OT: Jibjab, Politics, the Big Bang and more!

[Zapmeister]

Oh goodie, a religious flamefest! Count me in

Originally posted by Boron:
the claiming of the catholic church that it is the one and only true belief is just offending to me .

On the other hand, there is at most one distinct religious belief that is true. And many Groups (not just the Catholic church) claim that theirs is it. If anyone finds this offensive, they can count on being offended rather a lot.

It's better, I think, to understand that religious belief is, by its nature, exclusive. Religious tolerance is a good thing, of course, but largely out of reach of heavily committed religious people.

what about that :
the jews already believed in god thousands of years before the catholic church was founded . so their claiming to be the first true and only belief is historical legitimated .

Catholicism is not defined and distinguished by a belief in one god. Both Judaism and Islam share this belief. It's the Catholic interpretation of scripture, most particularly around the person of Jesus and his mother, that defines the Catholic faith. And all of that could be true, even if all Jewish belief prior to Jesus was also true. The first 5 books of the Bible are, after all, Jewish scripture.

furthermore jesus founded the catholic church but he has gotten pretty unimportant in the catholic belief .

Actually, I think Peter founded the Catholic Church as a vehicle to facilitate the worship of Jesus. But yes, it's interesting to note the emphasis that has been placed on Mary at the expense, some would say, to Jesus himself.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
Oh goodie, a religious flamefest! Count me in

Me too!

Voodoo, astrology, palm-reading, numerology, Scientology, Unification, Judeo-Christianity-Islam, et cetera. It's all myth, superstition, and outright bunk. Pablum for the masses and power/wealth for the clerics.

Have I offended *everyone*? If not, I need to try harder. All of you take the above nonsense far too seriously.

-- Arryn, resident agnostic.

[Zapmeister]

Originally posted by Arryn:
It's all myth, superstition, and outright bunk.

If you believe this, then you're not ...

-- Arryn, resident agnostic.

... you're a strong atheist. Agnostics believe that the question of the existence of god(s) is intrinsically unsolvable, as opposed to "bunk".

I classify myself as an "agnostic weak atheist", i.e. someone who regards the problem as unsolvable and, in addition, has not adopted a religious faith. Agnostic theists exist - people who know there's no way of proving it but choose to believe in a god anyway.

[Norfleet]

I think there are really two fundamental questions about a "god" or other related being.

Firstly, does one exist? It has not been proved that one does, and it's obviously an impossibility to prove that such a thing cannot exist.

However, the real question is....assuming such a thing does exist, is it deserving of worship? This is a question we certainly CAN answer. Personally, I have to say that the answer is "no". I cannot attribute anything I'd actually be thankful about that has occurred in my life to anything other than my own efforts, so I can't say I'd find any such being deserving of my worship. I'd like to see some verifiable miracles before I start worshipping anyone. It should be noted that, technically, an evil miracle is still a miracle, and while highly effective at inducing belief, tends to produce more terror than actual worshipfulness. Which is probably more amusing anyway.

[ July 28, 2004, 06:06: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Zapmeister]

Originally posted by Boron:


but if you think about it the guidlines of the church HAVE been wrong before (flat earth, anyone?) and could easily be wrong again. Thats no reason to cut all ties with the organization that you might respect and love deeply.

so a question : galilei was the one who discovered that . i am pretty sure you know the story . the catholic church forced him to deny his ideas . he did .

but now some hundred years later the pope spoke galilei holy .


Actually, I think most of the stories about people thinking the world is flat are apocryphal. Certainly, the Greeks knew it was round and the flat earth was not the reason Galileo was persecuted.

The issue there was whether the Sun or the Earth lay at the centre of the solar system. Catholic teaching demanded that it be the Earth, but Galileo knew otherwise.

And yes, official recognition of the error was only forthcoming from the Catholic church in recent times.

[Zapmeister]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
However, the real question is....assuming such a thing does exist, is it deserving of worship?

You assume here a system of ethics, a judgement of who "deserves" what, independant of the god in a godfull universe. There's no agreement on that. Many people argue that if there is a god, then that god defines and dictates the only system of ethics that can be used for such judgements.

In other words, God deserves worship if He says He does.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arryn:
It's all myth, superstition, and outright bunk.

If you believe this, then you're not

---

Wrong. You have confused religion, which is the practice of worship and a system of beliefs, with the question of the existence or non-existence of a deity. It is possible to accept the existence of (some) god, yet not accept *any* of the beliefs commonly associated with that entity, including human-written codices and bureaucratic power structures.

The question of whether a god may or may not exist is a question of philosophy and science. Only after you accept the existence of something does belief (or religion, if you prefer) enter into the picture. It's a fallacy to confuse belief with logic, and philosophy & science deal with logic, not dogma.

Atheism is no different than any other religion. They have come to conclusions (100% sure of things one way or another) about that for which no logical proof has be obtained. IOW, their minds are closed. Or if I want to be really nasty about it, they're drones, tools to be used for the gratification of religious leaders (be they seeking wealth, power, destruction, or whatever).

-- Arryn, resident agnostic.