Re adjensen:

You wrote:

"The "divine commandments" are two -- Love God, and love everyone else as much as yourself. Do those two things and you will do no evil. Pretty simple, really."

I believed the one about: "Do not eat from this tree" was the most important, as the consequence of not obeying it is said to be original sin. But if the tree thing and original sin isn't so important, and we can get by just by loving the old man and other people, then what's the use of redemption and salvation?

Or are you inventing a whole new christian doctrine separating original sin from evil?

You wrote:

" ...but I do disagree that giving up free will (effectively, becoming slaves to the will of another) is a price worth paying."


Honestly, I'm not mocking. But I don't understand a word of this sentence. Could you please reformulate it without use of double-negotiations.

"The two options:

1) Eternal existence, without death and suffering, but as a puppet of God, who forces you to behave in a manner that mitigates death and suffering

2) A brief mortal existence, with suffering and death, followed by an eternal existence, without being a puppet of God or anyone else

If those are the two available options (and, in terms of the discussion you came into, they are,) I fail to see how the first option is preferable to the second."

Presenting the only available options of YOUR faith and deciding the terms of the discussion I came into as YOUR terms. Yes, these are the options.

Outside your faith and your terms, there are other options. Are you pushing your faith-system by suggesting, that only your options are options. Do I really have to explain how a change of basic parameters (as e.g. away from your faith-system) to different parameters also changes the resulting options.

There are many postulated variable concepts in your little dogma above.
If there is an ultimate 'god', is he also the creator? How do you know?
How do you know, if either a false or ultimate god will treat anybody as puppets?
How do you know, that there IS eternal existence?
How do you know, that we have to buy an entrance-ticket to an eternal existence with intact individuality?

Everything you've said is according to your doctrines, but presented as 'objective'. Come again; your whole construction is based on shaky assumptions, which you're not willing to touch with a ten-foot pole in fear that the whole thing comes crashing down.

Dubleposting

Originally posted by bogomil
Re adjensen:

You wrote:

"The "divine commandments" are two -- Love God, and love everyone else as much as yourself. Do those two things and you will do no evil. Pretty simple, really."

I believed the one about: "Do not eat from this tree" was the most important, as the consequence of not obeying it is said to be original sin. But if the tree thing and original sin isn't so important, and we can get by just by loving the old man and other people, then what's the use of redemption and salvation?

Because you have to accept's Christ sacrifice as the reconciliation between you and God. That's kind of implied by Christianity, I figured you knew that.

You wrote:

" ...but I do disagree that giving up free will (effectively, becoming slaves to the will of another) is a price worth paying."

Honestly, I'm not mocking. But I don't understand a word of this sentence. Could you please reformulate it without use of double-negotiations.

There are no "negotiations" in that sentence, but I am saying that I am content to live a life that includes suffering if that is the price of having free will.

As for the rest of it, this is a discussion about Christianity, so dragging in "other options" that aren't a part of Christianity isn't relevant.

Re adjensen

Thanks for presenting your efforts of explaining your doctrines and for the impressions of the mindset behind it.

Satan, the great Luciferian Dragon, hmmmm....is the Devil a 2 horned beast, a red human with gree eyes, or is the devil, the one who controls all also the creator of all within this world?

Originally posted by NEMESISOFMAN
Satan, the great Luciferian Dragon, hmmmm....is the Devil a 2 horned beast, a red human with gree eyes, or is the devil, the one who controls all also the creator of all within this world?

Just as you can create children...the life essence within them, the deepest core of their being....is not OF YOU...it is of the ONLY ONE THAT IS without begining and end...the Spirit of life. You not only passed onto them genetics of YOU....but passed onto them 'life'. There is only ONE that is the keeper of all life....and it is God.

If you seek God because you fear this 'satan'...you seek thee for wrong reasons.

We are all expressions of Gods...and we are in a process far bigger then our imaginations can fathom of becoming 'perfect expressions' of Thee.

