Evolution Theory is Error

PDN

Mena wrote: »

Unfortunately just because the "majority" feel something to be "true", does not make it so. Ah the times we live in.

Indeed, which is why we have Celebrity Ice Dancing, the X-Factor and other crud filling the airwaves with the stench of rotting brain cells.

That's the price of freedom.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

The same goes for Ken Ham et al. If they are wrong then convince people of that by winning hearts and minds. I believe that is the point of Dawkins holding a chair for the Public Understanding of Science - but I also believe he undermines that by going on his antitheist crusades. The two issues then become conflated in people's minds and it makes the Creationists' job easier. They just point and say, "Look, one of the main spokesmen for evolution hates Christianity" which makes it easier for them to paint evolution as a biased ideology rather than as impartial science.

Leaving it to the experts is IMHO dangerous.

I see where you are coming from. If the climate change movement gave up spin and just stuck to facts and mathematical equations, they'd still be looking to engage the masses. But they have engaged them by using clever rhetoric and emotive arguments.

But where I disagree with you is that Dawkins is winning hearts and minds.
1. Millions of copies of God Delusion sold.
2. An atheist bus doing the rounds in London.
3. A new atheist organisation set up in Dublin.
4. A different Religion bashing program on Channel Four every week.

It's predominately militant atheists and people who love a rant he wins over, but he is winning them.

There are atheists, such as Colin McGinn who are more clinical in their logic and probably not as casutic in their delivery. But nobody has heard of them.
You have to be a bit controversial to get attention these days.

The problem, is people don't really want to think. You yourself, an intellligent man, are uninterested in evolution. On several posts, you say things like: "it doesn't matter", "I don't care if its true".

It's very hard to win people over to a scientific way of thinking unless they have that type of mind and / or some sort of interest in science.

This is why, great science writers such as Sean B. Carroll who takes a very soft hands approach on religion, is pretty much unheard off.

Hivemind187

Lots of people knock Dawkins for being too caustic or for writing in common parlance (i.e. so the average Joe can understand it). Interesting how the same accusations were laid at the feet of Thomas Paine.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I see where you are coming from. If the climate change movement gave up spin and just stuck to facts and mathematical equations, they'd still be looking to engage the masses. But they have engaged them by using clever rhetoric and emotive arguments.

Facts and mathematical equations don't move the heart or inspire people. Polar bears drowning do.

When I was courting my wife I didn't woo her with facts and equations demonstrating the benefits of spending the rest of her life with me - I took her to nice candlelit restaurants and tried to avoid getting garlic on my breath.

That's why Obama got elected as President, why Churchill inspired Britain during the blitz, and why the Bible communicates truth through allegory, poetry, prophecy and parables rather than by equations and charts.

But where I disagree with you is that Dawkins is winning hearts and minds.
1. Millions of copies of God Delusion sold.
2. An atheist bus doing the rounds in London.
3. A new atheist organisation set up in Dublin.
4. A different Religion bashing program on Channel Four every week.

It's predominately militant atheists and people who love a rant he wins over, but he is winning them.

Probably more a case of 'preaching to the choir' than winning them over.

I hardly find those paltry achievements very impressive but, as another poster has already pointed out, majority support does not equate to truth.

The problem, is people don't really want to think. You yourself, an intellligent man, are uninterested in evolution. On several posts, you say things like: "it doesn't matter", "I don't care if its true".

It's very hard to win people over to a scientific way of thinking unless they have that type of mind and / or some sort of interest in science.

Yes, but I'm not the kind of person you need to win over since I'm not hindering the teaching of evolution in any shape or form.

You need to win over the people who are interested in evolution and science, but also have deep religious beliefs. They will not be won over by Dawkins' anti-religious crusades. They are much more likely to be won over by people like the Archbishop of Canterbury who reassure them that it's OK to be a Christian and to believe in evolution. Unfortunately for your cause Dawkins, and quite a few posters on boards.ie, make that prospect increasingly unlikely by alienating the very people that they need to win over.

