To abstract or not to abstract

[iNow]

37 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Brick is made of mixtures of earth's materials.

So, of earth

[Bartholomew Jones]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

So, of earth

Yes.  I love you guys!  (I just don't like brick)

Edited December 20, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[Markus Hanke]

17 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

But the Bible doesn't suggest that God is not of nature.

I don’t know what you think the Bible might suggest, since there are about as many interpretations of the text as there are readers, and they are all quite different. This is true for most religions.
So if the Christian God is part of the material universe, as you seem to say here, can you then suggest a scientific experiment that might show his existence and characteristics, in a way that is repeatable and independently verifiable?

[joigus]

14 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

If you you read the Bible through with due care you see God's people becoming mere men; then you see God's people becoming mere men.  Then you see God's people becoming mere men.

All the while he sends servants, saying, 16Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.  --Jeremiah 6:16

Also: 24An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. 25And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. 26Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

Compare "shalt," against "wilt," in 24 and 25.

--Exodus 20:24-26

For brick, see the Tower of Babel.

 

A message from the Bronze Age from an invisible being, compiled by people from the Iron Age, written in English from the 16th century. Not very illuminating to me, I'm sorry.

If I want to be understood, I use 21st-century English. That's why safety warnings, for example, are not written in 16th-century language: Being understood could be a matter of life and death in that case.

[John Cuthber]

15 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,

 

15 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Answer a fool according to his folly

That seems to cover all bases.
But it's meaningless.
You seem good at that.

[studiot]

59 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

 

That seems to cover all bases.
 

 

+1

 

[Bartholomew Jones]

10 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

I don’t know what you think the Bible might suggest, since there are about as many interpretations of the text as there are readers, and they are all quite different. This is true for most religions.
So if the Christian God is part of the material universe, as you seem to say here, can you then suggest a scientific experiment that might show his existence and characteristics, in a way that is repeatable and independently verifiable?

Yes.  Study two people groups, with similar qualifications, each with a comparable objective; one prayerful in the Christian sense.

10 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

On 12/19/2020 at 9:11 AM, Bartholomew Jones said:

But the Bible doesn't suggest that God is not of nature.

I don’t know what you think the Bible might suggest, since there are about as many interpretations of the text as there are readers, and they are all quite different.

They all say about the same thing here: 

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. --Genesis 1:2

"Moved," is motion, which is physical.  People confuse invisibility (as with certain areas of the light spectrum) with immateriality.  The Bible does say that God is invisible, without suggesting that he's immaterial.

7 hours ago, joigus said:

A message from the Bronze Age from an invisible being, compiled by people from the Iron Age, written in English from the 16th century. Not very illuminating to me, I'm sorry.

That's because you're a cynic and you debate cynically, rather than argue justly, since debating is always cynical.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones
committed h in with

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

That's because you're a cynic and you debate cynically, rather than argue justly, since debating is always cynical.

(My emphasis.)

You've given no answer to any of my points. I've provided you with references and reasons why many of the things you hold as true about the past simply cannot be correct.

Then you engage in an argument about bricks by using 16/17th-century language. 

The fact that you desperately try to attack the man, "you're a cynic", while fleeing from the argument tells me I must be doing something right. People always do that when they're logically cornered.

"Debating is always cynical" is the bit that I've decided to leave uncommented because it needs no further comments from me. I don't know what to say. You might as well say "reason is always cynical". Maybe you simply don't know what "cynical" means.

 

[Bartholomew Jones]

41 minutes ago, joigus said:

(My emphasis.)

You've given no answer to any of my points. I've provided you with references and reasons why many of the things you hold as true about the past simply cannot be correct.

Then you engage in an argument about bricks by using 16/17th-century language. 

The fact that you desperately try to attack the man, "you're a cynic", while fleeing from the argument tells me I must be doing something right. People always do that when they're logically cornered.

"Debating is always cynical" is the bit that I've decided to leave uncommented because it needs no further comments from me. I don't know what to say. You might as well say "reason is always cynical". Maybe you simply don't know what "cynical" means.

Predisposed against the simplicity of faith.  Faith being demonstrated in the simplicity of a seed.

