Religion as evolutionary trait

[dimreepr]

10 minutes ago, mistermack said:

The whole intention is to preserve superstitious belief by constantly adapting it, as it begins to look silly with newer discoveries.

 

Not for everyone...

10 minutes ago, mistermack said:

A step in the right direction would be to accept that the original authors obviously made the story up, not that "a day doesn't have to mean a day". It's just adapting mysticism with more mysticism. Or piling bullshit on top of bullshit, would be my preferred description.

 

 

Is it mystical/bullshit to tolerate or forgive?

Edited November 12, 2018 by dimreepr

[mistermack]

8 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Is it mystical/bullshit to tolerate or forgive?

What they believe themselves doesn't bother me at all. They can perform all the gymnastics they like to keep believing as far as I'm concerned. What I really object to, is them inflicting the same bollocks on innocent children, and including it in law. 

So adapting the myth in order to perpetuate it isn't just harmless nonsense, it's making sure that the next generation are equally infected. 

[Itoero]

8 hours ago, Francis said:

My point is, you could probably think of an evolutionary explanation for just about anything.  But so what?  Hypotheses that can't be tested are a pointless waste of time

Yes, which is why I call religion an evolutionary trait….

[dimreepr]

11 minutes ago, mistermack said:

What I really object to, is them inflicting the same bollocks on innocent children, and including it in law. 

So adapting the myth in order to perpetuate it isn't just harmless nonsense, it's making sure that the next generation are equally infected. 

1

What!!! to tolerate and forgive?

 

[Francis]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

Who cares what they say now? The people who WROTE the bible knew what they meant by a day, and they knew exactly what their audience of the time understood by a "day". 

The Catholic Church can perform it's present-day contortions to make things fit, but they can't change the obvious original meaning by the original authors. 

The author of Genesis says the sun was created on the fourth day.  This suggests he wasn't offering a literal description of creation.  A tree of knowledge of good and bad, a talking snake, God resting on the seventh day, light being created before the sun  ... do these oddities suggest a literal description?  I don't think so. 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Francis

[mistermack]

12 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

What!!! to tolerate and forgive?

I don't think there's much of that in the old testament, the bit with the six days stories. Anyway, Christians are hardly exceptionally tolerant or forgiving compared to atheists.  

5 minutes ago, Francis said:

The author of Genesis says the sun was created on the fourth day.  This suggests he wasn't offering a literal description of creation.

No it doesn't. They would all have understood a day as a length of time. It's not as if days varied in duration from day to day. 

16 minutes ago, Francis said:

The author of Genesis says the sun was created on the fourth day.  This suggests he wasn't offering a literal description of creation.  A tree of knowledge of good and bad, a talking snake, God resting on the seventh day, light being created before the sun  ... do these oddities suggest a literal description?  I don't think so. 

That's because you weren't born 3,000 years ago. 

[Francis]

5 minutes ago, mistermack said:

13 minutes ago, Francis said:

 

No it doesn't. They would all have understood a day as a length of time. It's not as if days varied in duration from day to day.

They would also have understood that without the sun, there would be no days at all - yet the author says the sun wasn't created until Day 4.  They would also have understood light as the sun, yet the author says light was created on Day 1 - three days before the sun was created.  They would also have understood that snakes don't talk and that knowledge of good and evil doesn't grow on trees.   In chapter 2 of Genesis there is a second creation account, which takes place in a "day" (not six days) - do you suppose the author might have noticed that the two accounts were different?  Do you think they might be different because they are not literal?  Do you think they might have understood the concept of symbolic language? 

Furthermore, the authors of Genesis didn't have to understand what they were writing down (and probably didn't), as they were supernaturally inspired to write whatever God wanted them to write.

[dimreepr]

34 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Christians are hardly exceptionally tolerant or forgiving compared to atheists.  

Citation.

35 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I don't think there's much of that in the old testament

the nt is more up to date.

 

[mistermack]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

Christians are hardly exceptionally tolerant or forgiving compared to atheists.  

Citation.

See above.

2 hours ago, Francis said:

They would also have understood that without the sun, there would be no days at all - yet the author says the sun wasn't created until Day 4.

So it's perfectly obvious that they were talking about the length of a day in time, rather than a solar day. You're making the ludicrous assumption that when they said day, it meant absolutely anything you like. Where's the justification for that? If that was the case, why on Earth would they say six days? The meaning is obvious.

[beecee]

8 hours ago, Francis said:

The difference is, pointless banal religious claims don't pretend to be science.  Religious claims are usually based on faith; science is based on empirical evidence and the testing of theories - but someone forgot to tell evolutionists that.  Their idea of "science" and "understanding" and "knowledge" is endless hypotheses that can't ever be tested.

You miss the point....as usual.The pointless, baseless, banal numerous religious doctrines, claims that the universe/life and everything else was created by some eternal, magical spaghetti monster somewhere up in the sky. Science admits at this stage, we do not know the mechanism that brought forth space, time and the universe [although it has reasonable speculative confidence, based on current limited knowledge...https://www.astrosociety.org/publication/a-universe-from-nothing/] ....along with the exact mechanism of Abiogenisis. It's called the "god of the gaps" myth.

 

[StringJunky]

43 minutes ago, beecee said:

You miss the point....as usual.The pointless, baseless, banal numerous religious doctrines, claims that the universe/life and everything else was created by some eternal, magical spaghetti monster somewhere up in the sky. Science admits at this stage, we do not know the mechanism that brought forth space, time and the universe [although it has reasonable speculative confidence, based on current limited knowledge...https://www.astrosociety.org/publication/a-universe-from-nothing/] ....along with the exact mechanism of Abiogenisis. It's called the "god of the gaps" myth.