CDfm

PDN wrote: »

the Church changes faster than a hundred Martin Luthers could ever have achieved.

That is why I am a secularist. I do not think the State should give the Church any artificial aid (eg using my taxes to fund Catholic schools) or any veto over any State policy.

However, as a secularist I also believe that the Church has the same right as any other non-governmental body to lobby and to protest.

I am all for secularist approach.

However when it comes to catholic schools the church built them and ran them when the state didnt so they are ours. I dont think why we should hand them over for free.

I was at a Baptist centre last week paid for by the Church -should they hand it over as a community center too? I didnt ask if they applied for and recieved any grant-in-aid -but it wouldnt surprise me if they have..

You could also say St Patricks Cathedral or the Cathedral in Kildare are historic monuments taken over during the reformation and should be handed over too. THe congregations are small they wont miss them.

Thats your logic.

robindch

PDN wrote: »

It's a case of winning hearts and minds [...] The same is true of Lisbon. It did not fall because of Libertas. [...] The same goes for Ken Ham et al. If they are wrong then convince people of that by winning hearts and minds.

Yes, indeed, that's the problem -- people think that you can arrive at truth by "feeling" your way there, rather than thinking your way there.

The former works fine winning a spouse over a candlelight dinner, or a friend down the pub, but you'll have a hard time flying to the moon by sitting on a launch pad and hoping your way upwards.

There's a difference between the world of emotion and hope and the world of hard, physical reality and this difference is simply too large for some people do deal with. And that's why they outsource their opinions to people like the ones I mentioned above who, in telling people what they want to hear, pretend to be the honest, friendly brokers they are manifestly not.

In short, life's simpler if you don't have to make an effort, so the question really is how does one make the hard work of learning attractive?

PDN

CDfm wrote: »

I am all for secularist approach.

However when it comes to catholic schools the church built them and ran them when the state didnt so they are ours. I dont think why we should hand them over for free.

I was at a Baptist centre last week paid for by the Church -should they hand it over as a community center too? I didnt ask if they applied for and recieved any grant-in-aid -but it wouldnt surprise me if they have..

You could also say St Patricks Cathedral or the Cathedral in Kildare are historic monuments taken over during the reformation and should be handed over too. THe congregations are small they wont miss them.

Thats your logic.

No, it's not my logic at all. I never mentioned handing buildings over at all - free or otherwise.

If the Catholic Church wants to use schools as a vehicle for preparing children for first communion, or for indoctrinating children in the Catholic faith then they are free to do so. But that should be funded by fees payed by the parents or by the Church itself - not by the State. I object to my taxes being used to pay for religious indoctrination.

The State has a responsibility to provide education for children. They should build and maintain secular schools like any other civilised Western nation.

The Catholic Church then has a choice to make. They can run their schools as private concerns or sell the buildings to the State to be used as nonreligious schools.

BTW, we're way off topic again.

CDfm

Tim Robbins wrote: »

But where I disagree with you is that Dawkins is winning hearts and minds.
1. Millions of copies of God Delusion sold.
2. An atheist bus doing the rounds in London.
3. A new atheist organisation set up in Dublin.
4. A different Religion bashing program on Channel Four every week.

It's predominately militant atheists and people who love a rant he wins over, but he is winning them.

But you have to agree that Dawkins is known for his Anti-God Professional Atheism and not his Science.

A bit of a Demagogue if you ask me.

An Atheist bus and new atheist organisation sounds very churchy to me.

Ron L Hubbard - never did it as good;)

PS Tim - I know you are an atheist but are you a Dawkins believer and what are your reasons.

robindch

CDfm wrote: »

However when it comes to catholic schools the church built them and ran them when the state didnt so they are ours. I dont think why we should hand them over for free.

I don't have figures to hand, but many schools were paid for by the state, but handed over to the CC so that they could run them. Conveniently, so that the CC could indoctrinate children so that the CC could propagate. Religious control of schools happens in many countries, and for many religions, and for broadly the same reason in all of them.

