by chance I read it yesterday, it was mildly entertaining, pretty similar to tolkien really, I would like to see peter jackson do some nephilims

Why did you choose Christianity over any of the other religions?  Buddism's "Way" leads it's followers to live a happy, good & moral life.  Some of the nicest, most devout people I ever met were a family of Jains (Hindu sect) I stayed with for a while on my trip to India a few years ago.

From my personal observations covering many decades, Christians do not hold an exclusive on living a happy and fulfilled life.  The secret to a happy and fullfilling life lies between your ears, not in the pages of a book.

I'm glad you found happiness with your path. May I presume that you're glad if I've found happiness in mine?

Now, I wouldn't expect you to find happiness with my path. In fact, I'm quite certain that you would not.

What's to indicate that I'd find happiness with your path, particularly when I've been down it before and it didn't work for me?

The short answer...

I chose Christianity because I did a lot of research into the gospels and the crucifixion. And to me it was the only religion that made sense.

Jesus was the only prophet that carried out prophecies hundreds of them through his birth,life, and death no other prophet has done that.

Jesus was the only one who lived a sinless life. He is the only prophet that said that he could forgive sin. Jesus is the only one who defeated death still lives, and showed himself to thousands in that state before going into heaven.

I also chose Christianity because I opened myself up to it and really let god work in my life and I have seen nothing but results ever since.

As for the last part of your post we clearly disagree.

I feel that if you really gave it a chance and let go of some of that bitterness you have against your parents and against the church God could really work in you and your life. Also being raised Catholic I know a lot of great Catholics but as a faith I feel they have gotten a lot wrong. And they leave many confused and unsure in their path. We have ex Catholics that come to our church all the time. And after service they always say they never knew church could be like that. They never knew they could have such a deep personal relationship with God. Through the Catholic faith they always just saw him as some character in a book they never really felt his presence.

Our pasts can suck trust me I know mine is horrible. But I found at an early age that I couldn't stay mad at God forever and I couldn't keep running from what I knew in my heart to be right. Doing those things actually made it worse I had to finally stop running and really examine were I stood with God, and let go of my own anger and bitterness. I had to let go of what I thought Christians were and what church was and actually go and experience it for once. I did that and I saw a whole other side. Not all churches were bad not all Christians were hypocrites. There are some really good people out there trying to do what they are called to do. I never saw it that way before because I had it fed into my head my whole life that Christians and churches just judged people and were hypocrites.

Where have I shown bitterness against my parents or the church? I have none, at least that's faith-related. They were doing their jobs as their conscience dictated. I don't have bitterness about that.

Ultimately, I became unhappy following faith with blanket acceptance. That doesn't mean I resented my parents or the school and church authorities for teaching me that faith. They were doing what they felt was right. I don't fault them for it.

Actually, when I was a believer, I went to a number of different churches and congregational gatherings and felt most comfortable in the Catholic ones. Probably because that's how I was raised.

I still will attend churches of different faiths at the invitation of friends.

Again, I have no anger, no bitterness, about my upbringing. I was not as fortunate as some, more fortunate than others. In fact, the Catholics gave me a better education than the public school kids got at that time.

I think you've answered this question: What's to indicate that I'd find happiness with your path, particularly when I've been down it before and it didn't work? the best that you can. Clearly, we are divergent in our approaches.

So to reiterate my other question, may I presume that you're glad that I've found happiness with my own path?

Ok well maybe I am wrong and I apologize. Just the way you talk about it there have been a few threads. I thought you resented being raised in a Catholic home.

But if that's not the case and you feel you really have given it a chance in your adult life. Then I wish you the best and most happiness that you can find on your path whatever that my be. Good luck =]

Apology not needed but accepted. Lots of people talking about lots of different things in this place, and it's easy to get different personalities crossed. Happens to me all the time.

Great attitude. Even refreshing. Thank you.

No. You just throw up a wall of generalization lumping all the spiritual claims in the world together and equivalent.

My point, see above.

Criteria change, making demands that the evidence cannot after the fact meet.

So?  Whoever Thallus was, we have a possible mention of him by Jospehus, a mention giving us information about him that would coincide with his ability to be a historian.  As a historian he is mentioned along with others such as Hellanicus, Philochorus, Polybius, and Castor. So he's listed with the other greats of the time.

We do it all the time.

