Talk about God from a biology forum thread

[goku]

Moderation note: The first 11 posts of this tread were moved from the biology forum thread “Evolution Must be Taught in Public Schools”, because they discuss the theological subject of the nature of God and relative superiority of religions

Originally Posted by pamela

Goku, do you just type off the cuff? Think about what you are saying here...evidence of what?
There is evidence that the masses blindly believe that which they choose not to understand. Let me step off the sides lines for a moment and on to your court. Okay lets say God made you, all of you, including your brain, mind and intelligence. Would God expect you to utilize these gifts? Or would he want you to be a robot or machine simply going through the daily motions?
Intelligence and common sense would tell you that creationism is not valid. Do you think that God thinks on your level? or do you suppose that his thoughts are above yours and beyond your comprehension? Do not create a god of your understanding, it will be your demise.
Back on the side lines, America would certainly be a different place, if the sheeple took the time to use their intelligence...

in the Bible, God refers to us as his children.
to understand this fully you must have children yourself, the relationship is the same. we tell our children something and they don't understand, God tells us something and we don't understand.

[goku]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Just think if 100% of us believed in god we would be right up there with Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and all the other theocratic shit holes in the world.

each one of those places does not believe in God, the right one anyway.
the Bible also talks about these people, i think, somewhere, umm, abraham that's it, read about abraham.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by goku

imagine.....
every humanbeing on earth is blind.
one day one man says "i know what the color red looks like"
how could he prove it?

sorry, i'm not catholic

If indeed every human being on the Earth was blind and had alwasy been blind and some one said i know what the color red looks like he would be spouting nonsense since he neither knows what looking is nor what color or even light is. He could through science deduce photons and light but seeing and color would be forever outside his or anyone else's purview.

Interesting goku, so Catholics are not the correct religion either? If not then which one of the little Christian sects is? I guess no one had any real religion or worshiped the correct god until a couple hundred years ago?

[goku]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

If indeed every human being on the Earth was blind and had alwasy been blind and some one said i know what the color red looks like he would be spouting nonsense since he neither knows what looking is nor what color or even light is. He could through science deduce photons and light but seeing and color would be forever outside his or anyone else's purview.

Interesting goku, so Catholics are not the correct religion either? If not then which one of the little Christian sects is? I guess no one had any real religion or worshiped the correct god until a couple hundred years ago?

correct, now if you could use the same paragraph but instead of blind use evolve or evolution, you might understand the point i was trying to make.

you said superiors, i thought pope. it's not so much the name as it is how you worship. i think it says what my little "sect" is on my profile page or somethin, you know just click on my name

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by goku

correct, now if you could use the same paragraph but instead of blind use evolve or evolution, you might understand the point i was trying to make.

you said superiors, i thought pope. it's not so much the name as it is how you worship. i think it says what my little "sect" is on my profile page or somethin, you know just click on my name

You know what goku, you are correct, if indeed we had no evidence of evolution, no way to gather such evidence, and absolutely no knowledge of evolution any one who said i know what evolution is would be pulling it entirely out of his posterior. But we do have evidence of evolution, we can gather data on the process of evolution and we can see evolution in action all around us so your comparison does not ring true at all. But if you use the word god instead of red it works out perfectly. We have no evidence of God, no way to know anything about dog and no way to prove anything about god or religion. Embarrassing isn't it.

Hey goku do you know why Baptists won't make love standing up? They don't want anyone to think they are dancing

[goku]

proselytizing?
hit & run?
troll?

[goku]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Ok, would you have any problem with Islam being taught to your children? Judaism? Catholicism? Wiccaian? Buddhism? Does more people wanting something taught make it the truth? If for instance if more people thought that the moon is inhabited by creatures that can fly make it true? At one time this was what was thought by more than few. How about the Earth being flat? At one time it was pretty much the law of the land (due to religion) at one time a man was burned at the stake due to his belief that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe. At one time the Earth was at the center of the solar system and the sun and moon and other planets orbited around the earth. Stars were holes in the sky where heaven shown through. would you want these ideas taught to your child? At one time religion (the Christian religion) said they were true and it was dangerous to disagree. Really goku do you think that reality should be decided by popular vote?

