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Don Juan » September 26th, 2017, 12:25 pm wrote:The first sin was committed by Adam by not keeping God's Word and Command, according to the Bible. So then sin is committed when one deviates from the Word of God. There are two important considerations then: What is the Word of God and is man deviating from It.
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mitchellmckain » September 27th, 2017, 9:45 am wrote:Obedience theology is quite useful to religions who worship power and control and thus have this as their purpose. But these manipulative power mongering religions have little to recommend themselves to mature intelligent human beings.
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Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 12:37 pm wrote:I am however looking into Biblical thoughts and passages and trying to understand what they mean as constrained by Biblical context.
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 12:37 pm wrote:Yes, the Bible implies a God of power, but also implies God of righteousness and love, we cannot discount these when we are talking of the Bible.
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 12:37 pm wrote:On this reason, we cannot narrow our views to a lateral angle and see only those that to us have lesser value while neglecting our obligation to broaden our understanding of what is Biblically written trying to figure out what is really communicated, and stay reasonable.
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 12:37 pm wrote:
We can however dig into the basal angle and try to understand the Word of God who have caused the ordered complexity that produced us and within which our potentiality and freewill depend, and as one may reflect that the issue regarding sin is more than bad habits, instead it is one's continuous fight for order in nature and righteousness in God.
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mitchellmckain wrote:I, however, make no such absurd pretense that any such constraints exist in the Bible. The only real constraints are in the mind and purpose of the reader. Those who seek to create a religion for the purpose of power and controlling people are going to read something different in the Bible than those who seek to create a religion for the purpose of love and life. The former will use the God of the Old Testament as their lens for understanding the Bible and the latter will make Jesus the lens through which it is understood.
The Bible is a four dimensional embodiment of the word of God not a thesis written by a singular theologian in a singular period and culture (thus the big difference from the Quran and the book of Mormon). It tells a story of a developing relationship and we see reflected in it the fact that relationships and the roles of those in it change over time according to the needs of the people involved. The needs of an infant are different from the needs of a toddler which are different from the needs of a teenager and adult.
The "do what I say because I say it" mentality of the parent taking care of a toddler may be well suited to religions seeking power and control over others. But a religion seeking maturity and responsibility in the pursuit of love and life is naturally going to focus on a much later stage of the parenting process.
Having talked about an all-powerful God in my post above, I am hardly denying that God has power without equal. That is not the problem. The problem is our obsession with power and trying to solve problems with brute force when what we should be doing is seeking after other attributes of God such as wisdom and love. We would also do well to understand that what defines us are not the things we have by nature but those we have by choice. God is all powerful by nature, but what He chooses is love and life. Power and knowledge are things He can set aside in order to become a helpless human infant, while love and life is what He embraces so that He would do such a thing.
On the contrary, we most certainly can stand up to the manipulative power obsessed religions who seek to demolish human rationality and responsibility in their grasp for power and control. We know better than to buy into the rhetoric which seeks to railroad us into a childish mentality with their tunnel vision focus upon the earliest parts of the Biblical story. The four dimensional view IS the broad all inclusive understanding of the Bible which puts all the parts into proper perspective instead of letting one part dominate and undermine other parts in order to fit a self-serving agenda.
The pretense of objectivity in matters of religion and spirituality is nothing but deception. There is no possible objectivity in such matters, for these are the very essence of the subjective elements of human life in which a diversity of human thought is unavoidable. And are we to buy into the nonsense of power obsessed religions which push the idea that such diversity has nothing to do with God? Nothing could be further from the truth. The testimony of the entire universe from subatomic particles, to the 400,000 species of beetles, to the endless variety of stars in the sky is that diversity is the most consistent methodology of God.
And what about the Bible in this? Do we buy into the misuse of Paul's words that God is not a God of confusion, when this is clearly not what Paul was talking about at all? No we do not. For all we have to do is look up the story in Genesis chapter 11 to see that confusion and diversity is exactly how God has dealt with human beings when it is needed. Who divided mankind into diversity of thought and culture? Was it sinful human beings or God? According to the Bible, it was God Himself!
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 12:37 pm wrote:
This sounds good on the face of it. But many people put a good face one what is eventually seen to have a nasty agenda. Therefore, I invite you to expand upon this to see where this is really leading before I pass any judgments.
