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poetjpb -- I have to agree with that -- it is a human need that will always
exist.
posted by
gomedome
on September 21, 2005 at 8:27 PM
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Regardless of the state of organized religion, I believe there is a "something" inside human beings that makes them long for God. Someone described it as a God shaped vacuum. Interesting thought...
posted by
poetjpb
on September 21, 2005 at 8:14 PM
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actually it won't disappear
as long as people need it as a crutch. They need a higher power to take the responsibility for life's imponderables, a reason behind the random crap that happens -- like hurricanes and earthquakes and the fact that diet soda makes you hungry for fat and sugar.
posted by
Pat_B
on September 21, 2005 at 5:55 AM
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I WROTE IN
BEYOND THE EDIFICE -- THE NEW CHRISTIANITY
not in
THE REAL TRUTH
in THE REAL TRUTH
I'm the pope.
so what I say goes.
posted by
Xeno-x
on September 19, 2005 at 11:53 AM
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thelongroad's
scripture passage -- it can apply to any generation, from Egyptian civilization claqr through Paul's times and at any time between then and now.
As can many of these passages (Matthew 24 is an example)
But gomedome, yes there is a Bible passage where the "circle of the earth" is mentioned. This is used by many to say that the Bible writer knew that the earth was round. That was certainly demonstrated about that time by -- not Archimedes, but asnother Greek who placed equal height rods at different latitudes and discovered the northern shadow to be shorter than the southern. It wouldn't take divine revelation for such a discovery, simply knowledge (and, of course we know that religion of the Common Era kept such discovery from being common, insisting that the Earth was, indeed, flat.
And the clean and unclean meats versus the Egyptian practicers. I would supposxe that the meat laws were the result of the scientific method, just like Pasteur's discovery that bacteria caused disease -- mainly observation and making certain connections between disease and the eating of certain meats, such as pork and catfish and oysters. People back then must have gotten sick from those meats, just as they can otday, and certain observant types noticed the connection. And, of course, the best way to regulate people's diet was via divine edict.
And, by the way, it has been amply demonstrated that this particular passage (Leviticus 11) was written much later and not by Moses, but by someone who wrote around the time of King Hezekiah and maybe later than that (mentioned in my THE REAL TRUTH), so we are certainly looking at an evolving time of discovering these things, way after the Egyptian dung healing practices mentioned by thelongroad.
you've got to remember also that some wayward practices persist in societies until finally by attrition the practitioners cease to be, even into what we call civilized 18th 19th, 20th and 21st century societies.
posted by
Xeno-x
on September 19, 2005 at 11:48 AM
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kooka_lives -- that's an important point -- we all know how much believers
love to take portions of the bible and try to make things fit, then call it fullfilling a biblical prophecy. We've even seen numerous examples over history of people becoming pro-active in this endeavour. Performing a certain action, as described in the bible, by convincing themselves that it was their destiny to do so. Hitler comes to mind here, he trully believed that his initial deportation of the jews prior to and at the beginning of the war to an area then referred to as Palestine, was in fact his destiny to fullfill a biblical prophecy. How long before one of these crazy fundie bastards releases a nuke thinking they are fullfilling their destiny to unleash armegheddon?
posted by
gomedome
on September 19, 2005 at 10:51 AM
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gomedome
I am well aware of how sick man is about dreaming of the end often world. I remember one night back in high School some group and declared that the world would end at midnight. My friends and I were trying to hunt down a copy of REM's 'End Of the World As We Know It' so that we could blast it as we drove around that night.
I also knew a girl in High School who was positive the world would end with the beginning of the year 2000. She puzzled me by being an over achiever who was planning for a future and really worried about getting into a good Collage. The two things just did not seem to go together. She is one of the few reasons I would go to a High School reunion, just to ask her how the end of the world went.
I do not take any of these lines about the 'End times' seriously. You really have to be sick and not feel that life is worth living to believes in such disturbing ideas. Most of it is ego after all. 'Myself and the time I live in are so important that they will be the end times' is just so pathetic, but that really is the general idea behind the worship of such events.
posted by
kooka_lives
on September 19, 2005 at 10:51 AM
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thelongroad
I never said Paul was supporting those values, just that the present day Conservative Fundamentalist seem to embrace those values and live their lives by them, unlike the Atheists I know who do not. Therefore if you believe in such BS as prophecies of the end times, it is not the atheists who are taking us down the end path, but the Conservative Fundamentalists.
