MPaul: the reason Christianity is dying on the vine

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Comments

  • LeRocLeRoc Shipmate
    Golden Key is right of course. Another valid rebuke is: the important things we should understand and envision about the Incarnation aren't the details about Jesus's DNA.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    LeRoc wrote: »
    Golden Key is right of course. Another valid rebuke is: the important things we should understand and envision about the Incarnation aren't the details about Jesus's DNA.

    Doesn't the "H" in "Jesus H. Christ" stand for "haploid"?
  • I'm a simple soul, so ISTM not unreasonable to accept that G(g)od(s), should He/She/They exist, and being the Creator(s) of All That Is, Seen and Unseen, was/were able to manage to impregnate Our Blessed Lady, through the 'operation' (I think the term is) of His/Her/Their Holy Spirit.

    Simple? Ah, well..... :neutral:
  • New Atheists like Colin Smith are as interesting as drying paint. You realise that to the denizens you are not much more than a new chew toy, don't you Colin? SusanDoris never seems too have grasped that.
    What I really want to know is - was Betts' account really hacked?

    I'm not a new atheist.
  • LeRoc wrote: »
    @Colin Smith Suppose that you are on a bulletin board of Star Wars fans. And a couple of people on there are discussing whether Han Solo shot first in the Cantina. They are talking between them about things like what the expression in his face was, where his hands were etc.

    From your Atheist point of view, there isn't a real difference between two Christians having a discussion about God, or two Star Wars fans discussing Han Solo. To you, in both cases people are discussing an imaginary character that doesn't really exist.

    Would you barge into the Star Wars discussion asking for evidence that a blaster really exists? Would the people discussing there need to preface everything they say with "we imagine Han Solo; we don't have evidence of his existence"?

    Or would you accept this as a thought experiment: "What if what we see in the Star Wars movies were real?" and then maybe we can have an interesting discussion about that.


    (PS He absolutely shot first.)

    In that context, no. Hans Solo is fictional and any act credited to him exists within a fictional universe. My issue was specifically with the statement "God created time, space, and gender" which takes real things in the real world for which we have adequate scientific explanations that do not require a spiritual element and credits them to a God. In so doing it undermines the scientific worldview. I have no issue with people saying they believe in god or even that god exists because I accept that for them there is a god. I do dislike it when believers in a God grab things that are in the realm of science.
  • New Atheists like Colin Smith are as interesting as drying paint. You realise that to the denizens you are not much more than a new chew toy, don't you Colin? SusanDoris never seems too have grasped that.
    What I really want to know is - was Betts' account really hacked?

    I'm not a new atheist.

    Okay then.
  • Can you address God with a female pronoun?

    Yes of course. Borrowing from John Macquarrie's work Mediators Between Human and Divine: From Moses to Muhammad (1996) and anthropology we can argue that regardless of whether there is or is not a God/gods all approaches towards and interpretations of God (what Macquarrie calls "Divine") are valid in terms of meeting the needs of a particular society worshipping that God or gods. It also follows that no approach or interpretation is 100% accurate or objective.

    So, the God described in the Bible is identified as male because those describing it were male members of a patriarchal society who applied their social norms to God.

    We, however, live in a society which is much more egalitarian concerning the roles and influence of men and women so it's reasonable for those who wish to worship God to use a different approach or interpretation of God than that used by the ancient Hebrews.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    In English we cannot address God with a female (or male) pronoun, because the English pronoun for addressing people is 'you,' which is non-gender-specific. Gender-specific pronouns only come into play when we are referring to someone in the third person.
  • fineline wrote: »
    In English we cannot address God with a female (or male) pronoun, because the English pronoun for addressing people is 'you,' which is non-gender-specific. Gender-specific pronouns only come into play when we are referring to someone in the third person.

    I meant refer to. Curses this inability to edit.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    New Atheists like Colin Smith are as interesting as drying paint. You realise that to the denizens you are not much more than a new chew toy, don't you Colin? SusanDoris never seems too have grasped that.
    What I really want to know is - was Betts' account really hacked?

    I'm not a new atheist.

    Okay then.

    And yet, he asserts stupid basic errors like:
    I do dislike it when believers in a God grab things that are in the realm of science.

    It takes a special kind of un-scientific n00b-atheist to set up "science" as a competitive religious-like entity. Science is a tool for refining knowledge, that's all. Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.

    @Colin Smith , I suggest you forego your defense of what you think of science, and leave it to the people who know stuff. Stay in your narrow, shallow lane.
  • RooK wrote: »

    And yet, he asserts stupid basic errors like:
    I do dislike it when believers in a God grab things that are in the realm of science.

    It takes a special kind of un-scientific n00b-atheist to set up "science" as a competitive religious-like entity. Science is a tool for refining knowledge, that's all. Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.

    @Colin Smith , I suggest you forego your defense of what you think of science, and leave it to the people who know stuff. Stay in your narrow, shallow lane.

    I probably do regard science as the only way to truth. In that sense I do have a religious attachment to it.

