Goldtop
Registered Senior Member
Simple, their actions on their religious beliefs have negative affects on my life. If it was just kept behind closed doors where it belongs, there would be no problems.
Should science replace religion?
- Thread starter wegs
- Start date
Simple, their actions on their religious beliefs have negative affects on my life. If it was just kept behind closed doors where it belongs, there would be no problems.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
That's true, I wonder what the Christian percentage would say? I'm guessing that most of the religious person replying to this thread are Christian. Do you think I'm wrong?
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Don't ask, don't tell might work.
Some Christian denominations hold the opinion that Genesis isn't to be taken literally. I believe that Pope Francis came out a few years ago, declaring that it's perfectly fine for believers to accept the theory of evolution. So, depending on who you ask, the answers will vary.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
I don't know about you, but I didn't come from no monkey!
You're watching too many of those tree cutting videos, me thinks. :=}
But, for many, faith steps in...
Gimme that ol' time cherry-pickin'!
If that one's not exactly true, then none of them are necessarily true, literal or sacred. Read what you want into whichever book you want.
Of course, you have to be selective about the bible: so much of it is unacceptable to pretty much everybody now. God has grown and mutated along with the world, and the world has changed in ways Daniel and Ezra couldn't have imagined. The modern believer has to live in the modern world, do business, interact with his community, participate in politics - has to be accepted on modern terms. He has to renounce publicly so much of the morality in that book, while avowing to the congregation that he accepts all of it as God's word. It's a pretty uncomfortable position. You can only sustain it by a kind of duplicity: not letting the right hemisphere know what the left knoweth.
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Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Cornbread and bacon!
This is an interesting read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution
The Catholics had it all covered.
You ask that since religion isn't the cause of all society's problems, what's the point of addressing any of the problems specifically caused by religion? In what other area of life would this make any sense?
I don't assume you are religious, I'm speaking in generalities.
You are certainly welcome in this dialogue to present an opposing position. I'm confident I can demonstrate the reasoning behind my conclusions.
I feel the same way. My comments center around religious thought, not religious people, who, I was careful to point out, often do harm even with the best of intentions.
Tell me again how Catholics are moral leaders while they hide their pedophile priests from the law. So what if they let people believe in evolution in a limited sense? Tomorrow they could change their mind, they didn't reason their way into it.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
They're still against contraceptives, even in Africa. Not a good look.
“The Catholics had it covered,” was sarcasm. And I agree with you.
If a global secular organization had undergone that type of cover up, it would have been closed down and arrests made.
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Not "like"; either-or.
I'm for letting the gays out and leaving the fundamentalists in.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Not just the Catholic church. Most of the main denominations, in Europe at least, take a similar view.
The clergy in these churches have always been educated enough to realise the bible is not a science textbook. The Genesis account of creation, in particular, has been recognised - by at least some thinkers - as allegorical, since the time of Origen (c.200AD).
Cardinal Wiseman gave lectures, in Rome, in how to harmonise the then new discoveries in geology about the age of the Earth with scripture, back in the 1840s. Buckland, who was one of the founding fathers of geology in the early c.19th, was a Church of England priest.
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Seattle
Valued Senior Member
This is a misuse of Facebook IMO 
I have a friend (a climbing gym friend) who just got remarried a couple of years ago. His wife is the kind of religious person who has to mention "God" in every post but it's usually not a dramatic post. It's usually "Here are pictures from a wonderful day hiking in the mountains. Thank you God, I'm so blessed".
Tonight she just posted this,"Dearest prayer warriors, I humbly request your intercession. Specifically for a tough conversation that will likely occur tomorrow. I need His wisdom, His words, His kindness, gentleness, and strength to be courageous. Prayers and/or scripture greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance."
My first thought was "WTF". This serves no purpose other than to seel attention. I am curious as to what the big deal is. She is either getting a divorce, going to the doctor, putting a dog down or having to return a purse to Nordstrom's that she's had for a year and is worrying about the return.
In any event, even with my limited understanding of "prayer", this is nonsensical. Should I say...
"Dear God, I'm praying for my friend who may be needing your wisdom, probably tomorrow and she is going to need your wisdom , gentleness and strength. I think she'll probably contact you directly but just to make sure, I'm contacting you as well.
I think some of her other friends (prayer warriors) will be contacting you too. Please don't be annoyed that some many people are contacting you or that none of us know what is going on. We assume that you already know what is going on. Thanks, praise to you God".
I have a friend (a climbing gym friend) who just got remarried a couple of years ago. His wife is the kind of religious person who has to mention "God" in every post but it's usually not a dramatic post. It's usually "Here are pictures from a wonderful day hiking in the mountains. Thank you God, I'm so blessed".Tonight she just posted this,"Dearest prayer warriors, I humbly request your intercession. Specifically for a tough conversation that will likely occur tomorrow. I need His wisdom, His words, His kindness, gentleness, and strength to be courageous. Prayers and/or scripture greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance."
My first thought was "WTF". This serves no purpose other than to seel attention. I am curious as to what the big deal is. She is either getting a divorce, going to the doctor, putting a dog down or having to return a purse to Nordstrom's that she's had for a year and is worrying about the return.
In any event, even with my limited understanding of "prayer", this is nonsensical. Should I say...
"Dear God, I'm praying for my friend who may be needing your wisdom, probably tomorrow and she is going to need your wisdom , gentleness and strength. I think she'll probably contact you directly but just to make sure, I'm contacting you as well.
I think some of her other friends (prayer warriors) will be contacting you too. Please don't be annoyed that some many people are contacting you or that none of us know what is going on. We assume that you already know what is going on. Thanks, praise to you God".
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Creationism is irrelevant to the issue. It is not a core doctrine of any of the main strands of Christianity and is obviously not going to be followed by any scientist with a brain. I know Americans have a political problem with vocal and well-funded creationists in their Bible Belt, but this is not representative of serious Christian thought. It really isn't. Christianity is a bit bigger than the Southern Baptist Convention.
Look, if you want to get a bit of insight into how religious scientists think, take a quick look at someone like Ken Miller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_R._Miller
He may not represent them all but he is one example of the way such people think.
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