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edwest2
Guest
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die. The secular society should consider that after we die, these bodies of ours and what we did in life will be judged, fairly, by Jesus Christ.
Ed
Given the principles of evolution, natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc, do you think belief in the supernatural will die out or become a m
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minkymurph
Guest
Everything will become a .minority view at some point. In 100 years time people will laugh atcwhst we think now. I n a million years from now no one will give any consideration to what we think now other than in the history class any more than we consider 5he bronze age. Humankind gas believed in God’s and the supernatural from 5he dawn of time. I predict always will but different interpretations and trends.
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PluniaZ
Guest
In a thousand years:
(1) The Roman Catholic faith will be the same as it is today.
(2) Our understanding of the origin of species and the creation of the universe will be nothing like what it is today.
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Bradski
Guest
I can’t read that without hearing Eddie Murphy.
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Aloysium
Guest
I get the imagery. But, I’m going to take this in another direction. Don’t think I am referring to you personally here. By no means do I think your comment has a malicious intent. A bit insensitive, but I think you were being honest and probably trying to bring people around to what you believe to be reality.
Although what you say is rather benign, reading it, in the background I also heard: youtube.com/watch?v=uPqqp8KVuQU
Ridicule can be a very effective expression of religious intolerance. Richard Dawkins does not mince words. Recently in fact, Berkeley’s KPFA Radio cancelled his book event because of “abusive speech against Islam”. Possibly it had to do with his lecture at the Cheltenham Science Festival in Gloucestershire, England in June of this year, when he told an audience that Islam is the “most evil” religion in the world . KPFA felt he had “offended and hurt … so many people”. He didn’t get it, attempting to justify his comments but digging himself deeper, claiming he was trying to help Muslims who were the worst victims of Islam. At a certain point the freedom to speak our minds has to be tempered so that we do not incite hate. Richard Dawkins never speaks to the faithful, but rather to the narrow minded, who cannot and will not listen with their hearts.
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Aloysium
Guest
Here’s the quote:
This is what I hear:
There are times, trying to walk the path of righteousness that we are stopped in our tracks. Striving to get things done, we find that it’s one internal obstacle, error, and distraction after another. We may double down, push ourselves, to try and try to rise to the challenge. And then, as we start feeling we might have this beat, dread wells up, and begins to crush our spirit. We may remind ourselves that it’s only anxiety and all we have to do is focus and forge ahead; at which point, everything shuts down. No matter how we struggle, there’s no energy and not sufficient motivation to carry on. At that point, It is a good idea to listen to one’s body. We may hear it speak and within that internal dialogue we may be taken beyond ourselves to see the true “obstacle” standing in our way. And in the end, while pursuing that same goal, this time, we do it God’s way.
I have no idea whether the donkey spoke, whatever that might mean, at that moment in history. I have had or heard of enough one-of experiences to silence me on the matter. There really is no way of knowing in this truly miraculous world. I’m not trying to mystify reality, but just want to say that we can never close our accounts with it.
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Eric_Hyom
Guest
Aloysium; said:
Like you, I have experienced the wonders of God.
I look in awe when I think of the creation of the universe and life, that has to be God’s greatest miracle. All other miracles pale into insignificance, the talking donkey, virgin birth and raising the dead.
Whilst we concentrate on ridiculing a talking donkey, we might overlook the greater message in this story, that Balaam should obey God and not the king, even at the risk of loosing his life.
Balaam would need real courage to stand before a king, and do exactly the opposite of what the king asks three times. The talking donkey and the angel are a sign from God, they are a reminder to Balaam, that he should obey God and not a mere king.
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inocente
Guest
When I was a teenager I subscribed to a partwork, where you get a magazine every month and put them in binders. It had articles on all the things people believe, from astrology to UFOs. One of the areas which interested me was the undead (I was a teenager). Turned out that each culture has its own variety. Some have ghosts, others ghouls, others zombies, banshees, vampires, etc.That is so correct – be sure to include Hedwig.
We step into the supernatural when the man in the moon smiles at us. Then we wonder what is behind that moon. We wonder why we even think about the supernatural when an ordinary man can walk on the moon. Seriously, when that happened, I went outside and looked up.