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Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 4:15 pm wrote:mitchellmckain wrote:I, however, make no such absurd pretense that any such constraints exist in the Bible. The only real constraints are in the mind and purpose of the reader. Those who seek to create a religion for the purpose of power and controlling people are going to read something different in the Bible than those who seek to create a religion for the purpose of love and life. The former will use the God of the Old Testament as their lens for understanding the Bible and the latter will make Jesus the lens through which it is understood.
If that is true, then I can take your words as having no such constraints and its only in the mind and purpose of your readers. Possibly then, I could ramble your words and letters and there will be no constraints what so ever, but only in the mind and purpose of your readers.
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 4:15 pm wrote:Choice is only a part of what defines us. What defines us is a whole, individual-within-an-environment, from what influences you outside to what influences you inside. As for me, the problems rest in ambiguity and uncertainty and our struggle for clarity and order. I do not know what would happen to a map if there is no territory or consideration of constraints in the territory.
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 4:15 pm wrote:I consider love, but I consider also the kind of love that rests in the basic principle of understanding. I consider understanding, but also consider understanding that rests in order. I consider order, and that kind that rests in the Word of God. The Word of God is different from the word of man, for that of man came from his bounded rationality. Yes, God is all powerful and God loves mankind, but all these rest on His righteousness. Righteousness is never set aside in God's love, but it is its foundation.
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 4:15 pm wrote:On the contrary, we most certainly can stand up to the manipulative power obsessed religions who seek to demolish human rationality and responsibility in their grasp for power and control. We know better than to buy into the rhetoric which seeks to railroad us into a childish mentality with their tunnel vision focus upon the earliest parts of the Biblical story. The four dimensional view IS the broad all inclusive understanding of the Bible which puts all the parts into proper perspective instead of letting one part dominate and undermine other parts in order to fit a self-serving agenda.
I am critical of religions, but I am also critical of myself. I must not fool myself, and I am the easiest person to fool. I have a share of perspective, but it would be much better to expand my bounded rationality. I might fall into my own rhetoric, into my own map, believing it is the only map. But then, there is a territory that we can check the correctness of our map. The structure of the territory must not be neglected, because about which our mind has to be faithful.
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 4:15 pm wrote:The pretense of objectivity in matters of religion and spirituality is nothing but deception. There is no possible objectivity in such matters, for these are the very essence of the subjective elements of human life in which a diversity of human thought is unavoidable. And are we to buy into the nonsense of power obsessed religions which push the idea that such diversity has nothing to do with God? Nothing could be further from the truth. The testimony of the entire universe from subatomic particles, to the 400,000 species of beetles, to the endless variety of stars in the sky is that diversity is the most consistent methodology of God.
Your subjectivity rests upon your existence in this world. Your existence rest upon the laws of this universe. There can be so many possibilities, but this universe has its own path, and you have yours whether you like it or not. So then, there can be so many perspectives, but we are looking for those that are faithful to the territory. You argument cannot stand because I will apply your principle to your very own argument - are your arguments have objectivity or subjectivity or both, etc etc. If you believe it is deception to try objectively, then I must treat your argument as personal to you alone and is subjective. Then how are your arguments become different from those whom you are critical about if they too are subjective incapable of settling into some form of objectivity (well in your ideas of subjectivity and objectivity)?
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 4:15 pm wrote:And what about the Bible in this? Do we buy into the misuse of Paul's words that God is not a God of confusion, when this is clearly not what Paul was talking about at all? No we do not.
What kind of misuse? Would you specify?
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 4:15 pm wrote:For all we have to do is look up the story in Genesis chapter 11 to see that confusion and diversity is exactly how God has dealt with human beings when it is needed. Who divided mankind into diversity of thought and culture? Was it sinful human beings or God? According to the Bible, it was God Himself!
Do you understand the context why God confused the language of mankind? Did you not read what God said to Noah and how the people of the earth transgressed after? Do you understand the context why Paul said those words to the Corinthian Christians? More than confusion and diversity, both have something to do with God's Words, and each have their specific contexts.
Don Juan » September 27th, 2017, 12:37 pm wrote:This sounds good on the face of it. But many people put a good face one what is eventually seen to have a nasty agenda. Therefore, I invite you to expand upon this to see where this is really leading before I pass any judgments.
We can begin with that sin committed by man in the Garden of Eden. I wonder how you understand the passage and why we have of different stand about it. Have you read the chapter? Genesis 3. In your understanding of the passage, what was the sin and how it is significant?