BTW, here in Ireland and as part of the residential abuse liability settlement of six years or so ago, the CC agreed to hand back something like EUR60 million worth of property, mostly in the form of schools, back to the state in partial compensation for what subsequently turned into a 1.3 billion euro settlement deal. As far as I'm aware, the CC has yet to hand over anything, despite most of the schools having no cash value, since the state can't sell them.

PDN

robindch wrote: »

The former works fine winning a spouse over a candlelight dinner, or a friend down the pub, but you'll have a hard time flying to the moon by sitting on a launch pad and hoping your way upwards.

Interesting choice of an example.

I recently visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At one point I gazed up at the engine of one of the spacecraft and was shocked at how primitive it was! I was expecting something sophisticated like the inside of a computer - but it reminded me more of a souped up version of the Ford Capri engine I used to patch up so regularly years ago. I thought to myself, "What made these people so crazy as to dare to believe that this thing would carry them to the moon?" But they did it.

Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat points out that the moon landings were made possible because Kennedy's soaring rhetoric inspired an entire generation to believe that something apparently impossible could actually take place. Not only that, it inspired a generation of kids to study science - leading to thousands of technological breakthroughs in areas unrelated to anything NASA was doing. Science was no longer viewed as something antithetical to religion - but rather as something that could change the world.

That is the power of winning hearts and minds. It can take you to the moon!

Friedman goes on to argue, very convincingly IMHO, that what is required is another visionary goal to inspire a new generation to start enthusiastically studying science once more. He suggests a 'crusade' (oops touchy word!) to develop a clean renewable energy source that can entirely replace fossil fuels. Someone like Barack Obama could do it. He could inspire a whole generation of students (not just in the US but internationally) to get involved in science. That would do much more good for science than Dawkins' tirades against God.

CDfm

PDN wrote: »

No, it's not my logic at all. I never mentioned handing buildings over at all - free or otherwise.

If the Catholic Church wants to use schools as a vehicle for preparing children for first communion, or for indoctrinating children in the Catholic faith then they are free to do so. But that should be funded by fees payed by the parents or by the Church itself - not by the State. I object to my taxes being used to pay for religious indoctrination.

The State has a responsibility to provide education for children. They should build and maintain secular schools like any other civilised Western nation.

The Catholic Church then has a choice to make. They can run their schools as private concerns or sell the buildings to the State to be used as nonreligious schools.

BTW, we're way off topic again.

I am against the giving the sacraments to non believers. But you fail to point out that the parents of the children view it as a social occasion - so its the parents and not the Church that are to blame like it or not.
Actually in the Irish constitution its the Family who are the educator of the children and not the state.

In 1967 - when free secondary schooling became law - parents sent their kids to the Church schools -not the state schools.

The Catholic Church doesnt have a choice to make at all.

When the Gaelscoill ( Irish Language School)movement who are non denominational wanted schools they set them up -applied for state funding and build or acquired buildings. So it is possible to do.

I know its off topic - but it did sound very much like you want Catholics to give away our property for community use but are not very keen to give awy your churches property;)

PDN

CDfm wrote: »

I am against the giving the sacraments to non believers. But you fail to point out that the parents of the children view it as a social occasion - so its the parents and not the Church that are to blame like it or not.

That's neither here nor there. If the parents want their social occasion then let them do it through the Church, not through a State-funded school.

Actually in the Irish constitution its the Family who are the educator of the children and not the state.

But the State acts in loco parentis in providing schools.

In 1967 - when free secondary schooling became law - parents sent their kids to the Church schools -not the state schools.

And they should be free to do so, so long as they pay for it. I sent my child to a Church School (non-catholic) but the State never subbed me to do so and I never expected them to.

The Catholic Church doesnt have a choice to make at all.

Indeed they don't, so long as they are being propped up by the taxpayer like a religious equivalent of VHI. But if the State ever has the guts to ask them to stand on their own two feet then they will have to make some very difficult choices.