The populations of the supernatural seemed beyond us until one day a person who called himself a shaman showed up. With an inviting smile, he shared his secret. He acted as a medium between us and the invisible spirit world. (my old dictionary) The rest is history.
If we can avoid Google, we eventually find that we do have the capability to explore and learn about the supernatural world (Genesis 1: 27) The principles of evolution, being in the material world, do not have the capability to modify the supernatural world. Instinctively, we know that the supernatural world is supreme. No matter how we disagree with the supernatural, the next day or night, there is a child or a child like human looking up and smiling. The supernatural world, regardless of what we include, including the being under our bed or in our closet, exists forever.
Hopefully, all of us will conclude that the ever present supernatural world (see Inocente’s partial list above) is possible because a supreme supernatural being aka Immortal God is also there.
In some cultures the undead are evil, they may be are jealous of the living and ruin the crops and so on. In others they are benign, in others they portend doom, etc.
Same story with fairies, elves, bigfoot, forms of magic, etc. Each only exists in specific cultures and particular times in history.
From this I decided none of them can possibly be objectively real and they only exist in peoples’ imaginations. So to me, the supernatural is largely about how humans think and dream and perceive. Doesn’t make it less important or less real, but I think any study of the supernatural has to start from our minds. God is different, since unlike vampires or elves there is a rational foundation with a spiritual aspect which transcends us.
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inocente
Guest
Had to find the story (Numbers 22).
Balaam is riding his donkey down the road when she wanders into a field, He beats her. She crushes him against a wall and he beats her again. She lies down and he beats her a third time.
Shades of John Clees attacking his car. Hitting out in Irrational anger. But if it’s an animal, maybe followed by remorse.
The donkey says he has ridden her many times, and asks “Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”. If that was written by Cervantes or a modern author, I’d take the donkey’s voice to be Balaam’s conscience. He gets a sudden epiphany about himself. It’s comedic but we can feel empathy for him finding himself reflected in the animal and how he treated her. Which he sees as God speaking to him. Donkeys can do that. Camels not so much, or maybe I can’t speak camelish.
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Vonsalza
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tonyrey
Guest
Your first word sums up your irrational attitude. It is just one more example of baiting another member…Tonyism.
I never said there was exclusively, and it’s easy to link behavior to our physicality. “Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?”
But now you mention it, it’s harder to find evidence for behavior that unambiguously cannot be linked to physicality (either via stimulus, evolution, learning, etc.).
You might be accused of lacking spirituality - an eagle isn’t a robot, it’s a poem.
Edwestism. Have you made biologists aware of your rules about what they should not put in their books?
Zombies, ghosts, demons, the astral plane, Harry Potter’s wand (to coin a phrase). The supernatural is populated with all manner of things.
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tonyrey
Guest
Unfortunately many of our brothers and sisters are brainwashed by the propaganda that we exist by chance and when we die we disappear forever and ever…
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fisherman_carl
Guest
One thing that evolution can not account for is the rational human mind. If an alien intelligence came from space would he see man as another animal that found greener pastures or would he see man as the cow that jumped over the moon? Either you have to believe that man is the result of a cresecendo of miracles one after another or you have to accept there is no explanation. The difference between man and the animals is staggering. And the more you treat man like just another animal the more you realize he is not one.
Even the so called early cave man is set apart. The only thing we really know about the so called cave man is that he is an artist. We don’t even know whether he lived in a cave. We see him drawing pictures of animals like deer. This sets him apart from the animals immensely. For only man is an artist. Nowhere do we see deer drawing pictures of a man. Birds may build nests. But only if we saw them building nests in the Gothic style could we consider them artists. But then we would no more expect them to build a nest in the Gothic style than we would expect a deer to draw pictures of a man in the cave.
The idea of the human rational soul is a practical one. For there is something in man which does not correspond to his natural surroundings. Nor is there any sign of it coming from his surroundings. Thus is part of man which is natural and part of him which is supernatural. And this part of him that is supernatural must then point to a supernatural source not of this world.
If a man were perfectly content with this world like a deer is perfectly content with his surroundings he would be completely content in his environment. But since man is not perfectly content with this world he was created for a different one.