    Regarding "But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation." Far from being a limitation of science it points to our human need to find cause and purpose where it does not exist..
  • RooK wrote: »
    Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.
    I have not seen or heard it do or say so. If ideas are posited, they are all speculation. Speculation based on what is understood so far, but 'we don't know' is the only answer, for the moment, and might wel remain so for as long as the human species exists..

    @Colin Smith , I suggest you forego your defense of what you
  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    RooK wrote: »
    Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.
    <snip> If ideas are posited, they are all speculation. Speculation based on what is understood so far, but 'we don't know' is the only answer, for the moment, and might well remain so for as long as the human species exists..

    This.



  • I'm not sure what pre-time means, but I think that scientists are certainly enquiring into possible scenarios existing before this universe. Some people call it a primordial universe, but the big question is whether there are any testable data that have survived. If not, then it will be pure speculation.
  • If God created the world, She created whatever was around before the Big Bang too. God is not a scientific explanation. Scientific explanations work in the natural realm. God is by definition not in the natural realm. There is no conflict.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    I'm not sure what pre-time means, but I think that scientists are certainly enquiring into possible scenarios existing before this universe.

    That sounds like a contradiction in terms. Time is not some external thing to the universe, but part of it and, as Einstein demonstrated, closely bound up with space. Without time "before" becomes meaningless.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    I probably do regard science as the only way to truth. In that sense I do have a religious attachment to it.
    Welcome to frothing zealotville, population you.
    Regarding "But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation." Far from being a limitation of science it points to our human need to find cause and purpose where it does not exist..
    Hopefully you recognize how completely unscientific your stance is. This bothers me because all of the things I hate about religion are things you exhibit, except without any of the charm or history or occasional social benefit.
  • Dark KnightDark Knight Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    RooK wrote: »
    Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.
    I have not seen or heard it do or say so. If ideas are posited, they are all speculation. Speculation based on what is understood so far, but 'we don't know' is the only answer, for the moment, and might wel remain so for as long as the human species exists..

    The "so far" here is the part that tips your hand, and indicates that you are declaring a statement of faith. Science cannot, by definition, tell us anything about pre-time causation. This will not change at some future point. To presume science is capable of this is a category error. Any "answers" we may seek about pre-time causation, or anything before time, cannot come from science. Not now, not ever. Believing science will one day have the answer for questions the scientific method is incapable of addressing is simply an irrational scientism.

    Which is no doubt one of the reasons many here find your dogmatic atheism so tiresome.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    As promised to Mr. Clingford here –
    Ohher wrote: »
    Ohher wrote: »
    ...What IS the cause of dwindling attendance at mainstream churches? The vast cracks which have appeared in our social fabric, revealing the strains of ordinary people's commitments to the gospel message? ... The deepening sense of the uselessness of passive prayer and patient tolerance against the spreading, poisonous, Lewis-like shades of evil seeping into our work, our good deeds, our passions, our hopes?...
    I found the whole of your post thought-provoking, but would you unpack the above parts a bit so I can understand better.

    Thanks

    Pressed for time at the mo; will come back to this later.

    I’m back to attempt some unpacking. Let me just state for the record that I’m an agnostic rather than an atheist. My agnosticism wavers wildly between poles of belief and unbelief; that’s been true all my life. I am Alice’s queen, able to swallow six impossible things before breakfast, and equally capable of coughing them all back up by lunchtime. It drives me crazy and sends my family round the bend.

    Let me also correct an error in the above: “Lewis-like” should read “L’Engle-like.” The image I had in mind was from, I think, the Swiftly Tilting Planet series, where the children can view a poisonous, creeping shadow – evil itself – encompassing the earth.

    This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday (at least for many Christians), where we witness Jesus’s procession into Jerusalem. Christianity had not yet been born in any meaningful sense; Jesus was riding in (for certain Roman spectators, at least) as King of the Jews. He was riding in as a troublemaking Messiah wannabe, to establishment Jewish eyes. He was riding in as militant revolutionary leader about to throw off the Roman yoke to still other Jewish eyes.

    He was probably just a mere holiday spectacle, an idle entertainment to be forgotten about in the press of Passover preparations / celebrations, to many other eyes.

    The central question of who and what Jesus was/is becomes one part of the Christian dilemma.

    If, for you, Jesus is a radical, social-order-changing figure, well . . . the social order hasn’t actually changed much in 2000 years, has it? The Dominions and Powers seem pretty firmly in control.

    If, for you, Jesus is a healer, a teacher, a gentle shepherd, well . . . the teacher’s voice seems all but drowned out by an increasingly noisy and fractious world, doesn’t it? Especially when orange loudmouths claim to speak in his name.