I know its off topic - but it did sound very much like you want Catholics to give away our property for community use but are not very keen to give awy your churches property

Not in the slightest. I don't care what you do with your buildings so long as you don't expect me and other taxpayers to pay for it.

CDfm

robindch wrote: »

I don't have figures to hand, but many schools were paid for by the state, but handed over to the CC so that they could run them. Conveniently, so that the CC could indoctrinate children so that the CC could propagate. Religious control of schools happens in many countries, and for many religions, and for broadly the same reason in all of them.

BTW, here in Ireland and as part of the residential abuse liability settlement of six years or so ago, the CC agreed to hand back something like EUR60 million worth of property, mostly in the form of schools, back to the state in partial compensation for what subsequently turned into a 1.3 billion euro settlement deal. As far as I'm aware, the CC has yet to hand over anything, despite most of the schools having no cash value, since the state can't sell them.

Can you provide figures on this. The state also had not the management capability to do so. Church communities had to raise funding to provide land and management for the schools. Between 1967 and 1974 when the first LC students came out -this infrastructure automatically appeared. No it didnt.

And the state isnt in a position to enforce its claims against the Church?Schools are property and buildings and have many uses other than as schools themselves. Maybe the state dont want the sites sold commercially.

Interestingly, the compensation claims included claims against the state for negligence in failing to act on complaints and adequetly monitor the institutions. I havent seen any Civil Servant being brought to trial.

I am not excusing the abuse -and I was quite friendly with an abuse victim who is now dead and whose family say that the abuse was the cause. I would personally have the death penalty for child abusers.

CDfm

PDN wrote: »

That's neither here nor there.


And they should be free to do so, so long as they pay for it. I sent my child to a Church School (non-catholic) but the State never subbed me to do so and I never expected them to.


Indeed they don't, so long as they are being propped up by the taxpayer like a religious equivalent of VHI. But if the State ever has the guts to ask them to stand on their own two feet then they will have to make some very difficult choices.

I actually agree with you - but this is the reality.

On Tom Dunne yesterday morning you had a priest talking about baptism and non-believers as Godparents. The priest said that on only one occasion did a Godparent admit to not beliving in God with the words " I dont and those two over there dont either"

I heard of a parent in Wicklow complain some time ago about sending a child to an Irish school because it was closest and wanted all teaching thru English.

It would surprise me if the teachers at your childs school werent paid for by the Department of Education - at least in part. I would be very very surprised .

UU

CDfm wrote: »

Hi UU.

I am not a creationist. My understanding of Catholic Docterine is that Evolutiion is generally accepted and not rejected and no-one says its inconcistant with faith.Its science and you wouldnt expect the Church to come out and comment on planes flying.

Thats what I meant by Catholic as opposed to someone who is creationist- accepting what is plain to see.

I dont think the Church should go out on a limb and endorce any scientific theory- its not church business to do that.

While enthusiasism for science is great. Science often strays into unethical areas. When you get scientists criticising the church for being opposed to the harvesting of stem cells from aborted foetuses that really annoys me.

CD

Ok a bit of misunderstanding sorry about that. Well it's just I do find it rather odd that the Catholic Church should endorse Evolution considering it really doesn't support their theology at all because it contradicts Genesis. I'm guessing you're one to have the NOMA view that science and religion are different and should stay separate. It's a common view but I don't endorse it to be honest for various reasons which I won't go into here.

Well the stem cell research part is a bit of a tricky area for both science and religions which opposes it especially in terms of ethics but as I said before I don't think the Church or any other religion is any more qualified to talk on the subject of morality and ethics as is anyone else because there is little evidence to say morality is a religious thing. Sure somebody who isn't religious could also be against stem cell research even!

Gosh this is a fast moving thread indeed! lol :P

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

Facts and mathematical equations don't move the heart or inspire people. Polar bears drowning do.

