You can't. Because there is no agreement in the Christian community on what the bible says.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

I keep saying the same thing.
But my point along with it is that it isn't necessary to degrade other people's beliefs, and thereby attack other people, in order to uphold that. That was the flaw in the original post -- and my points about atheism were meant to illustrate that horrid accusations about all atheists and atheism can be made just as easily, using the same tactics.

This thread didn't need to be an attack on religion; it could have specified the item found objectionable, i.e. Creationism. Then I wouldn't have to be opposing a batch of God-bashers and explaining why a lot of the bashing is without substance -- kind of like a lot of evolution-bashing is without substance... because those doing the attacking don't actually understand what they're attacking, so their attacks are foolish.

And to someone who has actually studied and grasped what the Bible is about, most of the attacks in this thread are about on par with the "it's just a theory" crap aimed at evolution.

You know it's just as dismissive and disrespectful to equate atheists with Hitler.

No one has a right to go through life unoffened.

we come back to the first point. Before you can get me to have long arcane, voluminous arguments about what the bible says, you have to get me to believe it's true. Because if I don't buy it, there's no point in point by point refutation of the words of apostles - because none of it is true.

Your religion makes fantastic claims it can't prove, why should you therefore get some kind of automatic respect for it just 'cause?

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

And yes, I agree, religion obviously satisfies some need in billions of people, whether that need is addictive or intrinsic is another argument, but Just from that fact there should be study of it, and if we can both agree that study is not indoctrination we’ll have arrived at a point we can agree on.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

So I'm not opposed to teaching comparative theology, I'm very opposed to going into science classes and saying god did it.

I decided to tell a story here that really didn't fit with my first response to this:

Our family one day was watching a NOVA special about some cosmic phenomenon -- I don't recall which one; it may have been quasars. At one point the narrator rhetorically asked why things were the way they were, and in response my mom stated, "God did it".
Without thinking, I tossed over my shoulder, "How?"

That's where I see the real stupidity of O'Reilly's comments, and of Creationists in general: they love to say "God did it!"-- but I love to ask "How?" To them, "God did it!" is an end point; to me and those I discussed Intelligent Design with (before it got stolen for a Creationist cover), saying "God did it!" was a beginning point to asking "How?"
What makes that really, really stupid is that Christianity drove the development of science; since God was faithful, trustworthy, and dependable, then, early investigators reasoned, His Creation ought to be orderly, something with dependable patterns that could be studied and understood. They knew "God did it!", and that drove them to investigate -- but these people today want to end all investigation with the declaration "God did it!"
If they really knew the God of the Bible, the declaration "God did it!" would arouse excitement -- the desire to investigate, the confidence that the material evidence wouldn't lead them astray, the certainty that whatever was found couldn't contradict divine revelation -- although it could, as in Galileo's case, point up where what people thought was divine revelation wasn't (in that case, what the Church was clinging to wasn't even from the Bible; it was from Aristotle!).
So instead of a God who challenges us to grow, and gave us minds to investigate His Creation and understand it, they have a 'God' who wants them to close their minds, a God who lies and deceives through the plain evidence, a God who silences our questions and thunders at our curiosity.

I recall a college biology course which focused on the study of mammals. The good professor, with two doctorates in biology, began with a reading from Genesis -- God making the animals, and then Man, and directing Man to name the animals -- and then from the Psalms, where God points Man's eyes to the wonders He has made, and invites appreciation. Dr. B pointed out that the second invites study, and comprehension, a notion confirmed in the Genesis account, because "naming" the animals carries the concept of grasping their natures and their relationships to everything around them. He then pointed out that from the way that the pastoral Creation account is put together, we are also animals, although more than animals as well.
Then he said something like, "Since God has invited us to study, let's get to it!"

Meditating on that, I can't help but feel pity for the poor fools who not only don't understand evolution, but don't want to.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

My theory is that Creationism is a banner, not an actual philosophy, people say they believe in creationism not because they've given the matter extensive thought, but because they see it as a means of staking a religious position.

Like counting coup, the greater the danger, the greater the accomplishment, and the glory; only here it's the more opposition there is, the greater the faith, and the accolades for those who refuse to bend.

So it doesn't matter how wrong they are or how much evidence there is to the contrary, because it was never actually about evolution in the first place.