    If, for you, Jesus is a rabble-rousing trouble-maker, well . . . he seems pretty well-contained, doesn’t he? Such trouble as his followers get up to doesn’t go very far or for very long.
    Here’s what happened: Christianity spread fast at first. Why? What gave it such power? Simple: Christianity promised a way out of the brute misery most of humanity lived in during those early years. Jesus would return, and bring with him the Kingdom of God! A God of mercy, and justice, and compassion, who would transform the world as we knew it upside down! Pain would turn to health! Grief would become joy! Hunger would be filled, and fear would be banished!

    And the early church accomplished some of these miracles, in small, local ways – and did so despite (or because of?) persecution. And the Church still does this work, in small local ways, all over this planet. As Hugal notes,
    Hugal wrote: »
    And yet lots of churches are food banks. Lots of churches are CAP centres. Lots of churches provide food to the homeless. Lots of churches are active in their community. We my local government wanted to distribute money and work out where the money was best spent they came to the churches. Churches provide Patent and Toddler groups, pensioners groups, I could go on. Doesn’t sound very self centred to me.

    But the world in which this church performs these admirable labors has ground on unchanged. The oppressor still oppresses. The greedy still devour the poor (more so than ever, in fact). Jesus has not returned.
    Hugal wrote: »

    I think that is only a part of the problem certainly here in Blighty. The main problem is that going to church is no longer what you do. It used to be you went to church full stop no questions. What we have now are actually people who believe. Those who went out of a sense of obligation are not going. You could say the church is leaner and fitter.

    You could, but what is it leaner and fitter for? What is the church’s job, or mission, or role? What is it actually accomplishing? One could look at this situation and see an institution whose primary purpose is to help maintain society exactly as it is by keep malcontents from erupting into violence. While nobody (I hope) wants violence, is this really all we can manage?

    Meanwhile, Christianity spread, and grew and changed in ways large and small, taking in a custom here, adopting a belief there, accepting a practice somewhere else, until it began to fracture, at odds with itself. Some parts of the church took to the sword and the rack in spreading God’s, er, love. Some parts took to empowering the man-in-the-street, with literacy and education. Soon there was dissension and division throughout Christendom.

    Croesos mentions above the Frederick Douglas condemnation of the American church in supporting slavery. But slavery’s been abolished, hasn’t it? And the church played an important role in securing emancipation, didn’t it?

    Take a look at the lives of young Americans who go to college. Most are simply struggling to maintain a foothold in what’s known as the middle class, which is in reality nowhere near any middle; it’s just a bare step or two above destitution, and miles below the billionaire class. These youngsters are slaves in new shackles – forged of debt instead of chains. They’re indentured, many for decades, to corporate masters. What is the church doing about this?
    Hugal wrote: »

    I think that is only a part of the problem certainly here in Blighty. The main problem is that going to church is no longer what you do. It used to be you went to church full stop no questions. What we have now are actually people who believe. Those who went out of a sense of obligation are not going. You could say the church is leaner and fitter.

    And
    Mark Betts wrote: »

    However, Hugal does have a point worth making. Church-going used to be the thing "normal" people did - it was part of our culture. Now it is anti-cultural and you need to be strong-willed and thick skinned to hold on to your faith and continue going to church, while everyone else is shopping, working, or going to a car boot sale.

    But isn’t this simply saying what I’m pointing out, but in a different way? Isn’t this a frank admission that, where people once found hope and meaning and purpose, they no longer do? Christianity, at least in its institutional forms, has failed, and has adopted pre-existing prejudices it has encountered planet-wide. It has become what it started out hating.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Mark Betts wrote: »
    Technically it's probably right to say that God doesn't have a gender. However, how are we to understand or even envisage the Incarnation if Jesus had two mothers and no father?
    I suppose it takes some imagination - but I don't think of God as female, either. God is above and beyond gender; God just Is. It is Mystery.


  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    ...I have no issue with people saying they believe in god or even that god exists because I accept that for them there is a god. I do dislike it when believers in a God grab things that are in the realm of science.
    Really? What if we accept that God as Creator kicked off the Big Bang; God as Creator worked through evolution to create humanity? Or do you imagine we're all Bible-worshipping yahoos?

  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    RooK wrote: »
    Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.
    I have not seen or heard it do or say so. If ideas are posited, they are all speculation. Speculation based on what is understood so far, but 'we don't know' is the only answer, for the moment, and might wel remain so for as long as the human species exists..

    The "so far" here is the part that tips your hand, and indicates that you are declaring a statement of faith.
    Faith in what? My 'statement' is more of an observation, don't you think?
    Science cannot, by definition, tell us anything about pre-time causation.
    exactly what I said - science might speculate, but the ony answer is they/we don't know.
    This will not change at some future point
    This sounds like a claim which of course cannot be upheld.
    To presume science is capable of this is a category error.
    Who does presume this?
    Any "answers" we may seek about pre-time causation, or anything before time, cannot come from science. Not now, not ever.
    Why not?
    Believing science will one day have the answer for questions the scientific method is incapable of addressing is simply an irrational scientism.
    I agree. Any scientific investigation cannot start if there is not an observation to be made.
    Which is no doubt one of the reasons many here find your dogmatic atheism so tiresome.

