Posted on 01/26/2006 1:47:10 PM PST by jennyp
Black bird carrying a cluster of berries placemarker
You're literally talking with yourself.
What do you believe is the origin of the Genesis stories?
Absolute rubbish. Up to your usual standards of careful thought... ;)
Maybe you should try to acquire at least one of those things before pontificating further. At the moment you are just posting a list of bad, endlessly debunked, moronic, dishonest arguments against evolution. They aren't science, and they aren't even good theology.
So the only thing that stops you from behaving like a wild beast is your religious faith? Maybe you should warn your local police department to gun you down if ever you get a crisis of faith.
You believe in science, but you reject pretty much the whole of physics, biology, zoology, genetics, paleontology, plate tectonics, geology, astronomy, cosmology, and hydrology, amongst others. Nothing in science would be left standing if the world is less than 12,000 years old. And you have the chutzpah to type your idiocies onto a PC keyboard, attached to the internet...
I'm hoping you can clarify a couple of points for me before I answer.
You seem to disagree with the author's statement that morality is man's creation, since you say that it "has to be based on something objective." Do you believe then, that the source of morality is our human nature?
I'm also curious about this statement.
The purpose of having a moral code is to sustain the kind of society where you can flourish.
Could you expand on this?
Sure, few of our laws (at least early on) contradict the Commandments. But neither do they contradict the Code of Hammurabi or the laws of Ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, etc.
Murder, theft, rape, treason, and so forth are condemned by all moral and legal codes, whether they claim Divine origin or not.
But IMO the unique genius of the Constitution owes practically nothing to the Bible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anything there about separation of power, limited terms in office, a federation of states with a clearly-defined role for the central government, or a bicameral Legislature.
Trial by jury is from our Germanic roots, and common law is English. Regular elections are from Greece and Rome.
In fact, the Bible is the basis for the King claiming his divine right to rule.
You're making the same mistake a lot of CRIDers do - forgetting that we are social animals, and part of the environment we adapt to is other people.
The strongest, least inhibited man, in isolation, is nothing compared to organized society.
"United we stand, divided we fall"
Think of a tribe of egocentric liars, and another tribe of people who cooperate with each other. The cooperators will win the war between them; it's happened many times in history.
In summary, "fittest" for human beings includes the ability to cooperate with others.
When I posted about the Constitution and Bible above, I mentioned that murder, theft, etc are illegal under all systems; they all condemn lying as well.
Well, not all systems condemn lying. Creation/IDism and socialism all support lying for the "greater good".
Amusing, wasn't it? When someone is desperately trying to pretend that he knows some really big words, the result almost always looks like that.
This is your brain on creationism!
Since I'm already on JamesP81's list
From his FR homepage:
James P's Corrolary to Godwin's Law: If, in the course of a debate about evolution, you compare your ideological opponent to Islamic Fascists, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or terrorists in general, due to your opponents religious convictions, then the argument is over, and you lost.
(I was added for saying that teaching the ToE is illegal in Saudi Arabia)
I may as well add
And don't forget Taqiyah
Excellent. I had once known about that date for Gibbon (the first volume), but it got forgotten along the way.
From the Wiki article you linked to:
Because the Roman Church had a virtual monopoly on its own history, its own Latin interpretations were considered sacrosanct, and as a result the Church's writings had rarely been questioned before. For Gibbon, however, the Church writings were secondary sources, and he eschewed them in favour of primary sources contemporary to the period he was chronicling
[snip]
Gibbon proved that the early Church's custom of bestowing the title of martyr on all confessors of faith grossly inflated the actual numbers. [my emph.]
[asbestos and kevlar in place]
Can you imagine what theology, especially apologetics (remember that "creation science" was originally described as a branch of apologetics), would be like if it adhered to the same standards as science: get caught lying once, you're out.
I read the "Decline and Fall" in its entirety off and on over the last three or so years. Extremely well written, but it drags in places; there's no way to make 1000 years of Byzantine emperors very interesting.
Very highly recommended. (Especially if you have a Latin dictionary handy to figure out the footnotes.)
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