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mitchellmckain » September 28th, 2017, 3:32 am wrote:Exactly the kind of reaction I would expect from those whose only use for religion is power over others. If the Bible is not about making people do what they want then they cannot see the point of it. It is typical that they would see anything which removes the facility for controlling others as self defeating. But for those interested in love and life the reaction is a sigh of relief as they see the potential for harm and abuse removed from it.
No. Choice is the WHOLE of what defines us. People look at a person entering the room and in second they have boxed the person by such things as race, gender, social status, nationality, culture, and other physical/mental capabilities thinking that such things sum them up. Such is the superficiality of sinful human beings. But these things they have by nature are nothing but circumstance. Who they are is found in what they have chosen to do with what they have been given.
But I already spoke of this above in my first response to you and you appear to have ignored that portion of my post entirely.
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife , and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
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ZTHarris » September 28th, 2017, 10:45 pm wrote:I just want to note that I find it highly entertaining and thought provoking to watch the two of you argue your points. Do continue explicating your thoughts.
Don Juan » September 28th, 2017, 10:42 pm wrote:Here’s my view, especially of Genesis 3:17 :17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife , and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
God gave clear command to Adam (Genesis 2: 16-17) before He made Eve, but then Adam listened to his wife instead of keeping God’s word, and as a consequence have eaten from the tree. The first sin then that was committed by the first man in the Bible was listening to his wife instead of listening to the Word of God or keeping it relevant to a command given by God.
In your thoughts, this can be leading to what you call ‘obedience religion.’ In my thoughts, this is leading to an inquiry about what is the meaning of sin in Biblical terms.
Genesis 3:17-19 wrote:“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread"
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mitchellmckain wrote:And yet it is obvious we are headed for a dead end in the discussion. He has stated his position and that he will not change his mind. I have stated my position and that I will not change mind either. The purpose and value that we see in religion and the Bible is fundamentally different and thus we have no interest in what the other person is saying.
He would have us believe that the meaning is in the words of the Bible independent of any agenda he has, I know this to be nonsense. The meaning is given to the words by those who read it. We see this fact in the stories of the Bible themselves. Take John chapter 6. Those in the crowd (full of zealots) were only interested in the ability of Jesus to feed people food and becoming a king who could lead an army against Rome. But Jesus' purpose was entirely different. So, once Jesus started speaking of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, it made no sense to the crowd in terms of the value and purpose which they sought in His words. So they abandoned Him.
From this Don only takes that God gave Adam and Eve a commandment and that listening to anything other than the commandment leads to disaster. It is all that interests him because giving commandments and making people listen only to their commandments and nobody else is the purpose and value he has for religion.
I have taken the same section of the Bible and given an analysis in terms of the love of a parent for their child and how the parent seeks to help the child learn and grow for the betterment of the child's life.
The issue according to Don is the meaning of the word "sin," and his agenda is to use the passage in Genesis to prove that according to the Bible it means disobedience. But the inadequacy of this definition is obvious to the whole world, for we have an endless number of people claiming to speak for God and demanding our obedience to what they say are the commandments of God. Any rational person can thus see the complete poverty of such a definition... UNLESS your objective is to support a religion seeking after power and control over other people. I have no such interest, so before I could find ANY value in the Bible and Christianity I had to find a definition of "sin" without this failing.
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Don Juan » September 29th, 2017, 2:07 am wrote:We haven't yet launched into a longer discourse and you have already judged basing on few arguments. You have employed incomplete, distorted and generalized position on some of the basic premises regarding communication via written text, and that is what makes me beginning to be interested about the way you reason. I do believe that there is a kind of order in the authors creating a kind of order into a book which is transformed into a kind of order into the reader. There is a flow of information, from authors to books to the readers, so that not all of the influences in the construction of meaning is in in the reader.
Don Juan » September 29th, 2017, 2:07 am wrote:From this Don only takes that God gave Adam and Eve a commandment and that listening to anything other than the commandment leads to disaster. It is all that interests him because giving commandments and making people listen only to their commandments and nobody else is the purpose and value he has for religion.
What?! ....ONLY takes...? ....listening to ANYTHING? ...It is ALL that interests me...? Are you even aware about how much you are distorting and generalizing what you are reading?
Don Juan » September 29th, 2017, 2:07 am wrote:I have taken the same section of the Bible and given an analysis in terms of the love of a parent for their child and how the parent seeks to help the child learn and grow for the betterment of the child's life.
