Subject:
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Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 22 Jul 2004 19:19:08 GMT
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Viewed:
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1971 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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Before I attempt this documentation, can you give me an idea of what would
qualify as acceptable to you? Honestly, a scientific theory that can be
falsified is, as an explanatory device, superior to non-falsifiable
statements of faith, so I don’t understand why you would reject that kind of
documentation.
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Truthfully? I’m not sure you can, in much the same way that it’s currently
impossible to disprove the existence of ET life in the universe. I’m just
pointing out the hypocrisy of using unprovable statements to disprove other
unprovable statements. If you can’t prove the temporal origin of both Judeism
(by some means other than using information found in the Bible), and the
relative precepts of Judeism, you can’t prove that said precepts predate
Judeism. Therefore, you can’t say that those precepts predate Judeism as a way
of disproving the idea that the US was founded upon a Judeo-Christian heritage,
unless you can prove that they were universal to every and all historical
cultures. Since I’ve already pointed out examples where protection from murder
and theft were not considered to be inalienable human rights, I can’t see how
you could do that either.
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Which is why science provides a better explanatory model of the universe than
does religion, as I’ve been saying for years. Man’s understanding has grown,
so the theory is revised.
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Science can’t disprove religion anymore than religion can disprove science.
Religion mostly learned that lesson with Galileo, but very little of Science has
had that sufficiently beaten into their skulls. The big difference is that
Religion has never been able to say how life works, and Science hasn’t yet
been able to offer an explanation as to why life exists, nor has Science been
able to create life from not-life. Besides, I follow the theory of
creation-by-evolution (it’s kinda hard not to, with the recent discovery of the
Darwin Birds), so that arguement doesn’t hold much weight with me.
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Is there a religious figure (of authority comparable to Hawking) now or in
the recent past who similarly recanted? What was the impact upon religion?
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Religion is fundamentally philosophical, and the varied nature of the world’s
religions effectively rules out the possibility of a single person holding the
same level of authority in terms of religion as Hawking does in terms of
science.
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No no no. The state’s fallback stance is that the state has no authority to
endorse any religion or non-religion; the state simply has no business
entering into that debate, except in terms of protecting religious liberty.
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Newdow managed to get the Pledge of Allegiance outlawed from schools in the 9th
District. Public school faculty and staff are not allowed to freely practice
their religion while on school grounds. By prohibiting non-atheist religions
from free practice, the state is lending de facto support to atheism, and that’s
no different than saying you aren’t required to have a picture of Jesus or a
statue of Buddha in your office, you aren’t allowed to not have one.
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I’ll accept that, but then someone has to tell me why it’s valid to claim
that portions of the NT (which Jews recognize and an appendix to the bible)
supersedes existing portions of the OT.
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Alright, here’s the biggest one of all. OT law says you must sacrifice sheep to
cleanse your sins. NT law says God sent his son to take care of all that messy
fuss for you. Pretty much all of the changes between OT and NT law rely on that
one act for some level of justification.
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How can our “Judeo-Christian” foundation accommodate these disparate
worldviews?
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Because it’s based on the morals, but not the worship. It is therefore able to
accomodate the inclusion of morals derived from other religions as well. I’m
not saying that the ideals used as a basis for our government are exclusive to
the Judeo-Christian heritage, but if you buy a LEGO set at Wal-Mart, to say that
you actually got it from Toys”R”Us would be fundamentally untrue.
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Nitpick. Atheism is not a religion, inasmuch as the lack of a tennis ball is
not a tennis ball.
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The Romans felt the same way about the number “O” (the lack of a number is not a
number), but modern mathematics has proven that to be untrue. Atheism is not an
organized religion in the way that Humanism is, but it is a religion in the
sense that you are willfully stating your belief that all other religions are
untrue. Only if you neither believe in “god” (where “god” is whatever
supernatural power that you may choose, as compared to Yhwh specifically) nor in
“not-god” (the absolute nonexistence of any supernatural entity) can you
legitimately claim true non-religious status. It’s the difference between
negative apathy and true neutral apathy (pantheists would be the people with
positive apathy, if you’re wondering).
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The “foundation” issue comes to a head when you try to draw lines claiming
that “this” but “not that” is part of the foundation. I see no reason, other
than political convenience, to draw these lines as they are generally drawn.
Absurd? Perhaps, but it’s still true, and that’s the problem.
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Christians see the life, actions, and revelations of Jesus as defining a new law
for Judeism. Muslims see the life, actions, and revelations of Mohammed as
defining a new law for Judeism. Even the biblical Hebrew people split on a
fundamental religious level when Judea split off from Israel. The only thing
I’m not sure of is how the modern Judeic faith has evolved so far from biblical
times, to the point of even trading pharisees and sadducees for rabbi.
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