1645: The Civil War II

[stulagu]

Originally Posted by Lura

If I were to compile y'all's definitions of "god", "church", and "christian", I would be as against them as you are. Similarly, if I asked a bunch of Republicans to describe the Democrat agenda (and vise versa) I would agree with the wrongheadedness of the "other side". Anytime you have a group defining their opponent the definition is going to be a caricature. But let us who claim those labels define ourselves.

Add to the mix people like Keith who think their experience, in his case a rigid Catholic background, is the only version of a broad group and who seemingly can't think outside of that box, you are going to get a skewed view. Not all christians operate like Catholics, in fact many christians don't count Catholics as real christians.

My experience as a christian proves to me that god is pro-gay-marriage. I think god is love and expressions of love are expressions of god. Personally I think we should follow the model many other nations do and have the state sanction a civil marriage for contract, property, insurance, and other legal reasons, and have the various religious groups provide for their own blessings as they see fit. Separate church and state.

I believe the theory of evolution and the big bang theory. I just happen to believe that these are the tools god used to create the world.

The first five books of the Hebrew scripture were written centuries after the fact and were not meant as historical documents. Their purpose is to convey Truth, not Facts, just as Aesop's fables do. No six day creation, no snake with a piece of fruit for Eve. And by the way, it doesn't say the Hebrew slaves built the pyramids. It says when Abraham got to Egypt they were completed for hundreds of years already. The slaves worked on other building projects.

First off, I think the thought that humans came out of primordial soup is just as rediculous as saying a spiritual being created everything. I don't think either have enough backing to be called a fact. Both require faith of some sort.

Secondly, I don't think God is pro gay marriage. I think he is obilivious to that. Marriage is something humans came up with. A biological creator is simply concerned with procreation so the species continues. Christians are brought up to believe that a kind God cares about every little thing, and that is fine as well...but there is as little Biblical evidence that he is for gay marriage as he is for straight marriage.

THIRDLY, Aesops Fabels, in NO WAY are fact. They are cautionary tales. And there are plenty of Christians that believe every word of the Bible is God ordained and therefor happened exactly the way they said it happened. Though I'm definitely inclined to believe they were tales passed down over the generations. That also being said, I do love when historians find proof of the stories.

Fourthly, I don't know many Christians that don't consider Catholics Christians. The only Christian sect that I don't consider Christian are the mormons because their beliefs go completely against the stated Christian ones. I don't consider the Catholic faith right on the money, but I also know that in general, they believe the same things other Christians do. From holy roller evangelical to the most strict Wisconsin Synod Lutheran, they all believe in the same main things.

And what Sparrow said about the innocent suffering. She is on the money.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by stulagu

First off, I think the thought that humans came out of primordial soup is just as rediculous as saying a spiritual being created everything. I don't think either have enough backing to be called a fact. Both require faith of some sort.

The difference is we can sketch out the process of biochemical formation out of a primordial soup, test the likelihood of such events, and estimate the plausibility of that chain of events. We can investigate the consequences of our assumptions to come up with predictions, test their validity, and either reinforce our belief or invalidate it. We can then take the resulting framework to better understand our world.

If we go the spiritual being route, we close off any possibility of intellectual investigation and progress.

So alright, both require "some sort of faith," but one is much more useful than the other. UMN has pretty strong research science programs, you should go sit in on some lectures.

[stulagu]

Originally Posted by DWarrior

The difference is we can sketch out the process of biochemical formation out of a primordial soup, test the likelihood of such events, and estimate the plausibility of that chain of events. We can investigate the consequences of our assumptions to come up with predictions, test their validity, and either reinforce our belief or invalidate it. We can then take the resulting framework to better understand our world.

If we go the spiritual being route, we close off any possibility of intellectual investigation and progress.

So alright, both require "some sort of faith," but one is much more useful than the other. UMN has pretty strong research science programs, you should go sit in on some lectures.

One can argue that having some sort of religion can help you better understand the world as well...that person would proabably be a Bhuddist =)

I'm not negating science at ALL. Evolution DOES exsist, but humans used to be sludge? That part requires just as much faith as religion does. We have more chromosomes alike to a starfish and more skeletal similarities to a dolphin rather than some apes. I feel some have pushed the humans came from apes story as hard as others have pushed that we started as Adam and Eve.

I also think spirituality has become this evil buzz word and gets completely ignored. There is value to both sides. Meditation has proven to lower blood pressure when medicine couldn't. People have been miraculously healed. Scientists have become Christians while they were trying to disprove religious theories.

Can't both sides just admit that there is so much unknown? Why is science more useful than spirtuality? I think they can coexsist nicely.

[stulagu]

Originally Posted by Lord of the Cock Rings

WI Lutherans are definitely taught that Catholicism is at best a perversion of Christianity. 1) they are idolaters that worship the Pope, Mary and the Saints in direct contradiction of the word of God 2) they do not believe the bible to be literally true esp timeline-wise

Yeah, I think in gradeschool our pastor even did a Catholic joke in a sermon, it was pretty rediculous.