You haven't done that explicitly...where in the passage would you find that, or show specifically how you derived that from the passages in Genesis 3? Are you taking an extrinsic meaning (coming from you) and imposing it into the text?
Don Juan » September 29th, 2017, 2:07 am wrote:I was avoiding my own opinion about the text as much as possible by trying to analyze its meaning about transgression and sin. Of course this cannot be done with perfection, but I need to move around the immediate context of the text before I move even beyond, that is, employing a bigger context that is provided by my education.
Don Juan » September 29th, 2017, 2:07 am wrote:The issue according to Don is the meaning of the word "sin," and his agenda is to use the passage in Genesis to prove that according to the Bible it means disobedience. But the inadequacy of this definition is obvious to the whole world, for we have an endless number of people claiming to speak for God and demanding our obedience to what they say are the commandments of God. Any rational person can thus see the complete poverty of such a definition... UNLESS your objective is to support a religion seeking after power and control over other people. I have no such interest, so before I could find ANY value in the Bible and Christianity I had to find a definition of "sin" without this failing.
You are fast. I am at the first stage of my inquiry and you already gone long a roller coaster ride into your mental park. You are immediately leaving the text.
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mitchellmckain » September 29th, 2017, 12:18 pm wrote:Yes and no. It is certainly the case that a human author intends to either communicate something or provoke thought about something. While the latter is usually successful the former is much more tenuous. To accomplish the former the author has to rely upon commonalities of premise and meaning. This is difficult enough when the reader shares the same language, culture, and worldview. None of this commonality exists in the case of the Bible, and all the attempts I have seen to reconstruct the original thoughts of the author only gives the reader even more latitude for projecting onto the author what he wants the author to have meant.
When the author is divine (i.e. omniscient), the barriers may vanish but then so does the validity of the assumption that what the author intends for us to understand in our language, culture, and worldview is the same as for those of the original language, culture, and worldview.
Don Juan » September 29th, 2017, 2:07 am wrote:
Yeah... I should say this a little differently. Such as...
From this Don only takes that God gave Adam and Eve a commandment and that listening to anything other than the commandment leads to disaster.
We, of course, do not know his motivation for this, but if we follow the principle that what something can be used for reflects the most likely purpose, then it leads us to conclude that the most likely origin for this pattern of thinking is the purpose of giving commandments and making people listen to their commandments and nobody else. And thus this is most likely purpose of the religion which follows this way of thinking.
It is like looking at a hammer and concluding that those who made this thing did not have playing the violin in mind when they did it. It may seem presumptuous to think you can know what was in their mind, but the fact is that the thing itself speaks volumes about the purpose of those who made it.
No more than you are. Nowhere in the explicit text is it giving a definition of sin. The text is telling a story. That is all. Both of us are attaching meaning to this like the presumption that somehow this story is of significance to our lives in the here and now.
Nonsense. There is nothing objective about the topic or the meanings we are giving the text. I am quite capable of discussing the text apart from attaching any meaning to it in a larger context, but that is not something you have tried to do at all. You might find a discussion of the text like that in the work of an academic scholar. But from the very beginning you haven't done anything like that.
Here is a sample of how that is done...
Genesis 3:17 begins the third portion of what is commonly referred to as the curse (this word being used in both verse 14 and 17). It addresses Adam, just as the first two portions address the serpent and Eve, respectively. These two verses (14 and 17) also, unlike the one addressing Eve, also give a reason why this curse is being given to them. It should be noted that these reasons are taken largely from the words of Adam and Eve themselves, and it makes almost no effort to explain why these "curses" and not something else.
Picking out smaller portions of the text which fits your definition of the word "sin" does not in any way mean that you are leaving the text any less than I am.
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Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 2:11 am wrote:The point is understanding the text within its boundaries as much as possible first before launching into inquiries of greater contexts beyond the text for greater understanding and revisions.
Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 2:11 am wrote:No more than you are. Nowhere in the explicit text is it giving a definition of sin. The text is telling a story. That is all. Both of us are attaching meaning to this like the presumption that somehow this story is of significance to our lives in the here and now.
You seem to be saying that the story has no meaning and that the rest of the book collection is irrelevant to it. My first post has also many presuppositions, and I can expound it, point by point. I can prepare, based on my analysis of Biblical texts. The foundations of the concept of sin has something to do with listening and righteousness, I am still exploring of course, but I can post here what I have found so far.
Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 2:11 am wrote:Nonsense. There is nothing objective about the topic or the meanings we are giving the text. I am quite capable of discussing the text apart from attaching any meaning to it in a larger context, but that is not something you have tried to do at all. You might find a discussion of the text like that in the work of an academic scholar. But from the very beginning you haven't done anything like that.
NOTHING objective? NOTHING whatsoever? You mean that if someone reads 'NOTHING' another would read it 'VOMITING' and still another will read it 'DIARRHEA' and still another would read it 'CONSTIPATION'?
Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 2:11 am wrote: I am not an academic scholar, I am a reader. My task is to understand the text before I judge it.
Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 2:11 am wrote:Picking out smaller portions of the text which fits your definition of the word "sin" does not in any way mean that you are leaving the text any less than I am.
No, I am staying on the text, in fact I cited to you the text, where you have failed before. Even in that little portion I did not leave the text.
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mitchellmckain wrote:Your imaginary boundaries are a product of your theology which is a product of a religion with the purpose of power and control. Therefore I will throw these toxic boundaries into a hazardous waste disposal.
Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 2:11 am wrote:Since it is obvious that I see plenty of meaning in the story, this here is just more evidence for what I have been saying all along. Only someone for whom power and control is the only value they can see in religion would think I am saying the story has no meaning. I would indeed yank all its utility for manipulation and control right out from under all the worshipers of power. Thus, I would only rejoice that they would find my exposition meaningless.
Nonsense. There is nothing objective about the topic or the meanings we are giving the text. I am quite capable of discussing the text apart from attaching any meaning to it in a larger context, but that is not something you have tried to do at all. You might find a discussion of the text like that in the work of an academic scholar. But from the very beginning you haven't done anything like that.
I did not know that for you the Bible is all about vomitting, diarrhea, and constipation. For me it is about something quite different. And frankly, the fact that you think this is what the Bible is about only underlines the completely subjective nature of your reading of it.
Which means you not only lack the training to read the text objectively but also without any awareness of all premises of your language, culture, and worldview -- not only completely subjective but utterly blind to that subjectivity. Just because you have made yourself blind and insensate to your own diarrhea doesn't mean other people cannot see and smell it all around you.
Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 2:11 am wrote:You leave the text the moment you make this into a definition of sin. There is no mention of sin in the first three chapters of Genesis and certainly no discussion of what the word "sin" means.
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ZTHarris » September 29th, 2017, 2:15 am wrote:@mitchellmckain
I have to say that you're one of the few people I've ever encountered who makes appealing points about the value of religion. Religion is so disgustingly barbaric to me when the typical person whom I've known all my life tries to employ it in an endeavor to control thoughts or dictate behavior. It is fairly clear through reading what you have written that you deeply disapprove of the slave-mentality religion that you'd find indigenous to my area. Even though I have no interest in reconciling religion with science or other fundamental problems it poses, pertaining of course to a theistic god, I very much respect your opinions. If religious people I knew were more like you I wouldn't have such disdain for them generally. Which isn't to say that I immediately dislike religious folk, but it usually doesn't take long for them to show me that they have little interest in being civil to anyone with opposing views, That, and it's very easy as well as pitiable to sense the overwhelming fear that many of them have of the skewed hell and brimstone that most modern, western Christian churches preach.
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ZTHarris » September 30th, 2017, 3:54 pm wrote:I enjoy reading your arguments. I've never encountered someone so willing to look at the positive aspects of the Bible and condemn the negative aspects. In addition, and most importantly, you compound said willingness with the encouragement to think for oneself when reading biblical text. In that way, it's far more likely that people can glean valuable lessons from the Bible and not have their opinions controlled by those who seek to use the Bible for a malicious agenda.
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Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 3:11 am wrote: I am critical of religions, but I am also critical of myself. I must not fool myself,
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Braininvat » September 19th, 2017, 10:52 am wrote:Generally, SPCF discourages attacks on specific ethnic, racial, or religious groups. ...I appreciate this thread moving away from the broad-spectrum Muslim bashing.
There are so many incorrect statements about mainstream Islam here that I simply do not have time to go through them
For example, I have a Muslim friend who most definitely does not believe the Quran is the literal word of God.
