Golden Mushroom Soapbox
Actually, the topic started off rather clearly. Lady posted a series of questions to which there were quite a few responses to which she posted more questions. What soon became abundantly clear is that Lady really has no knowledge of the sciences at all. When she starts querying about the life force of the sun it's time to realize that her scientific education is astoundingly incomplete.
I agree, I agree. Where my wrath spills out in
Lady's direction is in the asking of a question that depended on the answers to other questions. Questions about human origins and universal origin have the luxury of looking to the terms of her eleventh question--the ongoing process. In the long run, I would point toward a long-standing indictment I have against Christianity in general: for all the grand and not-so-grand attempts to intellectualize, realize, and finalize notions of the Biblical deity, there is a prevailing trend toward such simplistic errors. When one recognizes an ongoing process, such as scientific inquiry, it is a little problematic at least to ask for the finished products of an unfinished process. Thus, I see the following questions as erroneous:
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(1) Logically explain the origin's of human& animal evolution? I'm disappointed at the talk-show aspect of this part of the discussion. How specific do people want to be? What I provided is a rough sketch based on information available to me, and if anyone has information suggesting a different approach, that's valid, too. But in all the time I've followed Sciforums' evolution debates, I've seen a focus on the resolution of issues that cannot answer the question. Sure it's well enough to point out horse bones and so forth, but proving that a debunking of equine fossils is false only shows the falsity of the debunking. What the whole picture adds up to is important. I just gave a reasonable but rough sketch of the evolutionary process without invoking God. If a silly li'l theist like me can do it ...?
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(2) Who or what initated the big bang? How is it that the earth was designed for the human make-up? While I have respect for
Xelios, I would invite you to look at his 10/11/02 (first) reply to the topic:
No one and nothing. Time started at the Big Bang, there was no "before". And then I would invite you to look at
Tony1's response. On the one hand, Xelios' reply was as religious as an assertion of God. To the other, and perhaps more sad, is the fact that T1 can't exploit the point effectively. (That latter is a lesson of what style brings when elevated above substance.) Twenty hours later, they're still arguing the pointless point. Now, this is just a small example, but it finds its root in a stylistic fault (at best) or a failure to recognize the difference (at worst). What, then, when we repeat this process through several separate posting relationships? Add the aforementioned
Muscleman into the mix and it spells a mess of distractions. Perhaps you'll see that it's more of a thematic problem I have with the topic than mere specifics. But we'll get to that, as I see a chance to address that point directly.
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6) Who or what would you say is the designer of this complex universe and all that is in it? There seems to be a tendency among the responses to sympathize with
Lady's topic presumption that there is a conclusive answer, or a reasonably speculative answer.
I also wanted to point out that the answers to question 10 sympathized too directly with the question, as well. There seems to be a presumption that science can even examine God.
What I don't think you addressed properly is the flexibility of religion. A simple historic observance demonstrates a radical shifts in Christian principles.
What new issues has (especially) Christianity put before us? There is a core of dogmatic beliefs which have persisted for two-thousand years, and the apparent differences in stylistic execution come, I think, from a redefinition of terms. Nobody wakes up truly deciding to be evil. Hitler
believed he was working toward a better end. It wasn't about the power to commit evil, but the delusion that he was pursuing some good. Among Christians? Lon Mabon doesn't see himself as an oppressor, but rather as one who fights for what is good and right and proper. Bob Larsen doesn't think of himself as exploiting psychologically vulnerable people for money and politics; he sees himself as one who combats wrongdoing. He didn't see himself as a censor or a liar, but as an advocate of propriety and rightness. The flexibility is in human psychology, not the dogmatic religious structure. (Speaking of which, I saw
Dogma last night on ComCent. Think of it this way:
Kevin Smith didn't have to build a new dogmatic structure to exploit. What he did was already available, and depended merely on matters of perspective and psychology.)
The
Nicene Creed was settled in 325CE, and focuses on certain points of faith:
- Biblical inerrancy:
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures and
He has spoken through the Prophets.
- Virgin Birth:
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
- Resurrection:
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again ....
- Atonement for sin:
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
- Second Coming:
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
That's from Nicaea, in 325 CE. Flash-forward 1600 years:
Fundamentalism was coined in 1920 by Curtis Lee Laws, the editor of a Baptist periodical called the Watchman-Examiner. He used the term to designate a broad conservative movement made up of various groups within American Protestantism. It stated its position in a series of brochures, "The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth," which appeared between 1910 and 1915. Published by leading conservative theologians of the time, approximately three million of these tracts were disseminated. Sixty-four authors--theologians, preachers, and missionaries--contributed ninety articles, which discussed contested points of dogma primarily in the defense of biblical literalism.
