EVOLUTION: what about this

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Orogeny said:
Actually, I used him only because you gave his article as a point of discussion and because of his obvious lack of scientific understanding.

But the point is is that you are right. Anyone can do emperical science. The question is, what is the value of work done by non-scientists?Not at all. I agreed with you.I know of no one who claims perfection other than those opposed to science. I do think that science is very good at finding problems with ideas and that leads to self-correction as data is collected.Science is the basis of industries. There is money available for scientific research, but there is also money available for art, literature, music, sports, journalism and many more disciplines. I don’t see that as a negative thing. Do you?

Peace

Tim
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I see ideological science as a problem.
 
StAnastasia said:
Defend in what sense?
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In the passage, God commands Saul to kill every “infant and nursing child.” Saul then goes and does this.

I’d like to know:
  1. Do you believe that God really did give this command?
  2. Do you believe that Saul really did obey this command?
  3. If your answers to the previous questions are “yes” and “yes”, do you believe that it was morally correct for Saul to obey God’s command?
  4. Finally, if all your previous answers are “yes”, do you believe that it was morally correct for God to give that command?
–Mike
 
mpartyka said:
In the passage, God commands Saul to kill every “infant and nursing child.” Saul then goes and does this.

I’d like to know:
  1. Do you believe that God really did give this command?
  2. Do you believe that Saul really did obey this command?
  3. If your answers to the previous questions are “yes” and “yes”, do you believe that it was morally correct for Saul to obey God’s command?
  4. Finally, if all your previous answers are “yes”, do you believe that it was morally correct for God to give that command?
–Mike
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I’m not part of this discussion, but maybe this would be better as a separate thread.

Peace

Tim
 
mpartyka said:
I think you’re making a fundamental mistake here. The moral law tells us what humans ought or ought not to do. God is not a human. There’s no sense in saying “God broke the rules” if the rules don’t apply to God in the first place.

–Mike
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Plus there is a Major difference between and . IF they were the same then, The people we call the fathers of our faith like, Moses, Joshua, David, Saul, Abraham, Jacob, and Esau, are not our fathers in faith but . While some of those people did do , they also killed and did not sin. Joshua killed every single person in Jericho except those in Rahab’s house. He is not a er, but he did kill people.
 
Orogeny said:
I’m not part of this discussion, but maybe this would be better as a separate thread.
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Actually, I’d like to see her answer to this as well. If it goes beyond 1 post, we can go to another thread.
 
As StAnastasia has correctly pointed out, this subthread is somewhat off-topic for evolution.
buffalo said:
You make a fundamental mistake here. You cling to the idea that life on earth is the goal. Most of us do. Even faithful believers do not want to die.
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My goal is nirvana. It may be attained in this life or in a future life. It may be attained on earth or elsewhere. Clinging is something to be avoided if possible.
Answer this - if an elevator to heaven presented itself to you right this very minute, would you get on it?
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No. All the Buddhist heavens are temporary - they provide a temporary respite but are not a permanent solution.

Neither of these points are relevant to the question of whether God caused innocents to suffer.

rossum
 
mpartyka said:
I think you’re making a fundamental mistake here. The moral law tells us what humans ought or ought not to do. God is not a human. There’s no sense in saying “God broke the rules” if the rules don’t apply to God in the first place.
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I am not discussing morality, the question in this subthread is whether God caused innocents to suffer.

Buddhism sees all Gods as subject to morality, so your argument has no traction with Buddhists - we give a different answer to the Euthyphro dilemma. God does not have a choice as to what He declares to be moral. He is just as subject to moral law (karma) as the rest of us and will suffer the consequences of His actions.

rossum
 
rossum said:
As StAnastasia has correctly pointed out, this subthread is somewhat off-topic for evolution.

My goal is nirvana. It may be attained in this life or in a future life. It may be attained on earth or elsewhere. Clinging is something to be avoided if possible.

No. All the Buddhist heavens are temporary - they provide a temporary respite but are not a permanent solution.

Neither of these points are relevant to the question of whether God caused innocents to suffer.

rossum
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:rotfl:

So morality is not a subject for evolution, but nirvana and Buddhists heavens are?

