Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Southern Baptist leader slams Islam

Now this could get ugly. Let's not go there. :p

Uh, Sleeper, I think it's time you woke up or turned your computer off. I have seldom seen a post so full of ignorant statements presented as knowledgable insights and corrections to another's post.

1) This country wasn't founded on "Quaker" beliefs. I wish that it were (Theist beliefs, more closely). The Quakers are very, VERY Christian, BTW.

2) Paganism in its various forms worships many different dieties. Worshipping a diety is fundamental to Pagans.

3) Buddhism most definetly IS a religion, although Buddhists do not think Buddha was God (or a god).

4) Allah is God to Muslims. Mohammed was the prophet/messenger ("There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet."). Jesus is the third person of the Triune God, not a messenger. Moses and John the Fore Runner were messengers (although the word used for angels actually means messengers).

You are entitled to your opinions. Your ignorance is best left to yourself.

...before we abandon God and religion to the ashes of history and embrace the Scientific Principle as the new ethos of our existance, let's take a look at a few interesting items I would like to see scientifically measured:

1) Love
2) Hate
3) Trust
4) Doubt
5) Faith

These 5 items are concepts that are physically/spiritually/emotionally manifested by human beings on a day to day basis. They form the backbone of our nature, our very existance on some level. Without them, a core part of a human (or what we define ourselves to consist as human) is missing. There have been more wars fought, more peace made, more lives created and lost due to one or a combination of one or more of these 5 concepts than anything else in our history.

Please postulate these. Form an applied theory here. Conjure a proof.

Can't?

Such is the nature of God and his existance, or so I so very humbly would assume.

In my experience, science can't explain everything; nor can religion. I've ages of learning left to do about both, unfortunately like everyone else here I've only a limited time on this ball of dirt called Earth to do so.

I've seen things that science and science alone has fundamentally explained to me (simply due to the fact that I've yet to find a passage in the Old or New Testament that covers nuclear fission well enough to sate my curiosity).

Then again, I've witnessed a couple of things in my life that can't be explained by anything else other than God and his will. Science couldn't even begin to touch or describe these happenings/experiences.

In my mind, many people's failing with the concept of God is tying religion to it (yes, the two ARE seperate). Organized religion is an imperfect human interpretation of God and how to best communicate, worship and get to know him, IMHO. Proof of it's imperfection, you ask? Take a look at all the screwups the Catholic Church has done throughout history (sorry, Catholics, but those were the first that came to my mind. There are others FAR worse out there, in effect if not in scope). If you base your opinion of God simply on what organized religion has to offer, I think you are doing yourself a huge disservice. I know I was at the time...

To those that are more cerebral than social in this issue, here's another one for you. Grasp the concept of infinity, please. In my experience and readings, the finite mind simply can't comprehend or understand, even sucessfully explain an infinite being or concept.

If it sounds like I belive that both science and the concept of God can and even should co-exist, then you've hit the nail on the head...

Finally,

"The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity. Godlike he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas the things one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis completely expressible in words."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

but also just as applicable:

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-Galileo Galilei

Regards,

If you go back a couple of pages you'll see that I corrected myself on Allah.

Religion, by definition, is "belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe."
This is the original definition of Religion as taken from the "Oxford English Dictionary".
So since Buddhist's don't believe Buddha was a God, they do not fit the definition of religion.

Paganism if the worship of MANY God's. Islam believes in one God. Therefore Islam is NOT a pagan religion. That is what I said in my previous post. So what is it you're arguing me about?

The first Continental Congess of the US was mostly Quakers followed secondly by Puritans. Most early settlers were also of these same two religions. So yes, the US was founded and by and influenced by these two religions.

The bible says we were created in God's form and placed here on earth and that we were never monkeys or any other creature,

Where does the Bible say that? I have...

"So G-d created man in his own image, in the image of G-d he created him; male and female he created them."

Sorry, I could not find the recipe.

Pagan- one who is not a christian, muslim, or jew. (The American Dictionary)

Islam, christianity and Judeasm all start at abram (who coincidently married his half sister) All the bible before Abram (according to the catholic church anyway) is stories and myth. I still am wondering how three major religions starting in the basically the same place but over a couple of millenia, can have such a hatred for one another. Can this be because of the arguments over the subtle differences? Can anyone tell me if the various sects of Buddhism or Hinduism have similar issues? Both are based on various (so-called) "pagan" beleifs. Yet both unite the two most populous (and oldest) cultures/nations in the world. Just wondering.