For Thee is within all things....Thee is all there is....So within us all, can Thee be found. Within all life, can Thee be found.

A piece of scripture the Spirit led me to was 'lift a rock, I am there....cut the tree, you will find me'.

And no, its not from the Bible.

The fathers of science were all theist:
Galileo
Newton
Da Vinci
Descartes
Copernicus
Franklin
Edison
Einstein
Planck
Tesla
Boyle
Bacon
Kelvin
Joule

Science is not evil, those who misuse it are. But the same goes for spirituality.

Science is not evil.

There are passage in the bible that would sound like the earth is at the center of the universe and that the sun revolves around the earth. The Catholic church condemned Galileo for promoting heliocentrism, which places the Sun at the center of the universe. He was tried by the Inquisition and found suspect of heresy and was forced to house arrest. He had to retract what he believed to be true. The church believed heliocentrism to be false and contrary to scripture.

First of all the bible is not a book of science. It is a book of moral codes. The Catholic church had no right to try someone because of observation made in the bible. The bible was written by men who were firmly planted on the ground and not observers from space. I think there is a passage in the bible that states the earth hangs upon nothing. The ancient church probably did not even know what that passage meant.

When it comes to creations of science and their destructive effects the thing that comes to mind is necessary evil. When fossil fuels started to be used Christians did not oppose to its use even though it polluted the air. There are a number of benefits that come from it. Then there is nuclear energy. It has its benefits but disposing of the waste material is problematic due to the radioactive properties. Nuclear war heads seem to push the limit with technology and God’s Will. I think he draws the line with global nuclear war. I believe he has angels watching over the nuke site to make sure there are no accidental lanchings Destruction of all humans is not in his plan.

I believe studies in Quantum mechanics is bringing a whole new science to the fore. Some of the experiments performed defy reason. Things don’t behave as they should. It would seem Quantum mechanics requires a measure of faith.

At the Tower of Babel God chose to confuse the languages because of the building project that was underway. This is what God said, “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

What this is saying is that God could see man’s potential when they are working as one. This is how it is today. Science is at its peak and mankind is inventing really cool things and really dangerous things. With the number of nukes available on the earth if they were all launched at the same time the surface of the earth would be destroyed multiple times. Getting to know the deeper things of science is very dangerous. Remember the movie “I am Legend”? They found a cure for cancer but in the end the cure mutated into an aggressive structure that manipulated the genetic code, making humans like mad dogs.

I’ve heard a number of scientists become believers in God because they see how organized and complex biology and the world around us is. Science and God are compatible in my book. Science by itself does not give hope. It can help people live longer and help them recover from sickness. However, science can’t bring back the dead or make corrupt leaders self sacrificing servants. The bible is a moral compass and Jesus is the example.

Originally posted by lostinspace
Science is not evil.

There are passage in the bible that would sound like the earth is at the center of the universe and that the sun revolves around the earth. The Catholic church condemned Galileo for promoting heliocentrism, which places the Sun at the center of the universe. He was tried by the Inquisition and found suspect of heresy and was forced to house arrest. He had to retract what he believed to be true. The church believed heliocentrism to be false and contrary to scripture.

First of all the bible is not a book of science. It is a book of moral codes. The Catholic church had no right to try someone because of observation made in the bible. The bible was written by men who were firmly planted on the ground and not observers from space. I think there is a passage in the bible that states the earth hangs upon nothing. The ancient church probably did not even know what that passage meant.

When it comes to creations of science and their destructive effects the thing that comes to mind is necessary evil. When fossil fuels started to be used Christians did not oppose to its use even though it polluted the air. There are a number of benefits that come from it. Then there is nuclear energy. It has its benefits but disposing of the waste material is problematic due to the radioactive properties. Nuclear war heads seem to push the limit with technology and God’s Will. I think he draws the line with global nuclear war. I believe he has angels watching over the nuke site to make sure there are no accidental lanchings Destruction of all humans is not in his plan.

