The Darwin Spin Off

[Alwin Alcott]

18 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

This is one of the problems I have with the Bible - it contradicts itself, as well as things taken as scriptures which are not a scripture they are a lineage or a poem for some examples.  Or, as Luna eluded to, a parable.  Prophesy also.  The OT was included to show it's prophecies not be sola scriptura, imo.  As well as what Rowan is saying "to manipulate" others.  Not to mention while being sinning hypocrites themselves.  The Popes and priests used to be in the brothels among other things.  Babies aborted and buried in the churchyard.   And, they want tithe when Jesus is a free gift from God.  

you throw a lot of things on one heap here.. hardly related and mixed with things that aren't related to the subject or misunderstanding.

[Rowan Amore]

Again, the point being, those who wrote the bible and their followers are the same ones who say it was inspired by god.  That's the same as giving  a good review of a book you wrote.

"What I've said was inspired by god so you must believe it's true!".  If someone said that today, it would earn an eyeroll from a lot of people.

 

 

[Alwin Alcott]

15 minutes ago, roseelvira said:

Timothy was not one of the original 12 apostles.  Note  the first person Jesus appeared to was Mary Magdalen after  he rose from the dead 

Timothy did not say GOD said ,,,,he said I meaning it was     it was  Timothy's  personal view on a  situation Paul wrote to him about.

Timothy is the adressed person not the writer, we have nothing what Timothy said or wrote what leads to this answer by the possible pseudo Paul writing, even more... there are none found about ány apostolic letter in the NT that leads to the specific answers we read there.
Timothy wasn't one of the 12, but Paul also not, while he (and his pseudo's) have the biggest influence on christianity, even óver the known words of the Christ.

the context that should be taken in mind is well explained in the post by Arielle
 

 

45 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Paul is addressing specific issues with specific women in a specific community. His restriction of their teaching cannot be viewed as a universal command without contradicting his comments regarding women both in close context as well as in other books in the New Testament, as David Freedman notes:

The “occasional” nature of Paul’s letters must be taken into consideration when evaluating such difficult texts as 1 Cor 14:34–35, or its parallel in 1 Tim 2:8–15. In both cases, Paul and/or the Paulinist who wrote these verses is dealing with problems in the Pauline communities. The rulings given apply to specific problems of women disrupting the worship service, or usurping authority over others. In both cases, the abuses are being ruled out, but this does not foreclose the issue of whether or not women who did not abuse their privileges might speak or exercise authority if it was done in a proper and orderly manner. . . . In fact, in view of the evidence that various women were Paul’s co-workers in the Gospel ministry it is unlikely that these texts were ever intended to do more than rule out certain abuses. Link

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[FairreLilette]

15 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

you throw a lot of things on one heap here.. hardly related and mixed with things that aren't related to the subject or misunderstanding.

In a nutshell, I am for Jesus but not for organized religion as I think it is corrupt.  There is too much corruption here to even tackle it.  Bono attempted to in the movie "Rattle and Hum" during the song "Bullet the Blue Sky" plus other things I've read that Bono has written about...and Bono saying during "Bullet the Blue Sky"...."well, the God I believe in isn't short of cash, mister!"  I have to agree.  

Edited March 14, 2021 by FairreLilette

[roseelvira]

Alwin .

Thank You,

  i corrected my post.

 But as i read that verse ...... i see it///read it   it comes across as it was  the  opinion  of the  writer  of  that verse ...the  writers   opinion on that situation at that time . 

referring to timothy 2:12

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by roseelvira
something wrong words etc after being typed jumbled will file support ticket

[Theresa Tennyson]

44 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The Sumerian texts are not known to inspire people to better behaviour.

How much of Sumerian civilization were you around for?

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

How much of Sumerian civilization were you around for?

None but if it works for you or you know of people for whom it has, I'd love to hear it.

[roseelvira]

post  thinggy  not working 

Edited March 15, 2021 by roseelvira

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The Sumerian texts are not known to inspire people to better behaviour.

The Sumerians seem to have first developed cuneiform for the mundane purposes of keeping accounts and records of business transactions, but over time it blossomed into a full-fledged writing system used for everything from poetry and history to law codes and literature.

 

[Arielle Popstar]

19 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

The point being that bible thumpers often pull crap like this out of the Bible to prove some ridiculous point.  I've also seen them find passages denouncing homosexuals.  People interpret the bible to fit their agenda claiming "it's in the Bible!  It's the word of god!".  Hogwash, I say!!!

 I was in my mid teens sitting in a orthodox reformed church reading the chapters that followed the verse the minister was expounding on when I realized his teaching was contradicting passages further on. So yes, I can relate. After I moved out from my parents house I didn't attend churches anymore, not because of the contradictions but simply because after a restrictive upbringing from parents who were at that time more legalistic than spiritual, I wanted to spread my wings and see what life had to offer.