Even the so called early cave man is set apart. The only thing we really know about the so called cave man is that he is an artist. We don’t even know whether he lived in a cave. We see him drawing pictures of animals like deer. This sets him apart from the animals immensely. For only man is an artist. Nowhere do we see deer drawing pictures of a man. Birds may build nests. But only if we saw them building nests in the Gothic style could we consider them artists. But then we would no more expect them to build a nest in the Gothic style than we would expect a deer to draw pictures of a man in the cave.
The idea of the human rational soul is a practical one. For there is something in man which does not correspond to his natural surroundings. Nor is there any sign of it coming from his surroundings. Thus is part of man which is natural and part of him which is supernatural. And this part of him that is supernatural must then point to a supernatural source not of this world.
If a man were perfectly content with this world like a deer is perfectly content with his surroundings he would be completely content in his environment. But since man is not perfectly content with this world he was created for a different one.
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Vonsalza
Guest
Well, not particularly. Your “brainwashed” brothers and sisters don’t see an evolved creation as conflicting with a Mosaic text that indicates God called us forth from the dirt. And they still believe in heaven, so…
I don’t see the necessary contradiction between “evolving by chance and being created by God” any more than I see the necessary contradiction between “man’s free moral agency and God’s unflinching sovereignty”. They’re dualities. They both exist simultaneously.
I think your approach is akin to insisting that a locomotive runs on only one rail. If you want to feel that way, fine. But I’d give breathing-room to those that think otherwise. They might end up being right.
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Vonsalza
Guest
I know many evolutionists that would argue that with you. I think the starting premise is that “pain=bad” and rationality builds from there.
Careful here. Strict biblical literalists can’t really believe in cavemen. The text gives creation as approximately 4004 BC if you take a very literal reading of the years given until we reach the first biblical events that we can independently date. Cavemen predate 4000 BC by tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
If cavemen can exist because the language about the elapsing of time was a little figurative or allegorical, then why can’t the creation narrative be read the same way?
I agree. It is also not an idea being addressed by the theory of evolution. Just like “how to change the oil in my Ford” is not being answered by the current theory on gravity.
They’re different subjects.
Alas, Eden is lost.
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fisherman_carl
Guest
Evolutionists may argue but what they can’t do is provide much evidence for the evolution of intelligence.
I am not a young earth creationist. But if I was I doubt I would believe the reports on the age of the cave man.
I consider Genesis to be symbolic. The Framework hypothesis seems to be a possibility.
When I say the human soul is a practical one I mean it best explains the data, that is ourselves. For there is nothing on nature that completely corresponds to man. There is nothing in nature that we can say here is a succession outlining the gradual evolution of man’s intelligence. Instead man is a freak of nature, a poltergeist. Man is something of a strange animal when you consider him to be an animal. Thus it shows how man is not completely a product of nature. But is also product of something not natural, but supernatural.
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fisherman_carl
Guest
- Hamlet. Act 2 scene 2 page 13.
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tonyrey
Guest
Where you live must be different from the UK. In this secular society God has disappeared from the scene for most people . They have plenty of “breathing-room” but are never taught about religion at school. Girls have abortions as a matter of course without thinking it may be wrong…Well, not particularly. Your “brainwashed” brothers and sisters don’t see an evolved creation as conflicting with a Mosaic text that indicates God called us forth from the dirt. And they still believe in heaven, so…
I don’t see the necessary contradiction between “evolving by chance and being created by God” any more than I see the necessary contradiction between “man’s free moral agency and God’s unflinching sovereignty”. They’re dualities. They both exist simultaneously.
I think your approach is akin to insisting that a locomotive runs on only one rail. If you want to feel that way, fine. But I’d give breathing-room to those that think otherwise. They might end up being right.
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Bradski
Guest
'Religious Education (RE) is a compulsory subject in the state education system in England. Schools are required to teach a programme of religious studies according to local and national guidelines.
Religious Education in England is mandated by the Education Act 1944 as amended by the Education Reform Act 1988 and the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. The provision of Religious Education is compulsory in all state-funded schools, but it is not compulsory for any of the children to take the subject. The subject consists of the study of different religions, religious leaders, and other religious and moral themes. However, the curriculum is required to reflect the predominant place of Christianity in religious life and hence Christianity forms the majority of the content of the subject.’ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_education_in_primary_and_secondary_education
I’m surprised you don’t know what is being taught in your own country.
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Eric_Hyom
Guest
How does the ToE, overcome these contradictions?
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