Intelligent Design ruling

[Pyrrho]

Yes. If read that way, the atheist is speaking not only for himself, but for the believer as well...a problem in and of itself.

I guess my problem is more forensic. I can argue (debate and converse) all day, even about religion, or in this case an atheist's non sequitor "argument" (It's really not an argument at all since he gives no reason). The atheist has hypothesized that once an explanation is given for nonbelief in all other gods, it will follow that a non belief in God is reasonable. That does not necessarily follow. It especially does not follow since he has not given any reason, he is simply trying to persuade. The atheist has made a statement, not a well developed argument.

Nevetheless, my point remains that "true faith" cannot be proven or disproven like a mathematical equation. It simply is.

I think the point the atheist is trying to make is this: If you are a monotheist, with respect to all other gods, you are like the atheist. Why is it that you don't believe in those gods? If you have any real reasons to deny their existence, it is likely that similar reasons will apply to the god in which you believe. But the first step in deciding whether the atheist is right or not is in the monotheist explaining why he or she does not believe in other gods. Of course, the monotheist can simply be dogmatic and irrational, rejecting most gods and accepting one for no reason worthy of the name "reason". But there may be actual reasons one has in not believing in Zeus et al.

As for true faith, you might find the following interesting (particularly the essay by Clifford):

http://www.ethicsofbelief.com

 

[Pyrrho]

Just came across this quote:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - - Stephen Roberts

Makes some sense - any comments?

Yes, it makes a lot of sense. If you are a monotheist, with respect to all other gods, you are like the atheist. (You are, in effect, an atheist with respect to all of the other gods.) Why is it that you don't believe in those other gods? If you have any real reasons to deny their existence, it is likely that similar reasons will apply to the god in which you believe.

Of course, most people don't bother with really thinking about these things too much, and just believe basically what they were told when they were young rather than do anything like making a fair and balanced assessment of the facts. Thus, if you were born in Saudi Arabia, you are likely to believe that Mohamed is the Prophet of God, and if you were born in the U.S., you are likely to disbelieve that, and believe that Jesus was the son of God. And if you were born in Greece 2400 years ago, you are likely to have believed in Zeus and others. Obviously, simply believing what you were told when you were young is not rational, and likely to lead to error. It is, however, very common. At most, one religion is perfectly correct, and there is no one religion that is believed by most people; consequently, most people are necessarily wrong about religious matters.

William Kingdon Clifford had some interesting things to say about such matters:

http://www.ethicsofbelief.com/

 

[krabapple]

First understand that people have a right to believe whatever they choose to...at least in this country.

So, again ...granting that we're *allowed* to believe whatever the hell we want (I never said otherwise..though of course we are not free to *act on* every belief) ...do you accord all beliefs the same *respect* ? And if not, why?

And let us not confuse religious beliefs with political, social, economic, etc.

Why do religious beliefs get special dispensation? For a fact, 'social and political' beliefs have at times become indistinguishable from religious beliefs.
And what about peopel who believe religious beliefs should inform ALL THE OTHERS?

While we can argue about the latter, we should not argue about the former (other than in structured and civil engagements). Otherwise, you risk offending and alienating a whole bunch of people.

LOL. So...we are free to believe, but not to argue? Is this what got Galileo in so much trouble?

And to answer your question, no. When a political, economic or social belief impinges on the rights of others, it is undesserving of unfettered support.

And what if a religious belief does the same?

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Yes, it makes a lot of sense. If you are a monotheist, with respect to all other gods, you are like the atheist. (You are, in effect, an atheist with respect to all of the other gods.) Why is it that you don't believe in those other gods? If you have any real reasons to deny their existence, it is likely that similar reasons will apply to the god in which you believe.

Of course, most people don't bother with really thinking about these things too much, and just believe basically what they were told when they were young rather than do anything like making a fair and balanced assessment of the facts. Thus, if you were born in Saudi Arabia, you are likely to believe that Mohamed is the Prophet of God, and if you were born in the U.S., you are likely to disbelieve that, and believe that Jesus was the son of God. And if you were born in Greece 2400 years ago, you are likely to have believed in Zeus and others. Obviously, simply believing what you were told when you were young is not rational, and likely to lead to error. It is, however, very common. At most, one religion is perfectly correct, and there is no one religion that is believed by most people; consequently, most people are necessarily wrong about religious matters.

William Kingdon Clifford had some interesting things to say about such matters:

http://www.ethicsofbelief.com/

Pyrrho,

I think you were on to something, but just a tad off towards the end. I can't speak for all religions, but I don't think Christians deny that Mohammed was a prophet - just as Moses and Abraham were. I also think Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, but not the son of God.