Another thing, Christianity (especially in the Catholic form) is rife with saints, apostles, the holy Mary, the father, son and the holy spirit, etc. Couldn't these all be considered gods? I know the bible explains them as being not gods but when compared to the greeks, or egyptians the appear to have many similar counter parts. Just thought I'd add that.

Jlanger, the reason for hatred btwn. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (although I would be hard-pressed to say that there is much of a rift btwn. Jews and Christians) can be traced back to Isaac and Ishmael (Abram's sons.) This is nothing more than the continuation of a sibling rivalry.

I for one would NOT say that anything before Abram is a myth, as there is absolutely nothing to indicate that. Not to mention, picking and choosing in the Bible renders the whole thing false. The Bible, as irrefutable proof of God's saving grace can not be taken selectively. If one word is false, the entirity of it can not be true.

As for saints and others in the catholic religion, there are rumblings that Mary has been "nominated" into the trinity. Many Catholics already place her up there anyway...

Just my .02

(jlanger jumps in with both feet)

JaTo I liked your discussion about religion and science being able to guide the other. As for the 5 concepts, many can be explained by evolutionary theory.
1)Love: chemicals in the brain similar to Lust that help us mate and propogate the species.
2)Hate: Opposite of love, used to protect the species against things we fear or dislike greatly.
3)Trust: could be described as altruism, ie I scratch your back you scratch mine. Also used to protect the species, numbers are important when you don't have claws or fangs.
4)Doubt: Similar to hate, used to enhance caution in us hence protecting the species. However, our most successful members appear to have little doubt or hide it very well.
5)Faith: opposite of doubt, simialr to trust. Used to explain what we don't know or have the capacity to understand. Children have the utmost faith that their parents will protect them. We have faith in our elders (or we used to) We have faith in superior beings to protect us.

Many animals, especially ones closest to us on the evolutionary ladder, have similar things. (I'll try not to anthromorphisize too much)Chimps appear to feel love towards other chimps, chimps can also appear to hate other bands/tribes of chimps and will go out on "war parties" into other territories to find and kill others. I can add many more similar similar examples with many other animals.

Now I'm still not trying to disprove the fact that a god(s) exist. However sating that because we feel emotions proves that there is a God cannot be used.

One more thing: Since we can alter our mood, state of mind, and emotions with chemicals, does this imply that our emotions are chemically based, and not soul based?

PS sorry about not stating sources, I'm going off memory here but if more is needed I'll certainly look it up and find the source/quote.

I agree that evolution has added much to what we identify as love, hate and the others I've laid out since the time Cro Magnon man was walking around, so in my mind there's no doubt that time and the evolutionary process can and does advance emotional concepts (if other species truly are provided with the same or similiar level of emotive function that human beings have been graced with). However, there's such an unscalable mountain of difference between us and the next nearest species in this that it begs the touch of divinity in our case. While love and hate, trust and doubt may be in some instances at an extremely basic level prevalent in certain creatures, the degree to which they define those creatures is nil compared to us.

The chemical reaction that flows through the brain, nervous system and through the rest of the body during love/hate is at a primal level one of instinct. However, the further expression of it and the imaginative reactions that come from it can't fully be explained, measured or described by science. The basic reaction may be measured by x amount of adrenaline or other chemical racing through the human body, but the action and subsequent reaction simply cannot be judged due to the complexity of the human mind.

This is the area I feel that, once again, may be left to the touch of divinity on homo sapiens. The combination of intellect, imagination and feeling is so far advanced over any species so far studied by mankind that our pinnacle of existance has to be looked at very closely, as well as what has been the cause of it. In short, I think the degree to which we can love, hate, trust and doubt as well as have faith is what determines what we owe to some "outside" force beyond mere evolution.

This is a pretty rough defense of my last post, as well as an incomplete one, but it does touch on some of the topics you've brought up. I don't have any definitive anwers, unfortunately. As philosophers and scientists throughout the ages have found out, this is one topic that probably never will. I simply keep traveling back to the source of things, so the argument will quickly become one closely resembling the "chicken or the egg" scenario. Which came first?

I'll try and puth for a more cohesive post tomorrow. It's late now and I'm beat.

Regards,

Explain faith scientifically....or trust...

Make sure you explain where they come from (origin), how it is brought about, how come some seem to have it and others don't, where did faith and trust start? Explain why some are more trustworthy than others? Explain how we attain faith and trust chemically (a true faith and trust, not some drugged up choice).

THanks.