 

Although I understand your position, I don't think your language will endear anybody of a religious persuasion that may be receptive to look into the scientific approach.

[beecee]

9 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Although I understand your position, I don't think your language will endear anybody of a religious persuasion that may be receptive to look into the scientific approach.

The funny thing is that I have absolutely nothing against anyone of any religious persuasion. I have been living with one as husband and wife for 42 years, with it being both our first and only marriage. And she also has her church group around once a month doing their choir practise. It's these god botherers that see the need to conduct crusades on forums such as this that irk  me.

[Prometheus]

34 minutes ago, beecee said:

It's these god botherers that see the need to conduct crusades on forums such as this that irk  me.

Better on forums than elsewhere.

[StringJunky]

6 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

Better on forums than elsewhere.

Aye, we are used to such confrontations.

[Francis]

20 hours ago, mistermack said:

If that was the case, why on Earth would they say six days? The meaning is obvious.

Are you familiar with the concept of figurative/symbolic language?  How do you know that the author was not describing a vision?  And you're cherry-picking - do you really think a talking snake and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil were literal too?  Have a gander at the last book of the New Testament - Revelation - and try and tell me that the author was being completely literal!

18 hours ago, beecee said:

 It's these god botherers that see the need to conduct crusades on forums such as this that irk  me.

Glad to see that you sincerely support freedom of speech

Edited November 13, 2018 by Francis

[iNow]

9 minutes ago, Francis said:

Glad to see that you sincerely support freedom of speech

There's an important difference between what the government can and cannot prosecute versus what is allowed on a private forum. Once you learn that difference, perhaps you'll be better equipped to make better arguments.

 

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, Francis said:

And you're cherry-picking

So whatever suits your story is literal, and what doesn't is symbolic, or describing a vision????? 

Enjoy your cherries. 

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

So whatever suits your story is literal, and what doesn't is symbolic, or describing a vision????? 

Enjoy your cherries. 

 

you're so tolerant...

[zapatos]

15 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

you're so tolerant...

"Tolerant" does not mean accepting unreasonable arguments.

[dimreepr]

8 minutes ago, zapatos said:

"Tolerant" does not mean accepting unreasonable arguments.

Indeed, but it does mean accepting reasonable ones.

[mistermack]

You can hardly have a debate without some disagreement. Disagreement and intolerance aren't the same thing. 

I think you'll find I'm the most tolerant person you'll ever encounter. Apart from Donald Trump maybe. 

[zapatos]

19 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, but it does mean accepting reasonable ones.

I think mistermack can recognize the difference.

[Strange]

On 12/11/2018 at 5:05 AM, Francis said:

When did I say there is no evidence? 

Uhmmm ... let me see:

On 12/11/2018 at 5:05 AM, Francis said:

When it comes to evolution, "scientists make things up" all the time ... 99.9999999999999999999% of which can't be tested.  So it's just worthless story-telling, not science.

And ...

On 12/11/2018 at 5:05 AM, Francis said:

An untestable theory is  "understanding"? 

And pretty much every post you make. Or do you not really believe what you write?

 

On 12/11/2018 at 5:05 AM, Francis said:

How ironic that you mention "ignorance" ... you obviously know little about what the Catholic Church teaches.  Catholics are not obliged to believe that man evolved from some kind of ape, or in any kind of evolution at all.

It's a shame your church doesn't go that extra step and say " we accept the theories produced by science and so must you".

On 12/11/2018 at 5:05 AM, Francis said:

As far as I know, the only scientific fact Catholics are obliged to accept is that the universe had a beginning.

That is not a scientific fact.

 

[beecee]

4 hours ago, Francis said:

Glad to see that you sincerely support freedom of speech

How far do you believe I would get if I walked into a Catholic church for example, exclaiming so all could hear, that the deity they are adoring is nothing more than mythical nonsense, for gullible and impressionable sheep. 

Edited November 13, 2018 by beecee

[DrP]

On ‎12‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 11:31 AM, Francis said:

and has never obliged the faithful to accept that the "six days"

Never?  I'm at work so can't look that up - but feel I need to...  I thought they used to believe this.  If they believed it and changed their minds it doesn't say much about the 'infallibility of their scripture or their pope or indeed the god that was supposed to have written this. Why did god allow it to go into the book if it is factually wrong?  I used to be a Christian and made the same argument about it being 6 time periods myself...  but so what? It's still nonsense. The book is full of holes and contradictions  -  which wouldn't be there if what the book claims is true.

What about the talking animals, the 900 year old people, the impossible boat with all the animals on it etc..   why would the god allow a book to written which is so obviously untrue and expect everyone to believe it?

You are Catholic yea?  Going by your willingness to quote the catholic church as an authority on the matter...   the catholic church has a book of recorded miracles....  it's a total joke - not one of them can be properly confirmed and they are all shit.  If the book was real then where are the seeing blind, the walking dead or the healed people?  Every claim of it turns out to be false, made up, or unprovable when scrutinised by anyone other than a catholic priest - it's worse than misunderstanding...  it is a total lie.

 

On ‎12‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 9:57 AM, Francis said:

The difference is, pointless banal religious claims don't pretend to be science

...er - they claim to be absolute truth. They claim that they are above science and that any discovery made by science that contradicts their faith must be wrong. The bible claims the existence of a god that rules over all  -  they claim this to be true....  it is clearly nonsense. There is a lot of stuff they claim that is totally ridiculous and contrary to rational thinking and observation.