In other words, "mountains of evidence" doesn't measure up against the genius of a seed.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[Ghideon]

On 12/18/2020 at 11:08 PM, Bartholomew Jones said:

The Bible actually frowns on bricks.

Side note; around here there are several churches built using bricks. Oldest one was opened in 1192. A more recent example opened in 1959. 

 

[Bartholomew Jones]

5 minutes ago, Ghideon said:

Side note; around here there are several churches built using bricks. Oldest one was opened in 1192. A more recent example opened in 1959. 

That's why in my view, the modern church is apostate.  In the whole history of God's people, in fact, the Bible betrays the apostate nature of all but a remnant of God's people.

That's why the flood.  That's why God chose one household, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.  That's why God chose Samuel, putting Eli's branch as priests to shame.  Etc.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

In other words, "mountains of evidence" doesn't measure up against the genius of a seed.

You see genius in a seed because there are billions of years of incremental improvement in this marvel of coordinated chemical actions. Mountains of evidence is precisely what's helped us understand what a seed is. When it develops, it recapitulates the history of the Earth, so in a way, a seed has chapters of the history of the Earth written in it. It took centuries of human curiosity to end up in Darwin's great insight to explain that "genius of a seed" that you extol without understanding. There are hundreds of billions of planets in the universe where nothing like the genius of a seed has come to fruition, for reasons easy to understand, not because a petty god (obsessed with being worshipped by small vulnerable things above anything else) decided those planets weren't worthy of his handiwork.

You are blind indeed.

The worst kind of blindness is lack of will to see. It's not that you don't know. It's that you don't want to know.

[Bartholomew Jones]

20 minutes ago, joigus said:

You see genius in a seed because there are billions of years of incremental improvement in this marvel of coordinated chemical actions. Mountains of evidence is precisely what's helped us understand what a seed is. When it develops, it recapitulates the history of the Earth, so in a way, a seed has chapters of the history of the Earth written in it. It took centuries of human curiosity to end up in Darwin's great insight to explain that "genius of a seed" that you extol without understanding. There are hundreds of billions of planets in the universe where nothing like the genius of a seed has come to fruition, for reasons easy to understand, not because a petty god (obsessed with being worshipped by small vulnerable things above anything else) decided those planets weren't worthy of his handiwork.

You are blind indeed.

The worst kind of blindness is lack of will to see. It's not that you don't know. It's that you don't want to know.

Fools say such things of people of whom which they know nothing.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[Bartholomew Jones]

1 hour ago, joigus said:

You see genius in a seed because there are billions of years of incremental improvement in this marvel of coordinated chemical actions.

However many marks of years are imprinted in a member of nature, it doesn't mean that the thing was here that many years.  When God made the earth, he made it as a work already in process.  Science works only on the basis of assuming otherwise.  God wasn't the assumption, but the axiom.  Science is assuming, and ignorant people, made so by biased educators, are assenting.

1 hour ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

The worst kind of blindness is lack of will to see.

If you think you see by your own will you're foolish.  If you see, it's a gift.  If you have diligence it's a gift.  If you're lazy you're a fool.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[iNow]

I have faith in the fact that everyone here has had more than enough of this silliness

[joigus]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

I have faith in the fact that everyone here has had more than enough of this silliness

Oh, we know this is trash-can material from day one, don't we?

Like most other users I just wanted to do my part in bringing it out.

True colours showing. We've got the full spectrum, from kefir to non-clay bricks, plus tidbits of old-time religion. All topped with insult, instead of arguments.

I think I'm done.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, joigus said:

I think I'm done.

I struggle sometimes with my refusal to give up on the humanity of others; to abandon hope that the right combination of the right words will somehow resonate or break through. In the end, it too frequently becomes a mild form of masochism.

I also struggle sometimes... nay, often! ... with my patience, something I’ve long since lost with this thread, but not necessarily with this poster. 

[zapatos]

33 minutes ago, iNow said:

I also struggle sometimes... nay, often! ... with my patience, something I’ve long since lost with this thread, but not necessarily with this poster. 

You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

[Markus Hanke]

15 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Yes.  Study two people groups, with similar qualifications, each with a comparable objective; one prayerful in the Christian sense.