The Qur'an acknowledges that Jesus “was born miraculously” – that he had no “human” father. Christ did not have a “human” father, as indeed the Qur’an itself teaches (Sura 3.47; 19:20). However, the Qur’an further says that the new-born Jesus spoke to Mary and her people from “the cradle” and said: “I am indeed a servant of God: he has given me revelation and made me a prophet” (19:30).

Some other interesting notes I dug up on Jesus' existence and death:

Secular history confirms that Christ died. Josephus, the Jewish historian, refers to Jesus’ death (Antiquities 18.3.3). The Roman writer, Tacitus, said that Christ was “executed” by Pilate (Annals 15.44). The early enemies of Christianity, e.g., Celsus and Lucian, also conceded that Jesus was put to death, as did the Patristic writers of the ante-Nicean period.

Other interesting information on Jesus:

“. . . [N]one of the men whose names stand as symbols of the great religions - Zoroaster, Lao-tzu, Mahavira, Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed – made any use of miracles."

-A.E. Haydon, Ph.D., Professor of The History of Religions at the University of Chicago



Your website is not coming up. Do you have another link?

 

[krabapple]

Some other interesting notes I dug up on Jesus' existence and death:

Here's my search result:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html

isn't web-mining fun?

 

[Buckeye_Nut]

But there is that little matter left to us by our forefathers...namely, the separation of church and state. It's in the constitution.

The only thing the separation of church and state guarantees is that our government is not a religion based government, and it ensures that no citizen is persecuted for his/her religious belief.

Todays secularist movement is way off base......... Todays secularist movement is aiming to completely remove God from all facets of society, and transform our society into an amoral secularist society where God is completely absent from pubic view.

What's next????
Is the ACLU going to sue churches to force them to remove their crosses so that the stray muslim passerbyer wont be offended by the public display?? Hell, retail stores cant even hang Christmas symbols anymore during the holidays for fear of suffering the wrath of the 'anti-God' liberal organizations

PS..... Our forefathers often invoked the name of God during speeches and legislation. So much so that todays secularists would no doubt be quite offended. Imagine the nerve of them putting the name of God on public buildings, currency, etc..etc...etc.....

 

[3x10^8]

What's next????
Is the ACLU going to sue churches to force them to remove their crosses so that the stray muslim passerbyer wont be offended by the public display?? Hell, retail stores cant even hang Christmas symbols anymore during the holidays for fear of suffering the wrath of the 'anti-God' liberal organizations

Quite the opposite. Contrary to what many think, the ACLU is NOT the "Atheist Civil Liberties Union." The ACLU aims to protect the rights and civil liberties of all individuals, both religious and non. Freedom of religion just happens to be one of those individual,inalienable rights granted within the confines of our Constitution that the ACLU is fighting to protect. After all, the whole point of the separation of church and state is to prevent govermnental indoctrination of its people!?!? All the ACLU is saying is, "Hey man, back off! You believe what you want to believe and I'll believe what I want to believe." Fair enough?

How can this occur if it is a commonly held belief that our government is of a "theistic" or "Christian" persuasion. It can't, because our government is no longer peceived as an objective party, and therefore, loses all credibility. Our constitution was drafted with the intent of speaking for everyone, not a select number of people.

And btw, using stereotypical labels and broad generalizations such as "'anti-God' liberal organizations" does nothing to further your argument. In fact, it really weakens it. Sorry.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Jesus Could Have Walked on Ice, Scientist Says

Taken from Yahoo headline news

Sara Goudarzi
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Tue Apr 4, 2:00 PM ET

Rare conditions could have conspired to create hard-to-see ice on the Sea of Galilee that a person could have walked on back when Jesus is said to have walked on water, a scientist said today.

The study, which examines a combination of favorable water and environmental conditions, proposes that Jesus could have walked on an isolated patch of floating ice on what is now known as Lake Kinneret in northern
Israel.

Looking at temperature records of the Mediterranean Sea surface and using analytical ice and statistical models, scientists considered a small section of the cold freshwater surface of the lake. The area studied, about 10,000 square feet, was near salty springs that empty into it.

The results suggest temperatures dropped to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius) during one of the two cold periods 2,500 –1,500 years ago for up to two days, the same decades during which Jesus lived.

With such conditions, a floating patch of ice could develop above the plumes resulting from the salty springs along the lake's western shore in Tabgha. Tabgha is the town where many archeological findings related to Jesus have been found.

"We simply explain that unique freezing processes probably happened in that region only a handful of times during the last 12,000 years," said Doron Nof, a Florida State University Professor of Oceanography. "We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."

