What would YOU want to hear at church?

[darkbeaver]

Not surprising that you missed what I was saying by a mile. You're good at that. Yes, IMO opinion there is only one God. People know h by different names all around the globe. The vengeful God that has been portrayed here is inaccurate. God is neither vengeful or hateful.


Crawl back into your hole beav.

I guess there is no need to ask forgiveness then if your accent sometimes befuddles me. However your certitude about the one God amazes me, I had not been aware of your coming forth from the closet of sub radiant mud into the Holy Electric Luminosity of his majesty. See you at the temple tuesday next. By the way I forbid you speaking to me in the imperial system, Jesus insists on the metric. Everybody knows soul is measured in grams.

 

[adopted]

Even if everyone has blue eyes, the gene for brown is still there. Say person A and person B have kids; both blue eyed, and their kids are blue eyed. But if person C and D have kids, and they both carry the brown eyed gene more strongly than A and B, then the chance of their having a brown eyed kid is more likely.

Hi Serryah. So are you saying that for any given two blue-eyed parents, there is a chance that they might have a brown-eyed kid? If so, I've never heard of that happening, but of course I could be wrong on this. I'm certainly not a biologist by any stretch. Just a hobby entomologist!

The problem with your theory is that you don't say how the people got to this island, how long they've been isolated and so on. In the end, the brown eyed gene can be repressed and dormant, but it won't ever go away. All it'd take is the right timing, co-ordination and "luck" for the gene to switch back on again, and give a brown eyed child.

That was just a thought-experiment. I was imagining a way to segregate various genetic traits.

So, do all animals at all times contain the genetic information for all possible traits and bodily appendages, these only in various states of repression or dormancy? Is the entire locus of biological functions and organs already fulfilled, and laying dormant in every piece of DNA in every organism?

Paul was not an apostle. He was a Johnny come lately who screwed up the whole thing. He took the message of Jesus out of the equation and turned the movement into a religion about the deification of Jesus instead of the teachings of Jesus. It was not up until 300+ years after the fact that Jesus was deified. Until then, to most Christians, Jesus was just a great teacher (rabbi). The gospels are not wrong, it is the interpretation of them that is misguided and misinterpreted.

The true story of the teachings and life of Jesus have been lost in the myth that rose up around the history. The deification of Jesus was completely fabricated from more ancient myths from Egypt, Babylon, Persia and India by the Romans. You know nothing of the history of the bible. Even the OT is a fabrication borrowed from the Sumerians, Assyrians, Egyptians and Babylonians.

What you don't get is, that you are not a wretch that needed saving. You are not a sinner because of something that happened (or didn't happen) hundreds of thousands of years ago. You do not need any external forces or saviours to make you whole or righteous. What you need more than anything is to love yourself. You are misplacing your love on a myth, a love that is meant for you. The fundamentalist literal interpretation of the bible is utter nonsense. It has no basis in any reality.

Anybody who has studied the bible to any degree, and has not relied on someone else to tell them what it means will tell you that. What you have done is given away your personal responsibility to find the truth to someone else because you did not trust your own inner wisdom. That is the saddest part of all. Fundamentalist Christians are spiritual cripples feeding off the insecurities of other spiritual cripples.

Jesus supposedly spent 40 days and nights in the desert wrestling with his demons, praying and meditating of the meaning of life. It is what is required of every human who seeks the truth. It cannot be handed to you, you have to earn it, fight for it, become worthy of it. The path is narrow because it is your path. No one else can make it for you. It takes courage and determination. A book is only a map, a guide, but eventually you have to put down the book and go off on the journey, a leap of faith.

Cliffy, with who did you study history? Historical revisionism is as old as the serpent. ("Did God really say?") We would only be surprised if the enemies of God did NOT work to pervert the truth.

Just because a fable exists doesn't make it true. Consider, on the other hand, Paul's public letters to the Corinthians. In these letters, he openly told these Greeks that they could go to Jerusalem and find there hundreds of eye-witnesses of the resurrected Christ. If this had been an untrue statement (for it sounds like madness!) then those people certainly would not have hung on to those letters such that they made their way into the canon of scripture. (And they would have been motivated to destroy the letters anyway, for in them the apostle did rebuke them severely for their often ungodly behavior.)

If you accept the gospels, then why do you reject Paul, the most dramatic convert to the gospel and preacher of Christ crucified?

What part of Paul's writings conflict with the sayings of Jesus or the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?

 

[DaSleeper]

Hi Serryah. So are you saying that for any given two blue-eyed parents, there is a chance that they might have a brown-eyed kid? If so, I've never heard of that happening, but of course I could be wrong on this. I'm certainly not a biologist by any stretch. Just a hobby entomologist!