After I got my fill of seeing what life had to offer and had joined a couple of self help groups to recover from that, it was suggested I find a Higher Power as I understood Him/Her/*. I chose the God of my upbringing simply because He was too deeply ingrained for me to give any honest allegiance to another. I made prayers asking for insight into my reading of the Bible for what it said, not for what others had interpreted it to mean. It can be a difficult thing letting go of interpretations learned early on and reading the scriptures for what they actually say. Difficult passages and seeming contradictions, I asked for clarification and then waited for an answer which can take days, weeks or even years, but they do come and I have an ahah! moment. Other times I see the Bible as a book of signposts so that when I reach a certain point in spiritual maturity, I suddenly understand certain verses and passages and it is confirmation that I am on the right path for that moment.

I don't attend a church other than when one of my Self help groups meets in the basement of one of them. As you are a recovering Catholic, I am a recovering Protestant and as such am careful not to get caught back up in some of the teachings (or lack of) in many of the mainstream Churches and yet made my peace with the God of my understanding.

[roseelvira]

 

 If one believes  in the divine,  their  choice

if one does  not believe,    their  choice

Free will 

live and let live 

Edited March 14, 2021 by roseelvira

[RunawayBunny]

5 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I am interested in where you got the idea Muslims think the Quran has changed.

They don't, they believe it is original but different groups interpret and translate Quran different way, they called shia and sunni there is also many different variants amongst them.

I was raised as Muslim later rejected idea of religion.

Example: Alcohol not forbidden in Islam. Western Muslims treat Mohamed as special person and often gives example from Mohamed's quotes and they believe those quotes have equal weight as Quran. They say alcohol forbidden because Mohamed does not recommend consuming it but there is no such a order inside Quran. Arabic Muslims considers Mohamed ordinary man and Mohamed's words hold no weight he is a just messenger. This view point greatly alters interpretation.

Example: Some groups forces their woman completely cover entire body, while other groups allow them freely wear whatever they want but limit their actions in public.. this difference related with translation and interpretation.

"O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters, and the believing women, to draw their cloaks (veils) over their bodies. That will be better that they should be known (as respectable woman) so as not to be annoyed. And Allah is Ever Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." -Al-Ahzab:59 (Qur'an)

Another group Kharijites but I don't have much information about them. They interpret historical events differently.

There is also brutal mercenary and political groups exist I will not write their name but you can guess their organization name.. extremist, wiling to use religion for their purposes. They have their own alterations for normalization killing people, they call it jihad.

Original book might be same but translation and interpretations altered.

[Aquila Kytori]

3 hours ago, roseelvira said:

If one believes  in the divine,  their  choice

if one does  not believe,    their  choice

Free will 

Except that for many it is not a case of free will.

My paternal grandfather had his education beaten into him by Jesuit priests. I can remember him repeating to me the saying  attributed to these Jesuits  "Give us a child until the age of 8 and we will have him for life."

The primary school I attended (age 4 - 11) was Church of England. I don't remember it being particularly religious but I left indoctrinated all the same. I guess because Christian parables etc are aimed at young children, science not so much.

Later I began to silently question this religion with its threats of hell and limbo etc and a God that seemed to me to be ..... well  Stephan Fry expressed my thoughts much better than I could in an interview for Irish television :

“It’s perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living in my opinion.”

I post the link but add a warning that it is probably not for religious snowflakes.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/feb/01/stephen-fry-god-evil-maniac-irish-tv 

 

It took me many years to clean my mind from this indoctrination. Mainly thanks to books by the likes of Richard Dawkins I eventually experienced a kind of enlightenment and  a huge sense of freedom.

 

I think its perfectly fine if we don't yet understand exactly how the first spark of life came into existence on this planet. Not knowing  does not effect the credibility of the Darwinian theory (and its later extensions) just as not knowing what triggered the Big Bang effect the plausibility of that theory.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Aquila Kytori

[Luna Bliss]

 

[Luna Bliss]

@Nalates Urriah

Your type of Christianity is evil, Nalates, causing harm to others.

Almost every Creationist/Intelligent Design proponent I've read believes Christianity has the hotline to God, and they end up attempting to force others to conform to how they believe everyone should live (backed by the power of God on their side, of course).

Your placing of the the air quotes around other mentioned religions, demonstrating your contempt for other viewpoints, only further reveals your lack of respect for those who differ from you. 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[roseelvira]

getting information  

the posting thinny  not working 

 

.

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by roseelvira

[FairreLilette]

5 hours ago, roseelvira said:

I never heard of  Paul having the biggest  influence  over the Words Of Christ ,,I  will have to go find out  ,,,, Have a friend who is a Jesuit 

 but   saul // paul ,,,, unless its the eddy izzard   comedy bit of paul writing to the Corinthians    that was funny   never put a  sock in a toaster .....

