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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 6, 2013 15:06:57 GMT 10
Different timezone. Gotta hit the sheets now, g'night all.
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Post by slartibartfast on Apr 6, 2013 15:08:03 GMT 10
Avoiding the issue still, I see.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 7, 2013 2:24:14 GMT 10
Avoiding the issue still, I see. Yes. Clearly, I was intimidated by your unsubstantiated claims. Your lack of accredited scholarship, and your inability to grasp Biblical literary devices, was enough to do irreparable damage to my personal faith. I was at a loss for words. Even now, observing your unremarkable level of acumen, still leaves me in a chronic stupor. --It's outstanding, that after reading pages your odious conjecture, and bad advice, I still managed to get 8 hours of well-rested, sleep. ;D And when I woke in the morning I was equally surprised to find that Christianity didn't collapse as a result of people reading your C&P from infidels.org. In retrospect, perhaps I've come to the conclusion that the faith may not actually rely on my 'responding to your issues' *(And I see that you have a lot of issues, many of which I am unqualified to help you with.)* I've decided direct my attention to less-futile endeavors. I can conclude reasonably, that Christianity will continue whether or not I appeal to your troll bait, and I can again sleep soundly tonight.. But I'll play it by ear.
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Post by slartibartfast on Apr 7, 2013 7:44:08 GMT 10
Oh dear, all that nonsense just because you are too embarrassed that you cannot find any proof that woman comes from man's rib? Are you that embarrassed by the Bible's blatant sexism that you have to resort to smart-arse insults and snobbery to try to prove your "points"? Let me deal with your nonsense one bit at a time: Yes. Clearly, I was intimidated by your unsubstantiated claims. Unsubstantiated? So the Bible doesn't tell us that woman came from man's rib? Do go on. The Bible doesn't tell us the order in which things were 'created'? - And which are physically impossible in the order the bible claims? Do go on and on and on. Your lack of accredited scholarship, and your inability to grasp Biblical literary devices, was enough to do irreparable damage to my personal faith. I was at a loss for words. Even now, observing your unremarkable level of acumen, still leaves me in a chronic stupor. My lack of scholarship? You snob! Who cares where or what I have studied, apart from you? Knowledge is not just gained from teachers at a University, it is also gained by being able to think! Perhaps you should try it one day, you may get a shock! As for you being in a chronic stupor, there is no need for you to tell us what we already know. And when I woke in the morning I was equally surprised to find that Christianity didn't collapse as a result of people reading your C&P from infidels.org. I guess the fact that I never claimed that this would happen may have something to with this or can you provide a link where anyone has made such a claim? In retrospect, perhaps I've come to the conclusion that the faith may not actually rely on my 'responding to your issues' *(And I see that you have a lot of issues, many of which I am unqualified to help you with.)* I've decided direct my attention to less-futile endeavors. And what "issues" would these be? Is it an issue that you cannot answer a simple question about ribs? Or are you trying to place some sort of "illness" upon me and use that as an argument like you did with buzz? I can conclude reasonably, that Christianity will continue whether or not I appeal to your troll bait, and I can again sleep soundly tonight.. But I'll play it by ear. Ah yes, the troll insult. If you can't defeat your "opponent" with facts, resort to calling them a troll. That always works.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 8, 2013 9:07:13 GMT 10
A troll, yes. Sometimes, I can be. Never intentionally, but sometimes the silly things people say, need to be ridiculed. I'm fine with it.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 8, 2013 9:20:40 GMT 10
Slarti. I was responding exclusively to post #27. But I instead of wasting my time on an elaborate rebuttal, let me just touch on a few points.
1. a) Education matters. -Would you want a surgeon with you in the OR, or some armchair critic who watched a medical drama the night before? b)The capacity to think does not make you intelligent or knowledgable. There are many who have the capacity to think, but waste it.
2. I don't really know what sort of evidence you are expecting from a metaphysical singularity, such as woman coming from man's rib. But perhaps the reason you find it so ludicrous is because you've already eliminated the possibility of a Designer, in your mind. (You have no reason for doing this, and that's called 'circular logic', or 'begging the question') It's no less ludicrous than consciousness arising naturally from a lightning-struck goo pond. (Admittedly, that's a oversimplification, but I have an easier time believing my mind is the product of a designer)
3. You took my 'issues' remark too, personally. I was referring to the cognitive difficulties you are having with the scriptures. I invite you to understand the language and the culture the Bible was written in, rather than trying to interpret it from a liberated western mindset.
4. And I erased my previous comment, but since Earl posted it, I guess I will reiterate. I never called you a troll. But your post in 27, was intended to invoke a negative reaction, so it's troll bait.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 8, 2013 9:31:17 GMT 10
"It's no less ludicrous than consciousness arising naturally from a lightning-struck goo pond."Oh, but it is. The pond goo idea involves billions of years of evolution. The rib nonsense has zero scientific basis. The Oparin-Haldane Hypothesis, has nothing to do with Darwin's theory. And there has never been any evidence supporting it.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 8, 2013 9:37:30 GMT 10
I dismiss the mainstream interpretation of the science, yes. Not the science itself.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 8, 2013 9:57:09 GMT 10
That's only because you dismiss belief in a Creator God. But that's begging the question, since you haven't really posited why you've arrived at this conclusion..
Christianity may be only one facet of a multitude of philosophies, but it shares at least a single core belief with all the other theistic religions.
Atheism dismisses them all.