  • Colin SmithColin Smith Suspended
    edited April 2019
    RooK wrote: »
    I probably do regard science as the only way to truth. In that sense I do have a religious attachment to it.
    Welcome to frothing zealotville, population you.
    Regarding "But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation." Far from being a limitation of science it points to our human need to find cause and purpose where it does not exist..
    Hopefully you recognize how completely unscientific your stance is. This bothers me because all of the things I hate about religion are things you exhibit, except without any of the charm or history or occasional social benefit.

    I suspect we will never agree on much. Let me say this. Science explains or has the capacity to explain everything about the nature and origin of the universe and everything in it, including humans. Belief in a god gives some humans a reason or purpose for their existence in that universe.

    Using God to explain the nature and origin of the universe and everything in it is a misguided as me trying to convince someone E=MC2 is a good reason to get up and smile each day.
  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    ...I have no issue with people saying they believe in god or even that god exists because I accept that for them there is a god. I do dislike it when believers in a God grab things that are in the realm of science.
    Really? What if we accept that God as Creator kicked off the Big Bang; God as Creator worked through evolution to create humanity? Or do you imagine we're all Bible-worshipping yahoos?

    Then I think you are wrong. Comparing the 13.7 billion year age of the universe with the relatively recent (2 million years or so) emergence of humans and their occupation of a small planet orbiting around one of a 100 thousand million stars in our galaxy which is only one of 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in the universe suggests that whoever or whatever it might have been that kick-started the universe wasn't focused on making humans.
  • Then I think you are wrong. Comparing the 13.7 billion year age of the universe with the relatively recent (2 million years or so) emergence of humans and their occupation of a small planet orbiting around one of a 100 thousand million stars in our galaxy which is only one of 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in the universe suggests that whoever or whatever it might have been that kick-started the universe wasn't focused on making humans.
    It is possible we are the only intelligent (I know) life in the universe - perhaps God was focused (not solely at all) on making intelligent life (not necessarily us as we know it).

    (That post had a fair few caveats).
  • Colin SmithColin Smith Suspended
    edited April 2019
    It is possible we are the only intelligent (I know) life in the universe - perhaps God was focused (not solely at all) on making intelligent life (not necessarily us as we know it).

    (That post had a fair few caveats).

    That is possible, though assuming God is and has always been the particular God Christians now worship (i.e. we shouldn't look to texts dealing with Zeus or Allah, or any other G(g)od or gods for guidance) and assuming we are made in God's image and therefore God is rational, the sheer size of the universe and duplication of stars and galaxies and the apparently bizarre route taken by evolution to arrive at us (assuming humans are the end point) leads me to say it's at the lower end of possible.

    NB.
    I recall reading somewhere that if we were to ever have contact from or make contact with another form of intelligent life (or maybe even any form of extraterrestrial life) it would cause problems for Christian, and probably other beliefs.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    Ohher wrote: »
    As promised to Mr. Clingford here –
    Ohher wrote: »
    Ohher wrote: »
    ...What IS the cause of dwindling attendance at mainstream churches? The vast cracks which have appeared in our social fabric, revealing the strains of ordinary people's commitments to the gospel message? ... The deepening sense of the uselessness of passive prayer and patient tolerance against the spreading, poisonous, Lewis-like shades of evil seeping into our work, our good deeds, our passions, our hopes?...
    I found the whole of your post thought-provoking, but would you unpack the above parts a bit so I can understand better.

    Thanks

    Pressed for time at the mo; will come back to this later.

    I’m back to attempt some unpacking. Let me just state for the record that I’m an agnostic rather than an atheist. My agnosticism wavers wildly between poles of belief and unbelief; that’s been true all my life. I am Alice’s queen, able to swallow six impossible things before breakfast, and equally capable of coughing them all back up by lunchtime. It drives me crazy and sends my family round the bend.

    Let me also correct an error in the above: “Lewis-like” should read “L’Engle-like.” The image I had in mind was from, I think, the Swiftly Tilting Planet series, where the children can view a poisonous, creeping shadow – evil itself – encompassing the earth.

    This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday (at least for many Christians), where we witness Jesus’s procession into Jerusalem. Christianity had not yet been born in any meaningful sense; Jesus was riding in (for certain Roman spectators, at least) as King of the Jews. He was riding in as a troublemaking Messiah wannabe, to establishment Jewish eyes. He was riding in as militant revolutionary leader about to throw off the Roman yoke to still other Jewish eyes.

    He was probably just a mere holiday spectacle, an idle entertainment to be forgotten about in the press of Passover preparations / celebrations, to many other eyes.

    The central question of who and what Jesus was/is becomes one part of the Christian dilemma.

    If, for you, Jesus is a radical, social-order-changing figure, well . . . the social order hasn’t actually changed much in 2000 years, has it? The Dominions and Powers seem pretty firmly in control.