This new movement represented a minimal consensus among various conservative positions rather than an independent, closed theological system. Unanimity was founded on five fundamentals of faith. The most important point was the infallibility of the Bible, which was considered the verbally inspired word of God and consequently was to be interpreted literally, not symbolically. The other four principles of faith--the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, Christ's proxy atonement of sin, and the Second Coming--were concerned with making precise the claims of biblical literalism .....
You and I have discussed
accretions before. Liberal Christianity, loving-God theory, and all manner of odd doctrine come from those fundamental points. One need not be fundamentalist
per se in order to adhere to those points. While some liberal interpretations of Christianity would seem based in symbolism, not literal considerations, you'll notice the ends to which such apologists will go to make the connections obvious and as direct as possible. (Sometimes it just won't work that way, but that's still a perceptual argument.) In the end, we might pull from fundamentalist American Protestantism the same we find in formative Catholicism. After 1600 years and more, the basic structure hasn't changed. If Christ returned, would American Christians really believe him? Would they demand miracles like the ancient Jews and pagans?
There is an American firearm debate point that goes:
When the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment, they had no idea that things like AK-47's would ever exist. It's a fine argument, but has its faults. Rather than a criticism of that point specifically, I hope to use it in a parallel sense:
Did the person or persons composing the Jesus legend have any idea what people would do to their faith structure? Could the bishops at Nicaea, or even the Fundamentalists of the American 1920s really predict the kind of lunacy that would take place? Given that Millerites and SDA's and other splinter sects were already in effect in 1920, we might speculate that there is no reason why the Fundamentalists should not have known what would happen and what people would do to their faith declarations.
However, looking to the consistency of that faith structure, I can see how they underestimated the effect. Lacking any sense of true harmony, the Fundamentalist could well overlook the metaphysical conditions whereby something is what it is not. In the sense of liberal Christian interpretation, we see that the symbolic can actually be the literal. Why? Because there is no
literal unless you're the first person to ever conceive of the words. Then and only then is there a truly literal definition. It's a metaphysical progression that the Christian structure appears to lack. I truly do think that the interior structures have not changed. The psychological interdependence of the people--now
that has changed.
Other religions are, indeed, far more flexible in relation to the natural world, and thus are far more adaptive. I'll acknowledge that point, as I generally always have.
I also see it as an invalidation of religious truth. That is, religion simply becomes a framework to which current societally driven ethics are attached... something used simply as validation of what one already believes.
This seems to be observably true in life. Part of this condition comes from the inflexibility and specificity of Christianity. Other religions with less-exacting specifics seem much more flexible and adaptive. Take Islam, for instance, which hit a wall a while ago: it's taking them a while to dig themselves out of this hole. The religion, for various reasons (including economy & education) simply failed to appropriately address real issues in a way that could compel people toward the intended result. Christianity is cracking for similar reasons. In the Information Age, it might go to the grave sooner, buried beneath the weight of knowledge. But when a religion demands a method despite the observable detriment, there is much to be considered. Without successful resolutions to those considerations--relevance, priority, &c.--the religion will die.
Personally, I think you are simply expecting too much and a bit hypocritical as well. There are plenty of examples of you adding fuel to the fire and responding in an argumentative fashion.
I'm aware I'm expecting too much. So why is it hypocritical when I step off my Golden Soapbox and try to communicate with the vulgar masses? I could just keep shouting from my vantage point, but every once in a while you have to take to the streets and feel the pulse of the world.
You'll notice that I do learn occasionally. I don't spend much time directly engaging Tony1, for instance, because it's an exercise in idiocy, as it seems Xelios has encountered.
But what do people want? I can keep pointing to the data that they don't wish to consider because it means they can't be as basic and insulting. I can just sit up on my mushroom and condemn the lot in language more harsh than I have. But what good does it do? If people can't understand, or don't want to understand, they won't understand. Do people resent that I will come down and tread through the gutters with them? Then they shouldn't ask for it to be that way.
We've also tried to engage each other in some deeper conversations at various points but most of them either get downed in the noise or seem to snowball until they become to large to engage in a limited amount of time.
We might as well be trying to have a quiet conversation in a kindergarten some days. It happens. At least by my big-stick theory, we get
some space for reasonable discussion.
Most of the people here are here for the enjoyment of argument... to which the moronic arguments of some are simply easy targets.
Well, it's kind of like comedy in the 1980s. It became kind of like a church. It used to be that if someone said something funny, you laughed. But then people got dumber and decided,
This person is a comedian. Comedians say funny things. He must be funny when he's speaking.