posted by
kooka_lives
on September 19, 2005 at 10:42 AM
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Kooka and thelongroad -- I think you are both missing an important point
During almost every generation of man throughout history, someone somewhere, has decried the wickedness of mankind and the deterioration of societal morals. There a numerous references of same right in the bible itself. In the 1200's this wickedness was depicted as the greed and indifference of the ruling classes, the same can be said of every century since that time...sound familiar? Just as the world is going to end and God will perfom some form of final judgement, people have been examining their own contemporary moral issues and have come to the same pathetic conclusion. This has been true since the beginning of time. To try to apply it again to today, is merely the continuation of the same folly.
posted by
gomedome
on September 19, 2005 at 9:30 AM
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OFFBEATS -- I agree that it will never happen but for different reasons
We have no reason to assume that mankind will ever fully overcome the need to believe in a higher power. This need has been true of the colective make up of our species since the beginning of time. All we can possibly hope for is an evolution from the traditional definition of God to a construct that reconciles a bit better with the modern world and our ever expanding knowledge base. This evolution may also be the only hope to impede the entrenchment of denominational division that mankind is currently wallowing in.
posted by
gomedome
on September 19, 2005 at 8:48 AM
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thelongroad -- selective reasoning and the desire for it to be so are the
entire constructs of your contentions. You now have the bible supporting that the earth is round. Good luck with that one. The last time someone tried that here, it was a blogger named DEMSareEVIL, he headed off to find the exact passage and according to him he would return to make me eat my words. I never heard from him again. There are over 30 passages in the bible that suggest a flat earth, further you cannot ignore history and the fact that the entire earth's populace believed that the earth was flat up to about 500 years ago.
Selecting little nuances that coincedently align the bible with science is not a valid position. Science has torn the work to shreds if you try to do a direct comparison of one validating the other. But a real direct comparison based on truth isn't what you are about now is it? You are only about making your imaginary world reconcile with reality and nothing more. The omega-3 seafood diet?....too funny. Geez that proves everything..or maybe it demonstrates for us the eating habits of a time when that the production of food was primitive and mankind relied heavily on the sea for protein.....ya think?
I will have to get to the rest of your comment later.
posted by
gomedome
on September 19, 2005 at 8:41 AM
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Kooka
So you assume just because the Bible reports certain things, it is presenting these things as the core belief and values? The Bible is unflinching in its presentation of the truth, ugly or not. Paul is telling how the world is going to be. He is not supporting such "values". If Christianity were man-made by Paul, he would most likely talk about flowers and roses, good things that attract people, not harse realities that turn people off.
posted by
thelongroad
on September 19, 2005 at 8:39 AM
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thelongroad
Wow, Paul did a great job of describing the present Conservative Fundamentalists there. It sounds like Bush and his group to perfectly. I am not surprised at all that it is Bush and other who think like him who are going to bring about the end of the world. Your really are doing a great job there to help show just how the values of atheism are the way to go. Since atheism does not promote greed or any of what you have Paul talking about there, while Christianity seems to very much be all about living life in such an immoral manner.
posted by
kooka_lives
on September 19, 2005 at 7:53 AM
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In my humble opinion, this will never happen. To believe God will just go away is an injustice to those of us who believe in his presence. We are not a happy accident here on earth, we were well thought out. We learn new things everyday about our universe which gives more credence to God's power. It does not lessen it!
posted by
Offy
on September 19, 2005 at 7:40 AM
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The Value of Science
has served to support the validity of the Bible. For example, ages ago, Moses came up with some wacky laws about not eating certain animals, and washing your hands around infections. At the same time, the most advanced civilization, Egypt, were putting dung on wounds. Centuries later, science would discover that disease and infections are spread through bateria on the hands. Modern science finally closed the door on the debate and agreed with the Bible on the diet choices. The Bible wins by choosing omega-3 seafood which is heart healthy. The Bible also makes reference to the circular shape of the earth, and even predicted that in the last days, man would run too and fro on the earth, traveling at great speed.
You can dream of a future world with no religion, but it won't happen. Most likely, our generation will be devasted with nuclear destruction. Muslims are just itching to get ahold of these weapons to nuke Israel and her allies. Guess what, the Bible predicted this too. Paul hit perfectly with this verse:
"... In the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it (2 Timothy 3:1-5, R.S.V.).
Sounds like we are in the last days to me.
posted by
thelongroad
on September 19, 2005 at 7:28 AM
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the tradtitional definition of god
it already has.
even those of mainstream Christianity have discarded the anthopomorphic, male father all powerful figure in favor of a god I have described. It's amazing how many people are seeing this vision.
I have just posted on religion evolving, which it must.
You are correct (at least more valid than many). The old explanations are truly insufficient. We must have new.
posted by
Xeno-x
on September 19, 2005 at 7:04 AM
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