He does to some extent, Rose.  Jesus paid our price in full on the cross and the law of sin and death were nailed to the cross and Jesus said "it is finished" and Jesus' final words of instructions were "love one another".  Then, Saul/Paul comes along and writes another bunch of stupid laws some 100 years later after Jesus' death and appoints himself an Apostle, the 13th Apostle.  Jesus also said his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  Love was Jesus' answer when he said this:  "Love does no harm to it's neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."  The law Jesus is speaking about is the 612 or so laws in the Old Testament written by Moses.  But, as I said, then Saul/Paul comes along and writes another bunch of stupid laws that infiltrate the church today not to mention are cherry-picked to death because Paul wrote women can never cut their hair as one of the stupid laws.  So, these laws are cherry-picked to death to whatever churches decided to suddenly over-turn.  I mean if you follow one than you follow it all as Talligurl said; however, Christian women cut their hair plus tons of other laws they've decided not to follow from Paul.  So much hypocrisy in it all.  Listen to Jesus' words; they are enough.  

Edited March 15, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Ceka Cianci]

9 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

After a lifetime of "seeing" my own eyes and ears deceive me, and reading about all the ways in which our brains ignore or misinterpret what's right in front of us, I asked my cousin, an FBI agent, how much she trusted eyewitness testimony...

"Not much".

There are, of course, situations in which we can fairly trust our senses, but we should always harbor a little skepticism.

Some years ago, I noticed that I was having more "close calls" when exiting my driveway in my car. I'd not see the rare approaching jogger, cyclist or vehicle even though I was looking both ways before entering the road. My brain has repeated that scan so many times, it was happy to use its internal model of a traffic free road rather than take current data from my eyes. I've modified my scan habit to include consciously thinking of those close calls. I can't trust myself to enter the road on autopilot.

Still, I know that new habit isn't enough. I'm sure I'm making the same errors then I drive well worn routes. Now I try to switch up my routes to frequented destinations so my brain doesn't get complacent.

Ceka, look at your question from the standpoint of people who cause car accidents. How many times were they at fault because their eyewitness account of the situation in the seconds before the accident was wrong?

That was an example for Anything seen with our eyes..

I've seen plenty of car accidents.. some where there was no doubt about who's fault it was and some where They happened so fast that it was hard to tell.. 

If I'm not sure,then I'll say I'm not sure. But if i am positive about what happend, you can bet It's stuck and i know what i seen.

Now if someone edits a video to change It's context and i go and find the full version and see the true context. Then I'm also gonna know what i seen. 

My original point was that was happening on both sides, as well as algorithms don't just hand pick one side. Everyone has to deal with them.

[roseelvira]

still getting information from many different sources and different views and opinions  

Edited March 15, 2021 by roseelvira
checking on informations

[Drayke Newall]

13 hours ago, Talligurl said:

If God can get into Abraham's head and tell him what to write, then He can get into the Sumerians heads and well and tell them what to write in preparation of Abrahams writing, The earlier texts are not "inspired" in the sense that they are not the final authoritive version, but they still may mave been influenced by God in preparation of the final text. 

 

No. Just no. Firstly it is a known fact that the chosen of God were the Israelites. Secondly to suggest any sort of thought that the God of the bible 'got into the heads' of other cultures is absurd not to mention goes against the bible in not only it preaching free will but also against the stories.

Free will aside, if God 'got into the heads' of others, why did it require Moses to torture Egypt with plagues to get the Pharaoh to release the Israelites? Surely if he can just 'get into the heads' of people he would have 'inspired' Pharaoh to let them go. Would certainly have meant a lot less blood on the hands of God.

Secondly, Abraham didn't write anything. The first books of the bible were not written until 200BC a full 1700 years AFTER Abraham.

7 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

There is also the Book of Jasher that parallels the bible and is considered a secular history of the Israelites. It isn't inspired either though it mentions God.

No the difference is that the CHURCH decided which books were inspired or not. It had nothing to do with God. Lets not forget that the church has different denominations that each think some books are inspired whilst other things they are not.

For example, the Ethiopian Orthodox church think the Book of Enoch is inspired (of which it is mentioned in Jude) and therefore is included whilst other denominations don't. Then you have the Apocrypha which the Catholic Church believe Canon, yet the Eastern Orthodox believe some of those Apocrypha are not but others are. Then the Protestant churches don't believe the Apocrypha is. Also the Jews believe the entirety of the Old testament and apocrypha (Hebrew texts have one book where Christian texts break those books into other books) is inspired.