What characteristic of these people would you be studying, and what would your methodology be? And how do characteristics of people relate to the ontological existence or non-existence of a deity, or its characteristics?

15 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

They all say about the same thing here: 

I wasn’t referring to the text itself, I was referring to the way people interpret it.

15 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

since debating is always cynical.

Why are you engaging in it, then? If you are fully convinced of the veracity of your own beliefs, then it should make no difference whatsoever what anyone else thinks, and there is no need for any debates. Yet you are here trying to argue your points in front of an audience that doesn’t share your worldview, and never will.

9 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

God wasn't the assumption, but the axiom. 

The Christian God is a learned and acquired concept - you learn of it and about it from other people, or from written texts. It’s external information, not intrinsic experience. Had you grown up in an environment where that external information was absent, the concept you now believe in so strongly would never even have occurred to you.
God, as the concept is understood in Christianity, is a mental, social, historic, and cultural construct. 

[joigus]

6 hours ago, iNow said:

I struggle sometimes with my refusal to give up on the humanity of others; to abandon hope that the right combination of the right words will somehow resonate or break through. In the end, it too frequently becomes a mild form of masochism.

I also struggle sometimes... nay, often! ... with my patience, something I’ve long since lost with this thread, but not necessarily with this poster. 

A part of me wants to believe that religious types who drop by have a part in them who is desperate to be won over by a set of more solid arguments... or perhaps more positive, constructive doubt. It's a bit disappointing, rather than offending, when they turn to calling you names. I notice that frequently people with strong opinions rarely drop them in front of you. We all are hardwired not to lose face. That's probably because our competitive primate nature has grown ramifications into language itself. Ideas are more like the proverbial seed that our present interlocutor has mentioned, rather than roots that try to break through the ground. They normally sprout when you're not looking.

[John Cuthber]

14 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Fools say such things of people of whom which they know nothing.

Joigus may be many things, but I don't think "fool" is on the list.
On the other hand you condemn him for saying 

 

14 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

The worst kind of blindness is lack of will to see. It's not that you don't know. It's that you don't want to know.

which is a paraphrase of

Jeremiah 5:21
‘Hear this now, O foolish people,
Without understanding,
Who have eyes and see not,
And who have ears and hear not:

[dimreepr]

On 12/18/2020 at 2:46 PM, Bartholomew Jones said:

Again, the original text was in Greek because Hebrews in Roman time only wrote in Greek, like the rest of the world.  They were conveying Hebrew thoughts in Greek.

No, the plot makes very clear Mary and Joseph had not come together and that she was confirmed to Joseph as not having been with a man.  Also she states she had not been with a man.

Yet you can read the English version and understand Hebrew thoughts???

 

52 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Joigus may be many things, but I don't think "fool" is on the list.
On the other hand you condemn him for saying 

 

which is a paraphrase of

Jeremiah 5:21
‘Hear this now, O foolish people,
Without understanding,
Who have eyes and see not,
And who have ears and hear not:

Their's wisdom in them there word's. 

2 hours ago, joigus said:

Ideas are more like the proverbial seed that our present interlocutor has mentioned, rather than roots that try to break through the ground. They normally sprout when you're not looking.

And in the rich loam of cynicism. 

[iNow]

4 hours ago, joigus said:

A part of me wants to believe that religious types who drop by have a part in them who is desperate to be won over by a set of more solid arguments... or perhaps more positive, constructive doubt.

Sometimes the primary audience is not the person posting obstinately and openly, but is instead other persons reading quietly from the sidelines trying to sort through their own doubts. 

[joigus]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

And in the rich loam of cynicism. 

As long as it's just a tool. 

Now that I think of it my metaphor of the root and the seed was not particularly illuminating. LOL

Edit: x-posted with iNow.

Edited December 21, 2020 by joigus

[Phi for All]

50 minutes ago, iNow said:

Sometimes the primary audience is not the person posting obstinately and openly, but is instead other persons reading quietly from the sidelines trying to sort through their own doubts. 

!

Moderator Note

For this reason, staff sometimes lets some folks hammer on far past what we might allow ordinarily. Side-by-side examples of modern reasoning and Iron Age wishful thinking may hopefully speak to future skeptics. We appreciate the pain and suffering the membership is forced to bear in this regard.