Subject:
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Re: Mercy? (Was Re: My Prayer on this National Day of Prayer)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 17 Sep 2001 02:59:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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1525 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Ian Warfield writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
> > And, remember, if God created all and is omnipotent, God
> > also created evil and possesses the power to destroy it at
> > any time. Evil is not merely the absence of good.
> >
> > ...if you have real scientific evidence--not Creationist chestnuts, but real
> > bonafide evidence, that points to the existence of the Christian God and
> > *could not point to anything else*, that would be the greatest find
> > in recorded history.
>
> See http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=12873 for a start.
> Incidentally, Jesus was God in the flesh, and we have the recorded history
> right in the Bible.
Sorry, that's not recorded history. It's a literary
chronicle--"history" as we know it today was part of
the Greco-Roman tradition, not the Judaeo-Christian one.
That, and the synoptic gospels have significant problems
innate to their production. We don't even need to discuss
the problems inherent in the canonification of Biblical
books, do we? The truth of the Bible's fantastic claims
is dependent on believing those writing and selecting its
books were divinely inspired. Both are unprovable--some
of the historical details can be corroborated, but that's
because the Bible rested its veneer of veracity upon known
place names and personal names, and a functionalist account
of actual events. Then, as now, the Bible is often propaganda.
Embellishment, by the way, is quite common in historical
chronicles. It's common in modern writing as well!
Read the collected stories that we call the "Epic of
Gilgamesh" to see what I mean.
> > Religion operates within a faith paradigm. For example, if a miracle
> > occurred that sufficiently defied natural laws (e.g., the planes stopping
> > just inches from the WTC walls) then I think your postulate about people not
> > understanding would be moot.
>
> Possibly so. But then the hijackers would be making the accusations. God
> loves even them so much that He does not deny them their free will.
Then God can't act at all--not in *any* way. Why would there
be any divine inspiration at *all* if God's Prime Directive
exists? Or is this God picking and choosing his battles as
a capricious Roman deity might?
> > When science tries to make statements about the existence of God, or when
> > religion tries to make statements about the conclusions of science (note: I'm
> > not saying the *practice* here, because religion does come into bioethics
> > quite strongly)
>
> Ah, but you bring up another point of contention here. If there was no God,
> there would be no objective standard of right and wrong, which would leave
> the moral system in bioethics completely without a logical foundation.
Sure. Then science would be conducted functionally with a specific
goal in mind rather than navigating a minefield of subjective
moralities. Bioethics exists because of the need to navigate
subjective religion. The existence or non-existence of a God
doesn't even come into the picture--only the existence of religion,
which isn't really doubtable unless one is a serious nihilist (in
which case one has much much bigger problems ;) ).
And there *is* no objective standard of right and wrong, merely
what we agree as a collective people is allowable and what is not.
The reason most morality on the planet is similar is because that's
what promotes the continuation and growth of societies, not the
other way around--and it varies depending on the regional specifics,
which is one of the reasons we have anthropologists and sociologists.
I'd like to think there's a recognition of the communal and spiritual
common to human societies, but there's no proof of that much less
the dogmatic basis of mainstream Judaeo-Christian religion.
> > they're on really really really shaky ground that I'd argue is really quite
> > indefensible.
>
> Not always. There is a lot of junk science and junk religion floating
> around, which can distract people from what is actually valid.
I'm pretty well-qualified to know the difference where science is
concerned. Scientific Creation = junk science, more clearly in
its YEC variety but often also in its OEC variant.
As for junk religion, how does one decide what junk religion is?
I have a feeling it's more subjective than most of us would like
to think.
best
LFB
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