Ever heard of recessive genes???

 

[Serryah]

Ever heard of recessive genes???

Evidently not.

 

[adopted]

Ever heard of recessive genes???

Ya, but brown dominates blue, so a blue-eyed person doesn't have the gene for brown. If he had the gene for brown, then it wouldn't be recessive precisely because it is dominant, and he would therefore have brown eyes. What am I missing?

 

[Serryah]

Hi Serryah. So are you saying that for any given two blue-eyed parents, there is a chance that they might have a brown-eyed kid? If so, I've never heard of that happening, but of course I could be wrong on this. I'm certainly not a biologist by any stretch. Just a hobby entomologist!



That was just a thought-experiment. I was imagining a way to segregate various genetic traits.

So, do all animals at all times contain the genetic information for all possible traits and bodily appendages, these only in various states of repression or dormancy? Is the entire locus of biological functions and organs already fulfilled, and laying dormant in every piece of DNA in every organism?

Not saying I'm a geneticist either, but yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

The problem with your "thought experiment" is that humans carry the brown eyed gene. How they got to the island is important.

Not being a geneticist, I could be wrong, but yes. That's why you have animals having common genetic traits. Of course, you have to believe in evolution in order to believe that, too, IMO.

Ya, but brown dominates blue, so a blue-eyed person doesn't have the gene for brown. If he had the gene for brown, then it wouldn't be recessive precisely because it is dominant, and he would therefore have brown eyes. What am I missing?

Just because someone has blue eyes, doesn't mean they don't carry a brown eyed gene. It's recessive nature depends on the other person involved - in this case, blue eyes - and whether THEIR brown eyed gene is more dominant, or more recessed. It's like having red hair in a family, or green eyes. Green is, I believe, an offshoot of blue; parents of a kid might have blue or brown eyes, but end up having a green eyed kid. Green eyes not seen in the family for generations but it just happened that this time around, the genetics were right for it.

Genetics is based on a lot of luck, chance and the right combination happening at the right time.

 

[Spade]

By draughting a sophomoric caricature of Christianity that is based on a laughable cosmology and a rejection of science, and which takes the True Believer off the hook from leading a moral life by emphasizing a path to glory based on acceptance of the unbelievable, Adopted has furthered the cause of agnosticism and reasoned scepticism. For this, all whose heads and hearts are not "three sizes too small" thank him!

 

[adopted]

Not saying I'm a geneticist either, but yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

The problem with your "thought experiment" is that humans carry the brown eyed gene. How they got to the island is important.

Not being a geneticist, I could be wrong, but yes. That's why you have animals having common genetic traits. Of course, you have to believe in evolution in order to believe that, too, IMO.

Your version of evolution sounds like all possibilities for life were at once designed and planted into DNA, and evolution is simply the firing and suppressing of various traits in various species at various times. This doesn't sound like the evolution I've learned from others, which confesses differences beyond merely one thing being on and another being off... differences like an entire strand of information present or absent.

Your version of genetics sounds like I could take DNA from a dog, toggle some of the switches, and then it could be a human's DNA.

I thought the theory included mechanisms (such as mutation) for new information to be added. Your idea sounds like the first single-celled organisms already had the information in them for kidneys, toenails, and wings.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.

By draughting a sophomoric caricature of Christianity that is based on a laughable cosmology and a rejection of science, and which takes the True Believer off the hook from leading a moral life by emphasizing a path to glory based on acceptance of the unbelievable, Adopted has furthered the cause of agnosticism and reasoned scepticism. For this, all whose heads and hearts are not "three sizes too small" thank him!

I don't reject science. I love science and have my B.Sc.

I also love blueberry pie, but without denying the existence of the cook who made it.

In this way, I see science as revealing the glory of God. You see science in a vacuum, much like staring at the Mona Lisa without acknowledging da Vinci.

 

[lone wolf]

The saddest part about all organized religions and churchies therein is their need to complicate a thing as simple as faith with rules, regulations and bigotries. What's so hard about understanding there is something bigger than people?

 

[In Between Man]

He seems to demand a lot of praise and worship; what's that about then?

Not exactly. He demands that you don't direct your worship to anyone or anything else. Again, think of him as a father just like yourself. You love your children and provide for them, so imagine how you would feel if your children doted love and praise on some random father in the neighborhood. You'd be jealous!

Who is the only person worthy of actual worship? A fallible human, yourself, an angel, an object? The only one worthy is an omniscient, omnipotent creator of life.