Again, so?  I talked about using reason to explore outside the boundaries of the universe, and yet you bring us right back inside the universe with your answer.

Talk about being trapped inside the box.

I've spent 35+ years expanding my knowledge, and reason.  My faith today bears no resemblance to what it was when I was 20. As much resemblance as a scoop of Jello has with a boulder.

That's not what I said. What I said is that if you want to charge a bias to their work, you have prove it.  Not just apply it happenstance.  You know, critical reasoning, all that.

Considering they say quite different things one would have to determine what difference the bias made on reality.

Considering that you don't mention the measures they took to eliminate bias and instead use valid criteria, you're just throwing up a smokescreen.

And yet, without awareness of your own biases, you can't say this with any reasonable confidence.

I will certainly say the bias I see is well hidden, poking it's nose out in the form of small nuances of word and thought.

Doesn't change the fact that I do not have comprehensive proof I will go anywhere should I step aboard, until I do step aboard.

From where I sit, by choice.

Consistent.  But you're taking evidence after the fact and now refining the criteria be stating what the evidence should be exactly.

Incredulous dissembling.

For you or I perhaps. The evidence says differently in the case of Christianity.

That you see no difference in the nuance changes you apply is clear.

I would love that to be true, but I don't see it.
I see a very well reasoned and subtle methodology to deny that ever happening.

I covered this one above.

No. To me, following a Buddhist path is humanly superior to Mayan rituals, including human sacrifice. They're not equivalent.

But I'm pointed to Christian scriptures (in their various forms) as the de facto body of work to believe in. Why that over any other? You like Star Trek. Assume I'm a Vulcan who's just landed.

I haven't changed criteria. The more removed from the alleged original event, by time or by iteration, the higher the probability for error. I'm evaluating the evidence as I see it.

So..... what he says about a war with Zeus is correct?

And we dismiss hearsay all the time.

I was acceding to that part of your statement.

You said, "how else to do so for we surely cannot step outside the universe, or back in time." I acknowledge that we cannot step outside the universe (as far as we know right now). However, when we look at stars, we are stepping back in time.

I'm sure you didn't mischaracterize our exchange intentionally, and I'm happy to clarify what I said.

Well, in that, we are alike, too.

While I'll reserve the discussion about "bias to their work," when have I charged that? Credibility, foundational support, collateral support, clarity, or the lack of any or all of that, all go into how we evaluate the correctness of things every day.

What's the evidence of such a bias? If you want to charge a bias to their work, you believe you have to prove it. Not just apply it happenstance.

No. There's a reason I'm not going into the workings of all that, and it's out of respect to certain belief structures out there. I'm not here to shake faith. I'm just noting the world as it appears to me.

Any awareness of my own bias has not been enhanced with any exposition here.

I'll add this: Coming to a different conclusion than what you believe does not mean there was a bias against what you believe. I know we both understand that intellectually, but I'm suspecting that may be a dynamic at play here.

Perhaps your observation has genesis in your own possible bias.

Of course not. As I mentioned to Bluefire, should the plane's nose end up somewhere else, our faith in today's air travel has been proven incorrect.

Mischaracterizing. I was giving an example, not refining the criteria. I was pointing out the gaping holes in the narrative by offering an example of what a less holy (nyuk) narrative would be.

Dissembling, hm? Here I thought we've been having a respectful, courteous discussion. If this is turning into curt, pejorative dismissals, my time will run very short very quickly.

How so?

Perhaps your own potential bias is screening it.

The rubber band effect.

It's not surprising or sad to me.

I don't despise religion. I don't even despise my own childhood religion (although I can despise certain actions of its hierarchy, which came long after I emotionally strolled out of the church for the last time). I accept the possibility of God's existence.

Hope that addresses that adequately.

modeled wrote:
I meant "before" reading you were raised Catholic, I assumed you were. 

I think you knew what I meant though .

I hope nothing anal, just what Ive heard

modeled wrote:
I meant "before" reading you were raised Catholic, I assumed you were. 

I think you knew what I meant though .

I try not to assume TOO much. But while I have critiques of the church (one of them major), and while I can make fun of it (like I make fun of a lot of things I'm familiar with), you wouldn't have gotten that "ex-Catholic" feeling from animosity on my part.