    If, for you, Jesus is a healer, a teacher, a gentle shepherd, well . . . the teacher’s voice seems all but drowned out by an increasingly noisy and fractious world, doesn’t it? Especially when orange loudmouths claim to speak in his name.

    If, for you, Jesus is a rabble-rousing trouble-maker, well . . . he seems pretty well-contained, doesn’t he? Such trouble as his followers get up to doesn’t go very far or for very long.
    Here’s what happened: Christianity spread fast at first. Why? What gave it such power? Simple: Christianity promised a way out of the brute misery most of humanity lived in during those early years. Jesus would return, and bring with him the Kingdom of God! A God of mercy, and justice, and compassion, who would transform the world as we knew it upside down! Pain would turn to health! Grief would become joy! Hunger would be filled, and fear would be banished!

    And the early church accomplished some of these miracles, in small, local ways – and did so despite (or because of?) persecution. And the Church still does this work, in small local ways, all over this planet. As Hugal notes,
    Hugal wrote: »
    And yet lots of churches are food banks. Lots of churches are CAP centres. Lots of churches provide food to the homeless. Lots of churches are active in their community. We my local government wanted to distribute money and work out where the money was best spent they came to the churches. Churches provide Patent and Toddler groups, pensioners groups, I could go on. Doesn’t sound very self centred to me.

    But the world in which this church performs these admirable labors has ground on unchanged. The oppressor still oppresses. The greedy still devour the poor (more so than ever, in fact). Jesus has not returned.
    Hugal wrote: »

    I think that is only a part of the problem certainly here in Blighty. The main problem is that going to church is no longer what you do. It used to be you went to church full stop no questions. What we have now are actually people who believe. Those who went out of a sense of obligation are not going. You could say the church is leaner and fitter.

    You could, but what is it leaner and fitter for? What is the church’s job, or mission, or role? What is it actually accomplishing? One could look at this situation and see an institution whose primary purpose is to help maintain society exactly as it is by keep malcontents from erupting into violence. While nobody (I hope) wants violence, is this really all we can manage?

    Meanwhile, Christianity spread, and grew and changed in ways large and small, taking in a custom here, adopting a belief there, accepting a practice somewhere else, until it began to fracture, at odds with itself. Some parts of the church took to the sword and the rack in spreading God’s, er, love. Some parts took to empowering the man-in-the-street, with literacy and education. Soon there was dissension and division throughout Christendom.

    Croesos mentions above the Frederick Douglas condemnation of the American church in supporting slavery. But slavery’s been abolished, hasn’t it? And the church played an important role in securing emancipation, didn’t it?

    Take a look at the lives of young Americans who go to college. Most are simply struggling to maintain a foothold in what’s known as the middle class, which is in reality nowhere near any middle; it’s just a bare step or two above destitution, and miles below the billionaire class. These youngsters are slaves in new shackles – forged of debt instead of chains. They’re indentured, many for decades, to corporate masters. What is the church doing about this?
    Hugal wrote: »

    I think that is only a part of the problem certainly here in Blighty. The main problem is that going to church is no longer what you do. It used to be you went to church full stop no questions. What we have now are actually people who believe. Those who went out of a sense of obligation are not going. You could say the church is leaner and fitter.

    And
    Mark Betts wrote: »

    However, Hugal does have a point worth making. Church-going used to be the thing "normal" people did - it was part of our culture. Now it is anti-cultural and you need to be strong-willed and thick skinned to hold on to your faith and continue going to church, while everyone else is shopping, working, or going to a car boot sale.

    But isn’t this simply saying what I’m pointing out, but in a different way? Isn’t this a frank admission that, where people once found hope and meaning and purpose, they no longer do? Christianity, at least in its institutional forms, has failed, and has adopted pre-existing prejudices it has encountered planet-wide. It has become what it started out hating.

    Wow.
    :flushed:

    @Ohher, that's one of the most powerful sermons (!) I've heard/read recently.

    Eminently quotable......but I'd better not tell our Father NewPriest (inclusive and open-minded though he is).

    (BTW - I seem to be becoming more of a 'devout agnostic' as I get older. I may even get to be a Hell-bound Heretick™, but we shall see. Kyrie eleison, anyway).

  • I recall reading somewhere that if we were to ever have contact from or make contact with another form of intelligent life (or maybe even any form of extraterrestrial life) it would cause problems for Christian, and probably other beliefs.

    It was part of the prologue of Arthur Clarke's (I'm pretty certain I'm wrong, but it was definitely Clarke) Fountains of Paradise. Robotic starship passes through the solar system, tells us that God definitely doesn't exist, theistic religions pack up and go home, only Buddhism is left.

    There are so many things wrong with this atheist wank-fantasy that I don't know quite where to start, but suffice to say that this Christian is incredibly excited about contacting extra-terrestrial intelligent life.