It’s OK - I know you hit the submit button faster than you intended… 🙂
 
rossum said:
I am not discussing morality, the question in this subthread is whether God caused innocents to suffer.

Buddhism sees all Gods as subject to morality, so your argument has no traction with Buddhists - we give a different answer to the Euthyphro dilemma. God does not have a choice as to what He declares to be moral. He is just as subject to moral law (karma) as the rest of us and will suffer the consequences of His actions.

rossum
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So if “all Gods are subject to morality”, who is the lawgiver?
 
StAnastasia said:
No, Ed, I guess I don’t see the connection. I’m a Catholic teaching in a Catholic institution, and among our biologists and physicists are priests and brothers. While admittedly there are many scientists who are atheists, apart from those who step outside science to do their atheism promotion (e.g., Dawkins) I see mostly scientists practicing science, and Catholic scientists practicing science and Catholicism (but not Catholic science).

StAnastasia.
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Science is not a thing or object. Science can only exist as a method carried out by human beings. It doesn’t matter if you say, there are religious who are scientists. It does matter when scientists who are against religion appear on television and write books using scientifically derived information to attack religion. Based on the concept of humility, religious working in science are encouraged to be humble and not go around saying, Hey. Look what I’ve done.

And these anti-religious people will use the same ‘mountains of evidence’ for evolution to back up their claims. That is part of the conflict. The other part of the conflict involves “others areas of reason that we still need” as referred to by Pope Benedict. As a Catholic, I can tell others: The Catholic Church tells me that if something like evolution occurred, it could not occur without God’s direct causal action. Otherwise, even people like Father Coyne can say things like even God did not know if man would appear. Without this knowledge, the world is led astray by those scientists who make it their mission to say: look, science has the answer, including refutations of truths held by the Catholic Church.

Any comment made here to say, oh well, they’re just wrong, does nothing to stop their propaganda campaign.

Peace,
Ed
 
rossum said:
I am not discussing morality, the question in this subthread is whether God caused innocents to suffer.
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Then I think the answer is clearly, “Yes, God has caused innocents (in your sense of the word) to suffer.”
Buddhism sees all Gods as subject to morality, so your argument has no traction with Buddhists…God does not have a choice as to what He declares to be moral. He is just as subject to moral law (karma) as the rest of us and will suffer the consequences of His actions.
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Okay, just be aware that your belief system holds no traction here, either. It seems to me you’re saying that God’s willfully causing innocent humans to suffer is wrong, but to a Christian, “right” means “whatever is according to the will of God,” so, to a Christian, by definition God is right to do what he does, and we are right in what we do if we do whatever is in accord with His will.

–Mike
 
mpartyka said:
In the passage, God commands Saul to kill every “infant and nursing child.” Saul then goes and does this.

I’d like to know:
  1. Do you believe that God really did give this command?
  2. Do you believe that Saul really did obey this command?
  3. If your answers to the previous questions are “yes” and “yes”, do you believe that it was morally correct for Saul to obey God’s command?
  4. Finally, if all your previous answers are “yes”, do you believe that it was morally correct for God to give that command?
–Mike
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(1) No. I believe the scribal authors were reconstructing a history of the settlement of Canaan that involved occasional dimly remembered spasms of ethnic cleansing.

(2) I have no idea what the actual history was, although I’m sure biblical archaeologists can corroborate things like the war against the Amalekites. Verse 8 says that Saul “utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.” The scribes retrospectively justified this ethnic cleansing massacre as following the command of God. It’s certainly not how the God I worship works!
 
mpartyka said:
In the passage, God commands Saul to kill every “infant and nursing child.” Saul then goes and does this.

I’d like to know:
  1. Do you believe that God really did give this command?
  2. Do you believe that Saul really did obey this command?
  3. If your answers to the previous questions are “yes” and “yes”, do you believe that it was morally correct for Saul to obey God’s command?
  4. Finally, if all your previous answers are “yes”, do you believe that it was morally correct for God to give that command?
–Mike
Click to expand...
StAnastasia said:
(1) No. I believe the scribal authors were reconstructing a history of the settlement of Canaan that involved occasional dimly remembered spasms of ethnic cleansing.