Nof figures that in the last 120 centuries, the odds of such conditions on the low latitude Lake Kinneret are most likely 1-in-1,000. But during the time period when Jesus lived, such “spring ice” may have formed once every 30 to 60 years.

Such floating ice in the unfrozen waters of the lake would be hard to spot, especially if rain had smoothed its surface.

"In today's climate, the chance of springs ice forming in northern Israel is effectively zero, or about once in more than 10,000 years," Nof said.

The findings are detailed in the April 2006 Journal of Paleolimnology.

* How Ice Melts: Longstanding Mystery Solved
* Photos Show It's True: No Two Snowflakes Alike
* Ice Ages Blamed on Tilted Earth
* New Phase of Ice Might Exist

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Amazing Images, Image Galleries, Interactive Features, Trivia and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Churchgoers Live Longer

Yahoo News:

Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com Mon Apr 3, 1:04 PM ET

There are many things you can do to increase your life expectancy: exercise, eat well, take your medication and ... go to church.

A new study finds people who attend religious services weekly live longer. Specifically, the research looked at how many years are added to life expectancy based on:

* Regular physical exercise: 3.0-to-5.1 years
* Proven therapeutic regimens: 2.1-to-3.7 years
* Regular religious attendance: 1.8-to-3.1 years

The role of religion

The study, which is actually a review of existing research from the three categories, does not reveal what the link between faith and health might be.

"Religious attendance is not a mode of medical therapy," said study leader Daniel Hall, a resident in general surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "While this study was not intended for use in clinical decision making, these findings tell us that there is something to examine further."

Hall is also an Episcopal priest.

"The significance of this finding may prove to be controversial," he said. "But at the very least, it shows that further research into the associations between religion and health might have implications for medical practice."

In a telephone interview, Hall speculated that the social aspect of religion could play a role in the results: "There is something about being knit into the type of community that religious communities embody that has a way of mediating a positive health effect," he told LiveScience. Perhaps, he said, being involved in a religion "can then decrease your level of stress in life or increase your ability to cope with stress."

Another possibility: "Being in a religious community helps you make meaning out of your life," Hall suggested.

The findings are detailed in the March-April issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

Cost-effective

Hall also looked at the cost of these three approaches, examining typical gym membership fees, therapy costs from health insurance companies and census data on average household contributions to religious institutions. The estimated cost of each year of additional life apparently gained by each method:

* Regular physical exercise: $4,000
* Proven therapeutic regimens: $10,000
* Regular religious attendance: $7,000

Hall cautions that few conclusions can be drawn from his study, and that further research is needed. "There is no evidence that changing religious attendance causes a change in health outcomes," he said.

But he said doctors and researchers might want to think of religiousness as a demographic factor.

"For example," he writes in the journal, "the incidence of gastric cancer is higher among Japanese men, and knowledge of this fact might guide a physician to initiate early and frequent screening for gastric cancer among male Japanese patients."

* Optimists Live Longer
* Prayer Does Not Help Heart Bypass Patients
* Altruistic Love Related to Happier Marriages
* The Truth Behind the Shroud of Turin

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Amazing Images, Image Galleries, Interactive Features, Trivia and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!

 

[Sheep]

Oh Buck(eyefan_1), you sure know how to dig up the crap.

SheepStar

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Oh Buck(eyefan_1), you sure know how to dig up the crap.

SheepStar

Hey, these are headline news items of the day. I use yahoo mail, and I swear to you I don't dig. They are always one of the top 5 stories.

BTW, do you attend church?

 

[Sheep]

Phhhhhffffffttttt..... no.

I went to a christmas play once and nearly threw-up. They wanted money for the "taxing performance" we saw, but it was performed by members from the church, and it sucked.

SheepStar

 

[krabapple]

Presumably many of you saw the much more publicized article last week about the *failure* of the latest study to prove that being prayed for helped cardiac patients get better? Ironically, prayer was actually correlated with some patients getting *worse* (perhaps because they felt anxious that they were 'letting down' their intercessors).

 

[majorloser]

* Regular physical exercise: 3.0-to-5.1 years
* Proven therapeutic regimens: 2.1-to-3.7 years
* Regular religious attendance: 1.8-to-3.1 years


If you add that up, I'll die 6.9 to 11.9 years earlier than the rest of you.

Hey, but doesn't the saying go, "Only the good die young"?