I'm frankly grateful for the quality of education that I had, and I'm respectful of the Jesuits for helping to encourage a critical level of thinking (even if critical thinking led me on a path that they wouldn't have approved of), and I can sit in a Gothic-arched church and listen to choir chantings and a big pipe organ anytime. I'll take it any day over a preacher using a PowerPoint. But that's just me.

I married an ex-Jehovah's Witness. My best friend of many years and songwriting partner is an ex-Mormon. The man who officiated at my wedding is an ex-Baptist. I could name about a dozen more right off the bat, and these people are just about as disenchanted with religion as I am. On the other hand, most of my family are still practicing Catholics and seem to be doing just fine as such.

I don't actually know anyone who outright despises religion. My wife might come closest to that, though. Her disfellowshipment was kind of a cruel and utterly unnecessary psychic injury.

Yeah, it's not quite like smoking. Many of the ex-smokers I know are virulently anti-smoking.

Ex-Catholics (a/ka "recovering Catholics") sometimes find each other pretty easily, and if anything, we'll say "Dominoes Nabisco" (if we're old enough to understand that) and other goofy remembrances.

I went to Catholic school for 8 years.

I don't despise religion.

I credit my Catholic school education (but not the Catholic religion) for my discipline and hard work ethic for both my personal and professional success.

But I have a very hard time with the hypocrisy of the Catholic religion and refusal to accept we are living in the 21st century.

Not only did I go to Catholic school for 8 years, but my Mom worked at the same school for 35 years, so I knew many of the teachers, nuns, and priests personally as I got older.

My Mom at one time was a devout Catholic, and even though she loved her job and the kids in the school, she became slowly disillusioned with the politics and hypocrisy of the Catholic religion as well.

Es ergo es?

I have no problem with that. But it doesn't help me figure out stuff that I don't understand.

My uncle had one where he'd greet us at the door of his house by doing the sign of the cross and reverently intoning the words "Pat and Phil and Spiro the Agnew, come in..."  My Mom did NOT approve...

and you're coming to SB to try to understand?? 

Believing is wanting for something to be true. It's basically bias. You can interpret observations or data well only if you have no favorite outcome.

Bias is one thing, denial of evidence is another. There are people on this forum who oppose the theory of evolution despite literally millions of pieces of evidence.

No matter with what kind of mind I read the Genesis all I get is just another crude and primitive myth of creation.

Could ' counter-intuitive space in the cosmos' be god'?

TAO
NIRVANA
UN CAUSED
CAUSE LESS


not human like at all.

See response above this.

j3_photo wrote:
and you're coming to SB to try to understand?? 

It's a discussion with fellow humans. We gain understanding of the world all the time in such ways.

Um..... creator, prime mover, assembler of all order doesn't imply "human like." In that, it's like the Tao. Nirvana is a human achievement. "Un caused" and "cause less" to me sound a lot like creator, prime mover, assembler of all order, being outside of physical existence and generator of all things being itself uncaused and causeless.

So.... I'm not sure why I'm supposed to define God, since I'm questioning what God is and the probability for its existence anyway.

Thank you, so we now know that the devil himself is a buffoon.

Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant.

"It  always remains a scandal of philosophy and universal human reason that the existence of things outside us ... should have to be assumed merely on faith, and that if it occurs to anyone to doubt it, we should be unable to answer him with a satisfactory proof."

You have no choice but to accept certain things are as you see them as being, and also that there are things that we don't know, aren't going to figure out and that is just the way it is. We are limited creatures.

I'm always happy to read words of wisdom, whatever the source, although I don't take Kant or Hume on faith any more than I do the Bible. But they all have wise words.

Well.... I feel I do have a choice to question things as I see them. I think we all do. It's part of the essence of the advance of knowledge.

However, from the OP.....

I have to post these here:

Kant Attack Ad

Kierkegaard Endorsement Ad

kickfight wrote:
I have to post these here:

Kant Attack Ad

Kierkegaard Endorsement Ad

You did it. You got me to look at videos off of a link in Soapbox. Damnit!

Man, I enjoyed those, although they're too smart for me. Right now, without having seen the Kant ads, I'm voting Kierkegaard. But mostly out of confusion. Where is the Hume campaign?

An unfortunate casualty of the is-ought problem. What if he ran and actually won? Is winning a legitimately ethical goal? If so, according to whom?

The campaign was DOA, at its onset.