The main things Lutherans don't like about Catholics is that they have to pray through a saint to get to God, and that they used to make the church unaccessable to normal folk. There is also some back and forth about communion. I have heard the iconography argument, but not the timeline of the Bible one. Do they not believe in the literal Bible? I thought they did?

My saddest moment as a wedding photographer was when this young Catholic couple got married. They had a baby already and refused to have the baby in their wedding pictures. They wanted to ignore that the baby was born out of wedlock. I finally convinced them to do one picture, I can't imagine being that kid and being brought up as a mistake. So sad. Not that Lutherans are any better with out of wedlock, a girl from my Lutheran high school got expelled for being pregnant while the father just got to go on like nothing happened.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by stulagu

One can argue that having some sort of religion can help you better understand the world as well...that person would proabably be a Bhuddist =)

I'm not negating science at ALL. Evolution DOES exsist, but humans used to be sludge? That part requires just as much faith as religion does. We have more chromosomes alike to a starfish and more skeletal similarities to a dolphin rather than some apes. I feel some have pushed the humans came from apes story as hard as others have pushed that we started as Adam and Eve.

I also think spirituality has become this evil buzz word and gets completely ignored. There is value to both sides. Meditation has proven to lower blood pressure when medicine couldn't. People have been miraculously healed. Scientists have become Christians while they were trying to disprove religious theories.

Humans didn't use to be sludge, and we didn't come from apes. Humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. But humans were always humans, as apes were always apes.

"We have more chromosomes alike to a starfish and more skeletal similarities to a dolphin rather than some apes." I'll need to see the source to properly put in context.

Can't both sides just admit that there is so much unknown? Why is science more useful than spirtuality? I think they can coexsist nicely.

There are no atheists in the trenches. But you also can't build a bridge on faith.

[Blitzgal]

Originally Posted by DWarrior

Humans didn't use to be sludge, and we didn't come from apes. Humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. But humans were always humans, as apes were always apes.

Also, the "humans come from apes" trope is a willful misrepresentation of evolution that is pushed by creationists.

[stulagu]

Originally Posted by DWarrior

Humans didn't use to be sludge, and we didn't come from apes. Humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. But humans were always humans, as apes were always apes.

"We have more chromosomes alike to a starfish and more skeletal similarities to a dolphin rather than some apes." I'll need to see the source to properly put in context.

There are no atheists in the trenches. But you also can't build a bridge on faith.

Dolphins have thumbs, two legs that make up their tail, a belly button, their blowhole is two nostrils, they even have hair, and they have sex for pleasure. They are a lot more physically similar (especially in body to brain ratio) than most apes.

The chromosomes with a starfish will be harder for me to find, I wrote my research paper over a decade ago. (I'm editing here...adding that a lot of the starfish/human studies are based on limb regrowth...there are enough similarities between the two species that scientists are really researching it. Though science also says that horses and bats have more similar dna than horses and cows...so...)

The big bang theorists totally believe that all life came from primordial sludge, and where did the common ancestor come from then?

[stulagu]

Originally Posted by Blitzgal

Also, the "humans come from apes" trope is a willful misrepresentation of evolution that is pushed by creationists.

My sister was taught this in public college...I totally believe evolution exsists. I'm saying, though, that teaching our beginnings with evolution is the same as teaching it started from a heavenly being. Neither can be proven or disproven.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by stulagu

Dolphins have thumbs, two legs that make up their tail, a belly button, their blowhole is two nostrils, they even have hair, and they have sex for pleasure. They are a lot more physically similar (especially in body to brain ratio) than most apes.

The chromosomes with a starfish will be harder for me to find, I wrote my research paper over a decade ago. (I'm editing here...adding that a lot of the starfish/human studies are based on limb regrowth...there are enough similarities between the two species that scientists are really researching it. Though science also says that horses and bats have more similar dna than horses and cows...so...)

That just demonstrates that a posteriori knowledge is not certain. Constructing an ancestral tree requires some guesswork and IRL we only get degrees of certainty.

John Locke called...

The big bang theorists totally believe that all life came from primordial sludge, and where did the common ancestor come from then?

There is a difference between "came from" and "used to be"

[JSZilla]

This is one of the most interesting reads I've had on here since picking XrabbitX's brain for saying he was a Gnostic Christian(they still live?!). I have a whole new respect for stulagu and even wanna pick her brain on this lol. I'm also surprised to see so many people actually understand where the Old Testament came from and some of that other inside baseball bullshit. Shit, I may have to read more posts on here.

I'm not used to seeing this on a regular; not in this state atleast lol. Hell I was asked this morning what I thought about the Democratic Convention. And was promptly told how the parties are identical and the Illuminati controls them both.

Yep.