 

[BMO]

There is no mention of religon in the Constitution except that" Congress shall make no law in the establishment of religon , or free exercise there of "
It is also an established fact that all elected officials in the early years of our nation where Christians, maybee not the same dominations, but definatley christians. It is also a fact that if a State wanted to establish a religon within it boarders , it could without the interference of the Federal Government.
Seperation of Church and State became the rally point of the Anti- Christians. It was mentioned in a letter from Thomas Jefferson ( Gov. of Virginia) to a Minister who asked if Virginia was going to establish a religon.The Minister asking the question was not the same domination as Jefferson.

 

[BMXTRIX]

...It is also an established fact that all elected officials in the early years of our nation where Christians...

I believe this is a heavily disputed 'fact' as it is believed that many were aetheists or agnostics. Not that it matters. I believe that this country was founded by those persecuted for their beliefs - yet it happens these days. I don't have a problem with churches, with different religions, with public displays funded by private, non-government institutions.

I do have questions about public displays, affirming specific religions, that are funded by public tax dollars on public land. It becomes a question of ethically how a government can determine which religions it approves or disapproves of and how it will split funds properly. WITHOUT discriminating against those who believe something differently. Do you treat all religions the same? Do you divide funds set for religious activities by percentage of participation? Do you just keep tax dollars completely separate?

I think those are real questions to address and I find it very questionable how those in public office have abused their office to push their religion forward and onto the public in a way that was not done when this country was founded. This specifically includes the mentioning of God on our currency and in The Pledge - neither of which existed when originally established.

 

[Pyrrho]

Pyrrho,

I think you were on to something, but just a tad off towards the end. I can't speak for all religions, but I don't think Christians deny that Mohammed was a prophet - just as Moses and Abraham were. I also think Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, but not the son of God.



Some other interesting notes I dug up on Jesus' existence and death:



Other interesting information on Jesus:



-A.E. Haydon, Ph.D., Professor of The History of Religions at the University of Chicago



Your website is not coming up. Do you have another link?

I think you should try the link again, as it should be coming up. If it fails, you can try:

http://ajburger.homestead.com/ethics.html

As for Mohamed being a prophet of God, I really think most Christians deny this. You could just ask a few of them what they think, but the fact that they do not tend to regard the Koran as Holy text is very suggestive that they do not regard him the same as any of the prophets in the Bible.

As for Jesus being a prophet, I did not say that Muslims disbelieved that. But I think they tend to disbelieve that Jesus was the Son of God.

The point being, of course, that Christianity and Islam are different religions, and therefore there are different beliefs and practices. (If they had the same beliefs and practices, they would be the same religion.) Indeed, within each of those broad categories, there are many different religions, as there are many different versions of Christianity and many different versions of Islam.

Regarding the ancient writings about Christianity from non-Christians, it is useful to note the exact date of them, as, for example, something written 100 years after Jesus' supposed date of death may seem almost equally ancient now, but obviously was not written by an eye witness to anything. You might also find krabapple's link interesting:

Here's my search result:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html

isn't web-mining fun?

 

[krabapple]

There is no mention of religon in the Constitution except that" Congress shall make no law in the establishment of religon , or free exercise there of "
It is also an established fact that all elected officials in the early years of our nation where Christians, maybee not the same dominations, but definatley christians. It is also a fact that if a State wanted to establish a religon within it boarders , it could without the interference of the Federal Government.
Seperation of Church and State became the rally point of the Anti- Christians. It was mentioned in a letter from Thomas Jefferson ( Gov. of Virginia) to a Minister who asked if Virginia was going to establish a religon.The Minister asking the question was not the same domination as Jefferson.

Read 'Freethinkers' by Susan Jacoby. It's a history of 'free thought' in the USA. It turns out periods of 'free thought' alternate with periods of religious fervor. We are very fortunate that the Constitution was written during one of the former periods. The Founders were mostly Deists -- they believed in a God who set the universe in motion then essentially stepped back and let it run. They were very concerned to avoid the appearance of government-backed religion and to avoid the interference of goverment *in* religion -- and 'evangelical' christian groups of the time backed that strongly, because they didn't want government interfering with their religion; they certainly didn't want government supporting a Christian sect that might be differerent from theirs!

The moment didn't last very long -- by 1800 we were back in a period of religious revival. We Americans should be ever-thankful that
the Founders acted when they did.

Currently I'm reading 'American Theocracy' by Republican strategist Kevin Phillips, which among other things describes the pernicious effect that 'end times' evangelical Christian religious belief has had on our country , particularly since Bush II (who appears to agree with these crazy notions) came into office.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Yahoo News:

Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com Mon Apr 3, 1:04 PM ET

See what strife religion is brought to the world? Yet another world conflict is looming over it.
When will humanity wake up?

 

[Buckle-meister]

See what strife religion is brought to the world?

Rubbish. People were knocking lumps out of each other long before religion ever came along.