    (/obligatory joke about the denizens of this board)
  • Mr ClingfordMr Clingford Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    Ohher wrote: »
    As promised to Mr. Clingford here –
    Ohher wrote: »
    Ohher wrote: »
    ...What IS the cause of dwindling attendance at mainstream churches? The vast cracks which have appeared in our social fabric, revealing the strains of ordinary people's commitments to the gospel message? ... The deepening sense of the uselessness of passive prayer and patient tolerance against the spreading, poisonous, Lewis-like shades of evil seeping into our work, our good deeds, our passions, our hopes?...
    I found the whole of your post thought-provoking, but would you unpack the above parts a bit so I can understand better.

    Thanks

    Pressed for time at the mo; will come back to this later.

    ...(Edited to save space)

    Thanks for that, Ohher. I am pondering on your post.
  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    RooK wrote: »
    Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.
    I have not seen or heard it do or say so. If ideas are posited, they are all speculation. Speculation based on what is understood so far, but 'we don't know' is the only answer, for the moment, and might wel remain so for as long as the human species exists..

    The "so far" here is the part that tips your hand, and indicates that you are declaring a statement of faith.
    Faith in what? My 'statement' is more of an observation, don't you think?
    Science cannot, by definition, tell us anything about pre-time causation.
    exactly what I said - science might speculate, but the ony answer is they/we don't know.
    This will not change at some future point
    This sounds like a claim which of course cannot be upheld.
    To presume science is capable of this is a category error.
    Who does presume this?
    Any "answers" we may seek about pre-time causation, or anything before time, cannot come from science. Not now, not ever.
    Why not?
    Believing science will one day have the answer for questions the scientific method is incapable of addressing is simply an irrational scientism.
    I agree. Any scientific investigation cannot start if there is not an observation to be made.
    Which is no doubt one of the reasons many here find your dogmatic atheism so tiresome.

    Dear Ganesha, what a mess of contradictions. You somehow managed to double down on your category error at the same time as claiming not to be making one.

    A failure of logic as perfect as this really needs to be stuffed and mounted.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    I recall reading somewhere that if we were to ever have contact from or make contact with another form of intelligent life (or maybe even any form of extraterrestrial life) it would cause problems for Christian, and probably other beliefs.

    It was part of the prologue of Arthur Clarke's (I'm pretty certain I'm wrong, but it was definitely Clarke) Fountains of Paradise. Robotic starship passes through the solar system, tells us that God definitely doesn't exist, theistic religions pack up and go home, only Buddhism is left.

    There are so many things wrong with this atheist wank-fantasy that I don't know quite where to start, but suffice to say that this Christian is incredibly excited about contacting extra-terrestrial intelligent life.

    (/obligatory joke about the denizens of this board)

    Clarke used the idea but I don't think that was where I read it. I agree it is a very odd kind of logic.
  • It is possible we are the only intelligent (I know) life in the universe - perhaps God was focused (not solely at all) on making intelligent life (not necessarily us as we know it).

    (That post had a fair few caveats).

    That is possible, though assuming God is and has always been the particular God Christians now worship (i.e. we shouldn't look to texts dealing with Zeus or Allah, or any other G(g)od or gods for guidance) and assuming we are made in God's image and therefore God is rational, the sheer size of the universe and duplication of stars and galaxies and the apparently bizarre route taken by evolution to arrive at us (assuming humans are the end point) leads me to say it's at the lower end of possible.

    NB.
    I recall reading somewhere that if we were to ever have contact from or make contact with another form of intelligent life (or maybe even any form of extraterrestrial life) it would cause problems for Christian, and probably other beliefs.

    Last year I read a book by Brian Cox and he wrote that biologists are very divided over the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere. One issue is how likely Eukaryotic cells would develop - was it a fluke or nothing special?

    CS Lewis was writing fiction with aliens well over half a century ago so theologians have had a while to consider the matter.
  • Last year I read a book by Brian Cox and he wrote that biologists are very divided over the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere. One issue is how likely Eukaryotic cells would develop - was it a fluke or nothing special?

    CS Lewis was writing fiction with aliens well over half a century ago so theologians have had a while to consider the matter.

    "Fluke or nothing special" is a massive part of the problem of understanding life, and our, existence on earth. On the other hand, we are now discovering a lot of exo-planets suggesting that planet formation is at least common. No matter how unlikely the existence of life in any one location, you only need enough possible locations for it to be a near certainty it exists somewhere.
  • No matter how unlikely the existence of life in any one location, you only need enough possible locations for it to be a near certainty it exists somewhere.

    On the other hand, you only need enough possible filters for it to be a near certainty that intelligent life (let alone space-going life) exists nowhere.
  • And I carefully stated intelligent life. It is accepted that there might be bacteria etc in loads of places.
  • There is a good likelihood of life existing elsewhere. What's more difficult to predict is eukaryotic life. All our cells are undoubtedly the result of the combination of prokaryotic life forms, as they contain organelles, some showing evidence of different RNA, particularly our mitochondria, the power houses of the cells. For this to happen and result in a living cell is highly unlikely.
  • I rather hope that this wayside planet is definitely NOT the only place where Intelligent Life™ may be found.