God's way is not the popular way, not the coolest way, not the hipest way.
all the crazy moon this and unicorn that, your talking about evolution. all the times you talked about the preachers steeling money from the people, what do you think the scientists are doing? they are paid for shock and aw. every time nasa wants more money they'll say something like, we may have found proof of life on mars or we may have found proof of life on another planet because of blue light.

just to be clear, you are right about some preachers and so called churches. but just because they are wrong doesn't mean we're all wrong.

you can't imagine what it is like in my church and so many churches in this area. it is my hope that some day you and everyone else here will have a taste of the true and living God.

[pamela]

hi Goku,
I believe your intentions to be good on sharing your belief in what you call "the true and living God" but you can't proselytize here-it is against the rules.
State your claims and provide backup data- you have to leave God out of the equation and look at the visible facts. I am not trying to be offensive, but we have to all be on common ground here. We are talking about the natural world, not the spiritual.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by goku

God's way is not the popular way, not the coolest way, not the hipest way.
all the crazy moon this and unicorn that, your talking about evolution. all the times you talked about the preachers steeling money from the people, what do you think the scientists are doing? they are paid for shock and aw. every time nasa wants more money they'll say something like, we may have found proof of life on mars or we may have found proof of life on another planet because of blue light.

just to be clear, you are right about some preachers and so called churches. but just because they are wrong doesn't mean we're all wrong.

you can't imagine what it is like in my church and so many churches in this area. it is my hope that some day you and everyone else here will have a taste of the true and living God.

I truly feel for you goku, because I can indeed imagine what it's like to be in your church. I broke free from your church many years ago and I hope that you too will one day know the freedom and peace of mind that comes from gaining your freedom. But that has nothing to do with teaching evolution in our public schools or your charges that science is some how manipulating the data to influence people away from god. Science has no stake in your beliefs, no need to control your beliefs or what is taught in your church. In your church you are free to teach anything you and yours like. But when it comes to reality, science and separation of Church and state there is no such thing as a neutral religion or even the correct religion and when it comes to science the the only thing that should be taught is reality, not belief, no matter how many people believe something, if it is not real, it will never be real. No popular vote will make the Earth flat, or make the Earth the center of the universe or even the solar system. No amount of belief will change the real world and we are doing our children a disservice if we don't teach them the attributes of the real world. Religion cannot even agree on which or whose god is the right god much less on reality.

[Pyrotex]

I have read the entire Bible straight through several times. It is a chaotic mix of history, myth, wisdom, facts, self-serving propaganda and superstition. Separating these things out is not at all easy.

The Bible is disturbingly hard to fathom if you take it as the perfect word from a perfect God. Obviously, this God has some serious issues. But if you look at the Bible exactly as you would look at the Rosetta Stone, or the Egyptian hieroglyphs -- in other words, as texts devised by and written by ordinary human beings, for ordinary human purposes, than a lot of the fuzz and confusion of the Bible comes into sharp focus.

The Creation Story becomes one of hundreds of creation myths from around the world. The Flood Story obviously comes from the Babylonians, who wrote it down well before the purported life of Moses. The Exodus, Moses himself, Abraham and others can be seen as conflated (and inflated) stories of ancient heros. The Old Testament reflects precisely what we would expect of a late Bronze Age agrarian/nomadic culture trying to preserve its tribal identity by writing down its tribal stories and myths and observations. I can't think of any prehistoric cultures that survived to modern times, who DIDN'T write down at least some of their history and observations. Many of the Bible's stories are historical and carry some degree of accuracy. However, they are probably "oral traditions", which means that the details of the stories are "reconstructed" at every telling -- until eventually, someone wrote them down. So, the story that Albathazore slew King Farradim may be a historical fact, but the purported last words of Farradim ("I curse thee and thy generations with festering pustules full of owl vomit and flying camel spiders, and with flatulence of the bowels that give forth stenches that slay unto death every virgin that hears the name of your family, and... arggggghhhhh") is almost certainly an ad hoc bit of theatrical dramatics on the part of the author.

Seen in this light, it becomes easier to pick out the bits of wisdom and the more meaningful parts of the stories. But then again, what is "wisdom", other than words we hear or read that we suddenly realize agree with what our parents told us when we were children?