I believe studies in Quantum mechanics is bringing a whole new science to the fore. Some of the experiments performed defy reason. Things don’t behave as they should. It would seem Quantum mechanics requires a measure of faith.

At the Tower of Babel God chose to confuse the languages because of the building project that was underway. This is what God said, “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

What this is saying is that God could see man’s potential when they are working as one. This is how it is today. Science is at its peak and mankind is inventing really cool things and really dangerous things. With the number of nukes available on the earth if they were all launched at the same time the surface of the earth would be destroyed multiple times. Getting to know the deeper things of science is very dangerous. Remember the movie “I am Legend”? They found a cure for cancer but in the end the cure mutated into an aggressive structure that manipulated the genetic code, making humans like mad dogs.

I’ve heard a number of scientists become believers in God because they see how organized and complex biology and the world around us is. Science and God are compatible in my book. Science by itself does not give hope. It can help people live longer and help them recover from sickness. However, science can’t bring back the dead or make corrupt leaders self sacrificing servants. The bible is a moral compass and Jesus is the example.

Great post and ideas. Starred.

I'd like to elaborate on Galileo, he was criticized by the church but what is not often mentioned is that the church he belonged to himself was very much behind him. Galileo believed the bible was infallible, but he believed it was being misinterpreted. Copernicus who first came up with the heliocentric model, was a cannon in the church. And they stood up for eachother against condemning churches. This was very much a battle of churches, not a battle of atheism and religion as is often portrayed in the classroom and by common people. The first pope to understand heliocentricism gave a gift to the man who explained it to him, he liked it. It was succeeding popes which condemned it. The catholic church today, has actually come out and said these rationalist ideas, such as evolution, are not incompatible with Catholicism and Christianity.

There is not as much ignorance in the church as many would want us to believe. Much of this hatred, I think, stems from the non-religious talking to church-goers and commoners, rather than the priests and bishops themselves. They understand the complications more than most religious people, they spend their entire life thinking about God they generally know the arguments against.

This is Galileo:
"I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the Holy Bible can never speak untruth—whenever its true meaning is understood."

"He [Copernicus] did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scripture when they were rightly understood"

In a letter to St. Augustine.

all the people claiming to be true christians or whatever religion in this forum and calling science as the devils tool are being incongruous. science is part of technology the same technology that they are using now to reply and view this thread, the same technology that spawned when they started learning things ever since adam ate the forbidden fruit. Therefore by learning aren't we sinning already?

come to think of it, were we not doomed from the start? why would god put a tree with apples in a nice place and than tell us not to eat from it for its forbidden. Most of the time if i tell someone not to do something they end up doing it anyway from sheer curiosty, now if we were given the knowledge and curiosity by God and than told not to eat from this apple tree (could have been a highly toxic tree or plant instead probably would have good cause as well) isnt God just tempting them. kinda like do it i dare you too.

1) Does knowledge and use of the sciences serve the Devil?
2) Is it true that the more technological and "advanced" a society becomes the more likely they will turn from God to serve the other?
3) Has science and technology killed more people than any other single thing?

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
Albert Einstein

I'm fairly sure the biggest loss of life to ever occur came through God uh...flooding the entire planet.

Originally posted by UncivilCivilian
I'm fairly sure the biggest loss of life to ever occur came through God uh...flooding the entire planet.

Moot point.

Everyone who has ever died was because of God.

He gives life and He takes it away. For everyone.

I've often wondered wether science is the "false prophet" that wrought miracles before the beast (materialistic man). The miracles being the latest tech. Anyway, it's all developed now almost as far as it can go. Civilization is now in a state of gradual collapse, but it's accelerating quickly now. Eurozone collapse, high tension between west and east and threat of war, wikileaks, iran.Watch the next few weeks as it gathers pace, because the fractal is winding up to a head now, like the tower of babel reached a critical point and then collapsed. I'd say we have a year or so left.