I do not take fools or hypocrites lightly.

Same here. I'd bet the family farm that you think you're a "good person", yet surely you've told a lie or two in your life, lusted, and there's no doubt that you've demonstrated hatred towards other people and "anyone who hates his brother is a murderer" (1 John 3:15). Hypocrite!

 

[Cliffy]

In this way, I see science as revealing the glory of God. You see science in a vacuum, much like staring at the Mona Lisa without acknowledging da Vinci.

Like many, you seem to think that a rejection of your simplistic interpretation of the bible means a rejection of a creator. That is silly at best. If one studies the origins of Christianity, they find that today's fundamental interpretation is so far from the original as to be unrecognizable. And, of course, you filter you understanding of science through your religious beliefs coming to erroneous conclusions.

Take the belief in the need to be born again in Christ. When you were born the first time you knew nothing of this world. You had to be taught everything you think you know about it today. To be born again is to become as that new born child, full of wonder for the new things it is experiencing. There are many ways to clear the mind of the extraneous garbage that plug it up so that we can see the world in anew way. Until you reach that state, you cannot be born again. Only this time, you have to define your reality, not someone else. You must stand naked before your creator, stripped of all you think you know.

What I have seen most so called Born Againers do, however, is stand before a congregation as a spiritual cripple and beg for a crutch. And a crutch is what they get. But most people heal from their disabilities and at some point no longer require a crutch. It is at that point that they must throw away the crutch and walk (face life) on their own. By saying you are a sinner requiring a saviour, you are say I am a spiritual cripple. That is not what the teachings are about. What I hear you saying here is, this is my crutch and I know that you all need a crutch too, so come and beg for one.

 

[In Between Man]

if you refuse this kind offer of an unyielding certainty and total subservience, it's the fires of Hell for you.

Not fair? Was it fair that God himself was beaten, humiliated, had iron spikes nailed through his hands and feet, and suffered in hell?!!!

 

[lone wolf]

Not fair? Was it fair that God himself was beaten, humiliated, had iron spikes nailed through his hands and feet, and suffered in hell?!!!

I thought that was supposed to be Jesus????

 

[Cliffy]

Not exactly. He demands that you don't direct your worship to anyone or anything else. Again, think of him as a father just like yourself. You love your children and provide for them, so imagine how you would feel if your children doted love and praise on some random father in the neighborhood. You'd be jealous!

Who is the only person worthy of actual worship? A fallible human, yourself, an angel, an object? The only one worthy is an omniscient, omnipotent creator of life.

Why does an omnipotent creator need to be worshiped. Why do you think that an insignificant species living on an inconspicuous rock floating in the vast space of an infinite Universe would even be noticed by this omnipotent creator? Because some book written by some desert goat herders 2000 years ago? How ridiculous is that? Why would an omnipotent creator be jealous of anything, anyone? It would seem that there is something fundamentally silly about your interpretation of the bible.

 

[In Between Man]

I thought that was supposed to be Jesus????

Jesus is God. If he wasn't, what happened on the cross was pointless, and there would be no way to heaven.

 

[Cliffy]

Jesus is God. If he wasn't, what happened on the cross was pointless, and there would be no way to heaven.

And perhaps heaven and hell are right here and you missed the point of your existence.

 

[In Between Man]

And perhaps heaven and hell are right here and you missed the point of your existence.

If you can provide evidence for this claim, I'm all ears.

 

[lone wolf]

Jesus is God. If he wasn't, what happened on the cross was pointless, and there would be no way to heaven.

More complications.... Is it any wonder Christianity is so splintered? You don't even jibe with your book.

 

[In Between Man]

Why does an omnipotent creator need to be worshiped.

He doesn't need anything. Worship is a free will choice his followers do because they have reverence for him.

Why do you think that an insignificant species living on an inconspicuous rock floating in the vast space of an infinite Universe would even be noticed by this omnipotent creator?

We're not insignificant, and God does notice us because he's not cold and distant, he's personal.

God's eyes scan the whole world to find those whose hearts are committed to him... (2 Chronicles 16:9)

 

[Cliffy]

If you can provide evidence for this claim, I'm all ears.

Why do you need evidence when what you do believe is completely without evidence. You run on blind faith alone in something that is unprovable, a misconception, misinterpretation and a misrepresentation of the original texts that were never meant o be taken literally.

That said, my view is that if you are happy, you are on your spiritual path home (heaven). If you are unhappy, you are not on your path and thus in hell. If you are connected to your source, the divine spark within, you are happy and content. If you think you are a sinner and unworthy of being happy, you are disconnected from the source and you are in hell.