When I was courting my wife I didn't woo her with facts and equations demonstrating the benefits of spending the rest of her life with me - I took her to nice candlelit restaurants and tried to avoid getting garlic on my breath.

That's why Obama got elected as President, why Churchill inspired Britain during the blitz, and why the Bible communicates truth through allegory, poetry, prophecy and parables rather than by equations and charts.

We agree for a change.

Probably more a case of 'preaching to the choir' than winning them over.

A bit of both me thinks. You have to realise that many people who read the God Delusion would have had a religious upbringing and even if they were never really serious about it, the GD was a book the likes which they never would have read before.

I hardly find those paltry achievements very impressive but, as another poster has already pointed out, majority support does not equate to truth.

Agree.

Yes, but I'm not the kind of person you need to win over since I'm not hindering the teaching of evolution in any shape or form.

Disagree. You're an influencer of what people think and how they live.
All Ministers, Priests etc are. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing what you do.

The majority of people - who let's face it couldn't be bothered reading about science - take their opinions from people like you, teachers, and people they generally look up to.

It would therefore be a positive thing for Science that people who had influence, acted in a positive fashion w.r.t. Science.

You need to win over the people who are interested in evolution and science, but also have deep religious beliefs. They will not be won over by Dawkins' anti-religious crusades. They are much more likely to be won over by people like the Archbishop of Canterbury who reassure them that it's OK to be a Christian and to believe in evolution. Unfortunately for your cause Dawkins, and quite a few posters on boards.ie, make that prospect increasingly unlikely by alienating the very people that they need to win over.

Agree. The Catholics, Anglicans and most of the traditional Churches are helping out. It's the wacky Evangelical, fundamentalist (not all - but it's the most fitting umbrella term) ones that are causing the problems.

I think this is because some of these Churches cling to the Bible as they have no tradition, history. Pick a hole in the Bible, they thus get defensive. Because there isn't a lot else to their beliefs.

Whereas part of being an Anglican or RC is about much more than just the Bible. So pick a hole in it and they tend not to be as defensive.

Tim Robbins

CDfm wrote: »

PS Tim - I know you are an atheist but are you a Dawkins believer and what are your reasons.

I prefer Bertrand Russell, Colin McGinn, Julian Baggini. Some of Dawkins Science books are absolutely excellent. But I find some of his militant atheism, arrogance, insensitivity a bit irritating.

CDfm

UU wrote: »

Ok a bit of misunderstanding sorry about that. Well it's just I do find it rather odd that the Catholic Church should endorse Evolution considering it really doesn't support their theology at all because it contradicts Genesis.

Sure somebody who isn't religious could also be against stem cell research even!

Gosh this is a fast moving thread indeed! lol :P

It sounds odd. A quick theology lesson Philo of Alexandria was a Jewish scholar and philosopher and lived BC 20-AD50 ? and was a Platoist. AS was St Paul -who mentions allegorical readings of Genesis in his letters. So acceptance of evolution is called the Hellenistic-Judeaist reading and refers to the period to the Ist and 2nd Century. The Greeks had been digging up dinosaur bones. Allegorical reading of the Old Testament dates from then. Philo is classed as a very influencial thinker -and once led a Jewish deligation to Caligula.

Its a great thread - BTW -whats NOMA?

CDfm

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I prefer Bertrand Russell,

Altogether now Im a little teapot...........

pH

CDfm wrote: »

Its a great thread - BTW -whats NOMA?

Non-overlapping magisteria, twaddle made up by Stephen Jay Gould and expanded to book length in Rock of Ages.

Rocks of Ages is a short book by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould on the relationship between science and religion. According to Gould each "magisterium" occupies a separate realm of human understanding. Science informs us how the natural world works (or how the heavens go), and religion informs us on how we ought to morally behave (how to go to heaven). If each realm is separate, then according to Gould, they can never truly be in conflict. This is called the principle of Nonoverlapping Magisteria, or NOMA for short.