(2) I have no idea what the actual history was, although I’m sure biblical archaeologists can corroborate things like the war against the Amalekites. Verse 8 says that Saul “utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.” The scribes retrospectively justified this ethnic cleansing massacre as following the command of God. It’s certainly not how the God I worship works!
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So you know how God works. Good.

It seems to me that StA believes that God is just like her, and that God must also follow the rules he made for us. For her, if the Bible seems to indicate that God is not just like her, then that part of the bible must be incorrectly translated, is non literal, or is metaphorical, or is allegorical, or is a myth, or is a fiction altogether. Or so it seems to me from reading her posts.

Of course, there’s a problem with her basic premise. God is not made in our image. That’s a poor premise for determining what is literal, allegorical, etc.
 
StAnastasia said:
(1) No. I believe the scribal authors were reconstructing a history of the settlement of Canaan that involved occasional dimly remembered spasms of ethnic cleansing.

(2) I have no idea what the actual history was, although I’m sure biblical archaeologists can corroborate things like the war against the Amalekites. Verse 8 says that Saul “utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.” The scribes retrospectively justified this ethnic cleansing massacre as following the command of God. It’s certainly not how the God I worship works!
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Interesting. Okay, I just wanted to know how you dealt with troubling passages in the Bible, and it appears to me that your particular balm is denial. I just find that interesting, and not altogether uncommon. (I recall another Catholic – this one an actual “I’ve debated so-and-so” Catholic apologist – who told me that Abraham and Sarah couldn’t have been as old as the Bible says, since humans that old can’t have children. I mean, at that point, why not say the virgin birth account is false, too, since virgins can’t have kids?) I think I get the general idea: If what God says offends you, pretend God didn’t say it.

What else do you pretend didn’t happen, I wonder? Do you confine your historical revisionism to the Old Testament, or is the New Testament up for grabs, too? For example, maybe Paul didn’t really say, “I do not permit a woman to teach,” or, “To avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife, and each wife her own husband”? That would be a good way to shoo in women priests and gay marriage, right?

When I first set out to understand Christianity, I didn’t know where to begin because of all the different denominations out there. However, it seemed to me like they all had one thing in common: they all proclaimed that the Bible was “true” and the “Word of God” in some sense. Now, years later, it appears I’m finding that initial assumption was wrong. There are at least some Christians who don’t even try to treat the Bible as a book of truth, literal or otherwise. Instead of wrestling with its hard lessons, they casually discard whatever in the Bible displeases them and keep whatever pleases and seems right to them. And it appears also that this is not strictly a Protestant phenomena – even among Catholics, one can find many “popes” living and reigning together in disharmony. It’s actually a little reassuring to know that, while Protestants have turned up the volume to 11 by comparison, there are Catholics, too, who sing the very same melody.

Why do you even bother to be Catholic? That’s what I’d like to know now, if you’re willing to share.

–Mike
 
mpartyka said:
What else do you pretend didn’t happen, I wonder? Do you confine your historical revisionism to the Old Testament, or is the New Testament up for grabs, too? For example, maybe Paul didn’t really say, “I do not permit a woman to teach,” or, “To avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife, and each wife her own husband”? That would be a good way to shoo in women priests and gay marriage, right?–Mike
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I sense a lot of anger behind your posting. Do you want to talk about that?
 
mpartyka said:
There are at least some Christians who don’t even try to treat the Bible as a book of truth, literal or otherwise. Instead of wrestling with its hard lessons, they casually discard whatever in the Bible displeases them and keep whatever pleases and seems right to them. And it appears also that this is not strictly a Protestant phenomena – even among Catholics, one can find many “popes” living and reigning together in disharmony.
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That’s the bad news.

The good news is that there is really just one Pope.
 
StAnastasia said:
Perhaps not to you. It matters a lot to me, to their students, to the people who read their publications, etc…
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Now you have taken a small part of what I’ve said and ignored the rest. There is a fundamental problem in science which has corrupted the scientists. It is called scientism, and it is leading to atheism, as is the case for most leading scientists. Do not accuse me of disparaging religious people, especially when you know what I mean. Science has become corrupt. As Cardinal Schoenborn wrote of scientism, “This must be overcome.”

Peace,
Ed
 
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