I'm sure you've noticed the trend. Sure the jokes were scrubbed clean for the
Leave it to Beaver generation, but you can find intelligent comedy in television history. But it was harder to do, kind of like good argument. So the networks opted for "popular" comedy, and you see the result. Sometimes I think my generation is viciously laughing at our parents; we make a point of finding it funny because our parents didn't like that kind of talk. It really does seem that neurotic.
Nonetheless, everybody arguing here fancies themselves a little bit CNN or PBS. One thing I'll give my fellow posters is that they do have interesting things to talk about. But are people merely aiming for a ratings game? Are they finding greater enjoyment in a lower standard of debate? Why would they? Does it really come down to feeling better or worse? While I admit there's some power in that part of it, I can't imagine coming here just to rag on people; it seems stupid beyond belief, so I can't presume that of anyone else, either. But how to postulate that, anyway? What do I see when I look around? From there it's semantics: how I word the question has all the value in the world as to whether or not there is an answer to be had.
Bashing simpletons over the head may not be very productive but even you must agree that it can be fun.
Bashing simpletons seems to be an unfortunate necessity of human dynamic interaction. Insofar as we're going to bother to have standards, we must respect them to some degree. Hence, the necessity of bashing simpletons. But it really does look like people are muddying around Simpletown waiting for a chance to sport-hunt.
If I respect one's ability to bash a simpleton ... well? Even simpletons can bash each other. Doesn't make 'em smarter.
Be that as it may, I too am getting rather frustrated and bored with muscleman's posts and the slew of responses he evokes each time. I mean, this level of idiocy is really one for the books... of course it seems mostly to be troll bait and rather good bait at that seeing as he continues to get responses.
Ever see one of those posts where I talk about how people fear in others what they fear in themselves? How we find ways of projecting fear onto others? I always wonder, for instance, how dirty and obsessed are the minds of the anti-sex music censors. While admittedly the game has a different rhetorical form today, it's still the same old crap. But I got some good ideas for perversity reading through conservative complaints about music. In the end, I would assert that the big problem with a Muscleman, or Sir Loone, or T1 or KalvinB is that people didn't get from them remotely what was expected. Even when people disagree with us, we have some expectation of how. But such an onslaught of disrespectful vacuity
is disturbing. However, such occasions are also revealing. I always like it when T1 or someone else says, "I never said that." You don't have to is the thing. If I think Jews should be put in boxcars and rolled off to death camps, you might say that I have no respect for human life. Of course, I can look you in the eye and say, "I never said
that." I didn't have to, though. The condition is inherent in the statement about Jews.
People show more than they realize when they hide behind chap façades and simplistic deflective rhetoric. For instance the most obvious thing they show is that
they're hiding. No, they don't have to say they are. They just have to do it.
And here's another thing for you to chuckle at,
Raithere: Look at the points I'm discussing--how fine of distinctions are these? Are my standards too high? I just don't see what's so hard about it for the most part of this debate.
Okay, following a bong rip I must take a breath and try a slightly quieter route.
We all have our moments of idiocy, aggression, and outright insanity. But they really are the standard fare here. There is little rational discussion in the Religion, World Events, or Ethics forums. In WE or Ethics, you can usually pick it out. The sloppy fare is thick, but not utterly dominating. The majority of the remainder is a certain kind of rhetorical jockeying, a compressed sound-bite chess game. But in here, the Religion forum, the slop is enough to drown us all. And it seems to have done just that.
The topic as such, then:
• Yes,
Lady's questions are largely excellent for discussion.
• Yes,
Lady's questions have a loaded end.
• Yes,
Lady's questions often ignored an acknowledged condition.
• And while I'm all for expanding
Lady's or anyone's horizons, I really don't see that happening very well.
• I chose to criticize the topic because the best response going to that point started with the phrase, "I'm not an atheist." Sure, the answers were a little brief and often begged the question, but this human foible is recognized--after all, he's not an atheist
• (Yes, there is a certain amount of humor in that last point, although there is a certain macabre about the necessity of such a disclaimer as this.)
• (Yes, that bong rip is at play, so I'd best be wrapping up shortly.)
And perhaps one of the reasons I'm being so damned self-righteous with this is that I can write a better atheistic position for this topic than I've seen the atheists present. And it's rather quite easy. That tells me people just aren't trying. For substance or humor.
Disturbing, that.
The problem is that it would be equally embarrassing to be identified as an "atheist" according to the atheistic expressions I've encountered over the last while here at Sciforums as it would be to be identified as a Christian according to the standard of my living experience.
It lends evidence toward the idea that it's a human problem, and not one of labels and classifications. I should be happy at a progressive realization, but frankly it frightens me.
thanx,
Tiassa