PDN

CDfm wrote: »

It would surprise me if the teachers at your childs school werent paid for by the Department of Education - at least in part. I would be very very surprised .

Be surprised then. The school was set up by a Church and is totally funded by the fees paid by parents and by members of the church who sponsor children whose parents can't afford the fees. The only State involvement was an annual visit by an inspector to check the kids were receiving an adequate education (thereby confirming that we as parents were fulfilling our responsibility under the Constitution to educate our children).

The State did not contribute a cent to my child's education up to age 18. Mind you, they're making up for it now she's at College!

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

Be surprised then. The school was set up by a Church and is totally funded by the fees paid by parents and by members of the church who sponsor children whose parents can't afford the fees. The only State involvement was an annual visit by an inspector to check the kids were receiving an adequate education (thereby confirming that we as parents were fulfilling our responsibility under the Constitution to educate our children).

The State did not contribute a cent to my child's education up to age 18. Mind you, they're making up for it now she's at College!

How many were / are in the school?

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote: »

How many were / are in the school?

At that time, about 30 kids. I think they have 50 or 60 students now.

Zillah

PDN wrote: »

That is the power of winning hearts and minds. It can take you to the moon!

Not literally, of course

Which was Robin's point.

PDN

Zillah wrote: »

Not literally, of course

Which was Robin's point.

As a result of Kennedy's rhetoric, people did literally land on the moon.

Which was my point.

UU

CDfm wrote: »

It sounds odd. A quick theology lesson Philo of Alexandria was a Jewish scholar and philosopher and lived BC 20-AD50 ? and was a Platoist. AS was St Paul -who mentions allegorical readings of Genesis in his letters. So acceptance of evolution is called the Hellenistic-Judeaist reading and refers to the period to the Ist and 2nd Century. The Greeks had been digging up dinosaur bones. Allegorical reading of the Old Testament dates from then. Philo is classed as a very influencial thinker -and once led a Jewish deligation to Caligula.

Its a great thread - BTW -whats NOMA?

Creating odd rationalisations is a common thing theologians do and to be honest, I really don't think highly of most theology at all. Allegorical? You mean to say Genesis is now seen as a metaphor for something else? Surely Catholics must hold that it actually happened! From my Catholic education, I was told that Adam and Eve were the first people and Adam was created by God in his image, etc. Never once was I told it was allegorical or metaphorical!

Furthermore as most nice Christians including Catholics will forget is that be viewing Genesis as merely symbolic is incompatible with St.Paul's nasty theology of atonement for original sin! In his controvertial programme, The Root of All Evil, Richard Dawkins sums up this point very well.

"Now, of course, nice Christians will be protesting. Everyone knows that the Old Testament is deeply unpleasant. The New Testament of Jesus, they claim, undoes the damage and makes it all right. Yes there's no doubt from a moral point of view, Jesus is a huge improvement because Jesus, or whoever wrote his lines, was not content to derive his ethics from the scriptures with which he'd been brought up… but then, it all goes wrong.

The heart of New Testament theology inverted after Jesus' death is St. Paul's nasty sadomasochistic doctrine of Atonement for Original Sin. The idea is God had himself incarnated as a man, Jesus, in order that he should be hideously tortured and executed to redeem all our sins. Not just the original sin of Adam and Eve, future sins as well, whether we decide to commit them or not.

If God wanted to forgive out sins, why not just forgive them? Who is God trying to impress? Presumably himself since he is judge and jury as well as execution victim!

To cap it all according to popular views of prehistory, Adam, the supposed perpetrator of the Original Sin, never existed in the first place. An awkward fact which undermines the premise of Paul's whole torturously nasty theory. Oh but of the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn't it? Symbolic?! So Jesus had himself tortured and executed for a symbolic sin by a nonexistent individual?! Nobody, not brought up in the faith, could reach any verdict than barking mad!"

NOMA is an acronym coined by Stephen Jay Gould in his book Rocks of Ages. It stands for 'non-overlapping magesteria'. He says:

"The net, or magisterium, of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all enquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the clichés, science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven."