I really hate to lock threads
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rajnz00 » September 30th, 2017, 8:00 pm wrote:Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 3:11 am wrote: I am critical of religions, but I am also critical of myself. I must not fool myself,
But that is what followers of all religions do. Fool themselves. They abandon reason after some time. Your discussion will get nowhere. You are arguing with a person who has said earlier in this thread "No matter what the reasons for this, it is irrational." Reasons against a position he holds are irrational. He does not understand the concept of rationality.
rajnz00 » September 30th, 2017, 8:28 pm wrote:I really hate to lock threads
There is a "but" in there somewhere.
This is a legitimate concern. It must be accepted as a fact that not all religions are compatible with the ideals of a free society. And if a religion is not willing to coexist, and that includes enduring the criticism of others, then what choice do the rest of us have when deciding whether we can coexist with them?rajnz00 » September 11th, 2017, 6:40 am wrote:The great strength that we have in our western civilisation and our western democracies, which is also the strength of science, springs from the freedom to criticise. The freedom to criticise religion and our leaders. Despotism and the loss of freedom springs from the outlawing of criticism. The criticism of Islam is forbidden in Islam and incorporated into laws in Muslim countries. If you do, their blasphemy laws punish you with imprisonment or even death. It is the same for apostasy laws if a Muslim wants to leave Islam.
This will be my last post on this subject. I've said what I wanted to say and do not want to waste more time on this. If you cannot see the evil of this religion from this then you are willfully shutting your eyes to the obvious.
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mitchellmckain wrote:And here is the dead end I predicted -- where communication has completely broken down. He can pretend it is about the methodology and the tools. But as I said before, the purpose can be seen in the tools from the very beginning. It is not that you cannot play a violin with a hammer. I am sure than to you can find a way to do so. But when you are interested in a different kind of music then there is no reason to put up with such restrictions.
Because love and life are the value I seek from religion rather than power and control, I am unwilling overlook some of the basic facts about human life and development. We learn by making mistakes. This is a fact. Someone with anything like a parental attitude certainly does not sever a relationship because the children make a mistake. That may indeed come from a power obsessed, angry, self-absorbed, manipulative, unforgiving, vindictive, controlling, jealous, sadistic, glory seeker, and so if you are willing to worship such a demon then that might be an explanation you are willing to accept. I am not!
Wisdom is on the side of seeking knowledge and understanding about good and evil not in avoiding it in favor of blind obedience. Neither love nor wisdom deals with mistakes by blaming everyone but yourselves. These are facts you cannot ignore when your objective is love and life, and I can only imagine someone obsessed with power and control being able to do so. Thus it seems to me this story is ferreting out what it is that you are looking for and whatever it is, you will find it, or maybe that is just human nature and this is what will happen no matter what the story may be.
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rajnz00 » October 1st, 2017, 3:00 am wrote:Don Juan » September 30th, 2017, 3:11 am wrote: I am critical of religions, but I am also critical of myself. I must not fool myself,
But that is what followers of all religions do. Fool themselves. They abandon reason after some time. Your discussion will get nowhere. You are arguing with a person who has said earlier in this thread "No matter what the reasons for this, it is irrational." Reasons against a position he holds are irrational. He does not understand the concept of rationality.
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rajnz00 » October 1st, 2017, 8:34 am wrote:Don Juan wrote:Are you fortune teller?
Yep. Pretty much like Newton who predicted the return of Halley's comet. The application of logic and reason to observations.
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mitchellmckain wrote:The difference between the honest inquiry of science and your pseudo-science (rhetoric pretending to be science) and is that science tests its hypotheses ... blah blah..
I will, however, judge individual beliefs on the grounds of logical coherence, consistency with the findings of science, and compatibility with the ideals of a free society.
And why should we not use whatever reasons work for us because it is our life to live?
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rajnz00 » October 1st, 2017, 2:44 pm wrote:I will, however, judge individual beliefs on the grounds of logical coherence, consistency with the findings of science, and compatibility with the ideals of a free society.
Talking about “honest inquiry” how have you honestly inquired into the making of heaven and Earth in 7 days and 7 nights? The creation of Adam and Eve? The parting of the Red Sea? The Sun being made to stand still? Jonah being swallowed by a whale? Or the miracles of Jesus for that matter?
rajnz00 » October 1st, 2017, 2:44 pm wrote:And why should we not use whatever reasons work for us because it is our life to live?
That is precisely what I have argued from the beginning. You can believe what you like, provided your beliefs do not lead to action that affect other people’s lives.
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