    It would be rather depressing to think/find that we're the best G(g)od(s) can do.
    :grimace:

  • Then I think you are wrong. Comparing the 13.7 billion year age of the universe with the relatively recent (2 million years or so) emergence of humans and their occupation of a small planet orbiting around one of a 100 thousand million stars in our galaxy which is only one of 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in the universe suggests that whoever or whatever it might have been that kick-started the universe wasn't focused on making humans.

    Statistically speaking, since you put it that way, it seems to me that it's nothing short of miraculous that we exist at all.

    AFF

  • Quite so. Alice Meynell put it quite succinctly, IMHO:
    https://bartleby.com/236/265.html

  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    RooK wrote: »
    Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.
    I have not seen or heard it do or say so. If ideas are posited, they are all speculation. Speculation based on what is understood so far, but 'we don't know' is the only answer, for the moment, and might wel remain so for as long as the human species exists..

    The "so far" here is the part that tips your hand, and indicates that you are declaring a statement of faith.
    Faith in what? My 'statement' is more of an observation, don't you think?
    Science cannot, by definition, tell us anything about pre-time causation.
    exactly what I said - science might speculate, but the ony answer is they/we don't know.
    This will not change at some future point
    This sounds like a claim which of course cannot be upheld.
    To presume science is capable of this is a category error.
    Who does presume this?
    Any "answers" we may seek about pre-time causation, or anything before time, cannot come from science. Not now, not ever.
    Why not?
    Believing science will one day have the answer for questions the scientific method is incapable of addressing is simply an irrational scientism.
    I agree. Any scientific investigation cannot start if there is not an observation to be made.
    Which is no doubt one of the reasons many here find your dogmatic atheism so tiresome.

    Dear Ganesha,
    What does this mean and what is it a reference to?
    what a mess of contradictions.
    It would really help if you would explain the 'mess of contradictions' from your point of view, rather than just saying they are a category error. I am happy to admit that is so, but would appreciate more of an explanation why.
    You somehow managed to double down on your category error at the same time as claiming not to be making one.
    I personally do not use terms such as category error as I am well aware that I will probably get it wrong.
    A failure of logic as perfect as this really needs to be stuffed and mounted.
    However, an explanation of the 'failure of logic' would be far more helpful, don't you think?

  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    It is hard to describe the frustration I feel as a functionally-atheist agnostic when I see evangelistic atheists making counter-productive inaccurate assertions about science.

    Not wanting to cede anything to religion makes sense to me. Religion is essentially cooperative wishful ignorance. So, yeah, I'm all for resisting any attempts to justify things on such a basis. Further, in the realm of actually explaining things, religion has been systematically bludgeoned by science for everything relevant to observable reality. If you try to explain anything observable from a religious perspective that even hints at contradicting science, you're officially a kook.

    But here's the thing: there are things that are fundamentally not observable. This is the realm of dreams and whimsical conjecture. And religion works just fine there. And science absolutely does not. Not even a little bit.

    And this is the realm in which @Colin Smith and @SusanDoris keep trying to foist their science zealotry. Just fucking stop it. You don't have to agree with the religious daydreams about undisprovable things, but please for the love of reason stop mistaking science as a competitive dream replacement.
  • MrsBeakyMrsBeaky Shipmate
    @RooK I think I might love you.....this is just brilliant!
  • SusanDoris wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    RooK wrote: »
    Science can inform us a great deal about space, time, and gender. But it has exactly nothing to tell us about hypothetical pre-time causation.
    I have not seen or heard it do or say so. If ideas are posited, they are all speculation. Speculation based on what is understood so far, but 'we don't know' is the only answer, for the moment, and might wel remain so for as long as the human species exists..

    The "so far" here is the part that tips your hand, and indicates that you are declaring a statement of faith.
    Faith in what? My 'statement' is more of an observation, don't you think?
    Science cannot, by definition, tell us anything about pre-time causation.
    exactly what I said - science might speculate, but the ony answer is they/we don't know.
    This will not change at some future point
    This sounds like a claim which of course cannot be upheld.
    To presume science is capable of this is a category error.
    Who does presume this?
    Any "answers" we may seek about pre-time causation, or anything before time, cannot come from science. Not now, not ever.
    Why not?
    Believing science will one day have the answer for questions the scientific method is incapable of addressing is simply an irrational scientism.
    I agree. Any scientific investigation cannot start if there is not an observation to be made.
    Which is no doubt one of the reasons many here find your dogmatic atheism so tiresome.

    Dear Ganesha,
    What does this mean and what is it a reference to?
    what a mess of contradictions.
    It would really help if you would explain the 'mess of contradictions' from your point of view, rather than just saying they are a category error. I am happy to admit that is so, but would appreciate more of an explanation why.
    You somehow managed to double down on your category error at the same time as claiming not to be making one.
    I personally do not use terms such as category error as I am well aware that I will probably get it wrong.
    A failure of logic as perfect as this really needs to be stuffed and mounted.
    However, an explanation of the 'failure of logic' would be far more helpful, don't you think?