Your view is not much different from that really.

robindch

PDN wrote: »

That is the power of winning hearts and minds.

We're speaking at cross purposes here.

Yes, it's quite obvious that by winning over hearts and minds, you can get people to do what you want them to do. Heavens, what else is the exercise of most political power but the bending of other people's will to your own?

But I wasn't saying that this wasn't possible. Instead, I was referring to the fundamental problem with engaging people only in a hearts and minds manner. Which is that it opens up the polity to the abuse of unscrupulous schmucks like the ones I mentioned above. Yes, Kennedy's fine words and delivery might have got the American people behind the moonshot, but Ratzinger's equally-polished prose propels the poor and undereducated population of the Philippines to over-reproduce their way into appalling poverty.

At some point, people should understand that they have a responsibility to inform their own opinions, or to acquire the honesty to admit that their opinions are uninformed and therefore, unreliable.

Sadly, both of these activities seem require more effort and more honesty than most people are prepared to invest. And so, people like Ganley, Ham, Ratzinger -- and all the sorry rest of them -- will continue to do what they like with the public mindshare they've acquired through the simple act of telling gullible, trusting people the dishonest rubbish they want to hear.

CDfm

UU wrote: »

Creating odd rationalisations is a common thing theologians do and to be honest,


"Now, of course, nice Christians will be protesting. Everyone knows that the Old Testament is deeply unpleasant. The New Testament of Jesus, they claim, undoes the damage and makes it all right. Yes there's no doubt from a moral point of view, Jesus is a huge improvement because Jesus, or whoever wrote his lines, was not content to derive his ethics from the scriptures with which he'd been brought up… but then, it all goes wrong.

The heart of New Testament theology inverted after Jesus' death is St. Paul's nasty sadomasochistic doctrine of Atonement for Original Sin. The idea is God had himself incarnated as a man, Jesus, in order that he should be hideously tortured and executed to redeem all our sins. Not just the original sin of Adam and Eve, future sins as well, whether we decide to commit them or not.

If God wanted to forgive out sins, why not just forgive them? Who is God trying to impress? Presumably himself since he is judge and jury as well as execution victim!

To cap it all according to popular views of prehistory, Adam, the supposed perpetrator of the Original Sin, never existed in the first place. An awkward fact which undermines the premise of Paul's whole torturously nasty theory. Oh but of the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn't it?


Your view is not much different from that really.

UU - you are a bit of an uber-atheist.


That the Bible is wriiten in an Allegorical way is something that annoys you. That Christianity has adopted this approach for 2000 years seems something you cant handle.

You could say the same about the Irish Constitution written in 1937 - so high court and supreme court cases are odd realisations too. Dont we have scientists questioning Einstein and disproving him and Newton is it - but the laws of physics are fixed?

No one said the Bible was all lovey dovey -where did you get that idea from. It is provocative and maybe it generates great moral and philosophical moral debates because it is.

Maybe St Pauls view was narrow. I dunno. Or maybe we judge ourselves- but scientists cant tell us.That Adam and Eve and Genesis is a composite is a revelation to you means that you cannot be that informed on religion..

But this much I know - I have a huge difference on ethics with scientists - so on stuff like stemcell harvesting and abortion. I feel some advocates for atheism from the scientific community want to operate without any controls.

Its not that Christians believe in God that bothers some atheists ( or you)its those pesky little questions on moral and ethics that arise with it.

Tim Robbins

CDfm wrote: »

UU - you are a bit of an uber-atheist.

CDfm, if I may ask what belief / disbelief terminology best describes you?

CDfm

Tim Robbins wrote: »

CDfm, if I may ask what belief / disbelief terminology best describes you?

Catholic is closest - but I have a secular outlook and am a realist.

But if I was Bishop of Oxford for just one Sunday I would denounce you-know-who as the AntiChrist and have a book burning for charity.:D