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Post by pim on Apr 8, 2013 11:53:36 GMT 10
Now that's a valid critique! It isn't that the story of Eve being formed from Adam's rib isn't and can't be factual. As a fable it's no more fantastic than the Dreamtime story of the Rainbow Serpent moving across a featureless landscape and forming mountains, river beds and valleys. The Adnyamathanha people from the Flinders Ranges in South Australia still cherish as central to their Dreaming the myth that the land formation known as the Wilpena Pound is what the Rainbow Serpent became when it had finished its Dreamtime task. You can see what they mean ... and also ... So as a fable I'm fine with the "Adam's Rib" story. But as allegory it goes to something a lot deeper about gender relations and that, I agree, is worthy of scrutiny and critique. But do so with a bit of respect, please. Dib's point, that no matter what is typed and posted here is going to make not one jot of difference to whether Christianity survives, flourishes or collapses, is a valid one. Methinks your "atheism" is a tad too strident. Too full of hubris. You're trying just a little too hard. Are you sure you're "atheists" rather than "antitheists"? Atheists I've known tend to view matters of religious faith with a type of benign indifference - maybe tinged with a smidgin of amused contempt. It's as Bill Maher (a strident ex-Catholic) says about religious belief, for an atheist religion is something quickly disposed of. One of the good things about being an atheist, says Maher, is that atheism takes up so little of your time. you, on the other hand, seem prepared to devote a lot of your time to what you should consider as nothing.
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Post by pim on Apr 8, 2013 13:04:51 GMT 10
Here's what puzzles me about the Wilpena Pound/Rainbow Serpent story: last time I was there - it's about 500 km north of Adelaide, desert country! - as well as hiking along some of the walking trails I also flew over it in a light aircraft: a small Cessna. Below us stretched out this vista of the Wilpena Pound forming a circle and then the "tail" continuing as the Northern Flinders Ranges into the distance. It really is a grand sight and it's worth seeing. I can see why for the Adnyamathanha people it's such a sacred spot. The culture still exists and there are fully initiated Adnyamathanha people. The Pound is where their initiation ceremonies take place - much as the Warrumbungles are sacred to the Kamilaroi people in north-western NSW.
But here's the kicker: the Rainbow Serpent story about the Wilpena Pound became obvious to me when I was flying over it in a light aircraft at about 1500 metres. You could discern the head, the body and the long tail. But that's to someone like me - a 21st century whitefella brought up in a techno world of buttons, flashing lights and things that go vroom vroom. But the Wilpena Pound/Rainbow Serpent story has been with the Adnyamathanha people since our own whitefella ancestors were Stone Age Cro-Magnons fighing woolly mammoths in the tundras of northern Europe. If I'm hiking along the walking trails I can't see the Serpent, but when I'm doing something that no Adnyamathanha person of the Dreamtime could ever do - which is fly over the Pound in a Cessna, then the Serpent is revealed to me. And yet the Adnyamathanha people saw the Serpent without ever leaving the ground. It goes to how much our perceptions are governed by our culture. A tribal Aborigine might report to his comrades that he knows that there's plenty of game in such-and-such a valley because "the wind told me" or "the rocks" let him know. It was a cosmic view that worked for them for millennia. They'd say that the last 200 years of Whitefella's lack of "Dreaming" has left them a lot worse off than when all they had was their "Dreaming".
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Post by pim on Apr 8, 2013 16:21:09 GMT 10
A smart aleck answer that establishes nothing, reveals nothing, and answers nothing. Did you see the program on SBS One last night on the fabric of the universe? There's the Newtonian view, which to this day informs your perception, and mine, of space/time. Then there's the Einstein view which starts to see space as "space/time", and as something that can be folded and twisted. And so on through to quantum mechanics with its particles that whizz in and out of existence and around each other and into each other. It's like there are miniscule versions of the Big Bang (mini Bangs?? ) happening all the time. It's as if "space" is "something and the question is whether or not there really is "nothing". And I mean nothing - an absence of anything. I must confess I'm totally bamboozled by all this stuff and I really can't get past Newton. Thank goodness that for the purposes of our ordinary mundane lives Newton works just fine. But these eggheads from the cream of America's scientific establishment were even postulating that "reality" - whatever that is in this intellectual universe (!!) - could be two-dimensional and that what we experience as three-dimensional "reality" is merely a holographic projection. I tellsya, this is so mind-bogglingly fantastic - using "fantastic" as the adjectival form of "fantasy" - that the "Adam's rib" story and the "Rainbow Serpent" sound quite ordinary and unremarkable. I think your cosmological obsessions about the "God" thing kinda miss the point when you encounter this sort of stuff. There are physicists and other scientists at the top of the global game of physics and science generally who are having conversations that make the scenarios postulated in the Bible and the theological speculations of the Vatican sound like an everyday conversation about the weather!
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Post by pim on Apr 8, 2013 17:14:56 GMT 10
Earl Grey you didn't read past the first four words of my post. Please read the rest of it. Then respond. Until then ... Pffft yourself! Incidentally the great thing about being an agnostic is that you don't have to "prove" anything. You've seen what I've put as the "Agnostic's Creed" as the message at the bottom of all my posts: "Yes or no, I'm still right!" But read past the first four words of my post. OK?
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Post by pim on Apr 8, 2013 17:22:44 GMT 10
I prefer the Great Pumpkin meself ...
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 10, 2013 10:31:20 GMT 10
I'm an evidence based believer. ; Do you really believe that? Do you have any evidence for believing this is true? HOISTED!
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Post by slartibartfast on Apr 10, 2013 23:49:42 GMT 10
His own words and mind are his evidence and that is all he needs.
He knows what he thinks! Don't you? Or does someone think for you?
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Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 12, 2013 9:29:11 GMT 10
Nope. If atheists think, and Christians reject the drivel the atheists try to spoon feed them... (And have sound reasons for doing so...) ...That must mean Christians don't think for themselves.
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