    Google can help you out with Lord Ganesha, one of the Hindu pantheon.

    As for the rest, the category error you keep making is explained very well by Rook's post. You (and Colin Smith) are operating under the delusion that science will "one day" be able to deal with non-empirically verifiable phenomena. This is impossible. It is not a matter of time, as we know more etc. Science does not deal with these questions. It never can.

    HTH.
  • Ohher wrote: »
    Christianity spread fast at first. Why? What gave it such power? Simple: Christianity promised a way out of the brute misery most of humanity lived in during those early years. Jesus would return, and bring with him the Kingdom of God! A God of mercy, and justice, and compassion, who would transform the world as we knew it upside down! Pain would turn to health! Grief would become joy! Hunger would be filled, and fear would be banished!

    It's my understanding that there were a number of sects at the time that promised those things. What made Christianity stand out and grow while the others withered on the vine?
  • Mark Betts wrote: »
    Technically it's probably right to say that God doesn't have a gender. However, how are we to understand or even envisage the Incarnation if Jesus had two mothers and no father?

    You miss the point spectacularly. I stand in awe.
    ...I have no issue with people saying they believe in god or even that god exists because I accept that for them there is a god.

    Have you any idea how patronizing this sounds?
    Comparing the 13.7 billion year age of the universe with the relatively recent (2 million years or so) emergence of humans and their occupation of a small planet orbiting around one of a 100 thousand million stars in our galaxy which is only one of 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in the universe suggests that whoever or whatever it might have been that kick-started the universe wasn't focused on making humans.

    Why?
    Google can help you out with Lord Ganesha, one of the Hindu pantheon.

    And quite the nosey parker too.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    ... Then I think you are wrong. ...
    Well, we have that in common, anyway, since I think you're wrong. I can believe in the scientifically demonstrated age of the universe and a God who created and cared for humans at the same time. It's not that hard.


  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    ... Then I think you are wrong. ...
    Well, we have that in common, anyway, since I think you're wrong. I can believe in the scientifically demonstrated age of the universe and a God who created and cared for humans at the same time. It's not that hard.

    And I don't even have to play one of my "impossible things before breakfast" cards.
  • Colin--

    There's an idea called "panentheism"*, which is basically that God is in everything, contains all of creation *and* goes beyond it. Kind of like pregnancy.

    Can be interesting to play with, and might help you see how some of us can work with ideas that you find contradictory.

    FWIW.

    *Different from "pantheism", which has God in/as everything.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Google can help you out with Lord Ganesha, one of the Hindu pantheon.

    And quite the nosey parker too.

    {Groan.}
  • RooK wrote: »
    It is hard to describe the frustration I feel as a functionally-atheist agnostic when I see evangelistic atheists making counter-productive inaccurate assertions about science.
    If I have done this, then I will absolutely back down. However, whatever you think I’ve said, then I think it is fair to ask for cited words. I do apologise for not being able to go back through my posts to check them myself, I just can’t do it.
    Not wanting to cede anything to religion makes sense to me. Religion is essentially cooperative wishful ignorance. So, yeah, I'm all for resisting any attempts to justify things on such a basis. Further, in the realm of actually explaining things, religion has been systematically bludgeoned by science for everything relevant to observable reality.
    But only in comparatively recent times, wouldn’t you think? The scientists have a firmer base from which to do this now, but has only been able to start establishing objective truth for several hundred years. Prior to that, and still in quite a few ways today, religious faith beliefs held/hold sway. Fact of life.
    If you try to explain anything observable from a religious perspective that even hints at contradicting science, you're officially a kook
    That may be so for some, but for someone like me who has been a faith believer, and who has not only had the experience of believing, but would man the barricades to defend a person’s right to believe what they choose, and who enjoys discussion for its own sake, this doesn’t apply.
    But here's the thing: there are things that are fundamentally not observable. This is the realm of dreams and whimsical conjecture. And religion works just fine there. And science absolutely does not. Not even a little bit.
    In a way, I think it has something to say because it learns more and more about the amazing human brain and its ability to think of anything. I venture to suggest that these understandings may help to extend the imagination, the wishful thinking and a million other ideas, but only venture, not state!
    And this is the realm in which @Colin Smith and @SusanDoris keep trying to foist their science zealotry. Just fucking stop it.
    Would you then prefer it if I for instance did not come back with the above? Or that I (we) would leave quietly? Why? Would that possibly mean more space for more long-term non-believing members’ opinions?
    You don't have to agree with the religious daydreams about undisprovable things, but please for the love of reason stop mistaking science as a competitive dream replacement.
    I state categorically here that I don’t. I have never said that, nor will I. Science can find objective answers, if there are any, but if there are not, then science does not attempt to find a replacement place-holder, but says it doesn’t know.

    I’ll close by apologising if this post has irked you too much and, if it has, will not expect a response.
This discussion has been closed.