But just to add confusion to the issue, you then have the Church Fathers of whom, believed differently as to what books were to be part of the Biblical Cannon. For what they believed 'inspired' or canon differs. 

For example Origen who was one of the earliest theologians argued against and for some books. Athanasius was the same arguing for and against.

Then you have the issues where the Septuagint has muddled the chapters of books such as Esther that the order differs from the original Hebrew. Not to mention that the Septuagint (which modern bibles are translated from) also contains many small changes in the meaning of the main text to Esther.

On top of that you have numerous different translations of the bible with some altering meanings all together. Not to mention that some fragments in the Dead Sea Scrolls differ to the current versions of the bible despite those Dead Sea Scroll fragments being earlier than the ones used for the modern translations.

So which version is inspired?

Lets also then not forget common mistakes that can happen with printing where you have massive theological ramifications in some translations. This is not widely known but, Zondervan who are the biggest publishers of the bible in the world many years ago accidently released a bible that changed some of the "He" (referring to God) to "She". Whilst it was discovered, recalled and copies destroyed, some still exist in the world of which my family as a copy.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Gabriele Graves]

I had promised myself to not respond to this thread again but in light of certain comments about creationists, I want to state my position more fully.

1. I do not believe in Christianity or any other form of religion or entity that would be recognisable as a deity/God.
2. In my mind a designer/creator of our existence is not a God but an artisan, technician and/or engineer or group of such in their existence who employs their science on the problem.
3. I don't think the problem of how our existence got started has been satisfactorily answered by anyone, science or otherwise.  It is that which I say is beyond our current level of understanding to prove conclusively.  Having theories is fine but conclusive proof cannot be argued against and it is that which is lacking.

I hope that clarifies my position if there was any doubt.  That is all.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Gabriele Graves

[Talligurl]

I have concluded no one cares why other people think the way they do, everyone just wants to shout thier own opinion and ignore the thoughts that lead other to belive different things. No one ever said that you have to accept what others believe if you understand why they believe it. I have no desire to be part of a shouting match, so I will leave the rest of you to it.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Talligurl

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I had promised myself to not respond to this thread again but in light of certain comments about creationists, I want to state my position more fully.

1. I do not believe in Christianity or any other form of religion or entity that would be recognisable as a deity/God.
2. In my mind a designer/creator of our existence is not a God but an artisan, technician and/or engineer or group of such in their existence who employs their science on the problem.
3. I don't think the problem of how our existence got started has been satisfactorily answered by anyone, science or otherwise.  It is that which I say is beyond our current level of understanding to prove conclusively.  Having theories is fine but conclusive proof cannot be argued against and it is that which is lacking.

I hope that clarifies my position if there was any doubt.  That is all.

Your position is similar to my father's, though he had a Catholic funeral, just in case.

I'm content to take no position, have no theories, and present no proof. I'll look over everybody else's shoulders to see what they're thinking.

There are some ideas I find unattractive, such as active, needy, interventional, omniscient, omnipotent creators.

I don't like the idea of creators setting us about competing for attention like circus animals, either to garner treats or avoid the whip.

A creator who knows everything should be able to kick off a creation with no further guidance. I suppose we could be a high school class project for a creator-in-training, who had to drop-in to construct Earth's first life just before her first lab exam because she'd got the initial conditions and laws a bit wrong. Then, just before mid-terms, while nobody was looking, she popped back in to create the Cambrian explosion. Maybe there's a parallel universe out there, just like ours because she plagiarized another student's work?

I'm curious, and that makes it hard not to feel sorry for the omniscient, who never feel the joy of learning. What gets them up in the morning?

Now I'm thinking of Max Planck, who invented a quantized fudge factor (Planck's Constant) to make his blackbody radiation math work out. He was mortified when Einstein showed that the quantization was real, and now we're all mortified by the thought that there might be a tiny (Planck length) quantum door to the truth through which we cannot go. If we really can't go, then we're free to imagine whatever the hell we wish.

Though my Mom also had a Catholic funeral, for the last decade of her life she attended the local Unitarian church, ostensibly because they had good pot-luck dinners and bake sales. Ultimately, I think she simply fancied their philosophy...

It's all good.

I can live with that.

;-).

Edited March 15, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[roseelvira]

Love you Madelaine 

💖

[Gabriele Graves]

16 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Your position is similar to my father's, though he had a Catholic funeral, just in case.

This is the second time you have said something like this.  I doubt that we are that similar because I have an intense dislike for all religions, I do not believe in a God and I don't hedge my bets in case I am wrong.  I am happy to take whatever consequences there are for what I do not believe in.  I just see a design and a creation before me, I know not from whence nor where it came but I cannot deny it exists.  If I am offered absolute proof that it cannot be by design then I would accept that, until then, let my imagination hold sway.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Gabriele Graves