Posted on 08/01/2006 12:42:58 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Leave Buddha out of future comparative analogies please.
He's not a God nor a prophet. To "believe" in Buddha is the same as "believing" in Thomas Jefferson.
They were both men, and only men, and they are now both dead.
Buddha was a moral philosopher who presented a brilliant way of life to avoid suffering. That's all.
"It is not based on any religion or divine commandments, but upon "we the people"."
I guess you have never read any of the writings of the people who actually drafted the Constitution, or voted on it. Those writings are chock full of invocations of the Almighty, etc. Almost all were Christians. None were atheists; a tiny minority were deists. The only times atheists have been left alone to come up with a government system (as in the French and Russian Revolutions), they came up with dictatorship and mass murder. Why? Probably because they think most ordinary human beings are so so inferior to them that they couldn't be allowed to have choice, or even to live.
I hate it when people reduce God to a scientific theory.
I'd say that was pretty clear....
To those who can count past 1.
Except that those phenomena can be reliably demonstrated and reproduced. Which shows that heathen secular materialists *will* believe wacky things, *if* there's actual evidence for them.
Geez man, how many times can you insult a guy's father in a single post? Whether you're right or wrong is besides the point. You're intentionally baiting Mineralman by flaming his father and you know it.
The Enlightenment did not succeed the Dark Ages. In between there were some 10 centuries comprising the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Science was born long before the Enlightenment, and it was born in the Christian world (Europe). Somehow that "Christian Taliban" which atheists always think is lurking right under the bed, waiting to annihilate science, just couldn't do the job. Most early scientists were Christians, and many modern scientists are, also. Very few are dogmatic atheists.
Er, Christians aren't theists?
A conclusion can never be used to support an hypothesis, or contention. That's a gross error in logic.
" they talk, for example, about how finely our solar system and our planet had to be calibrated to support life.”
Whatever the value of any physical parameters are, it does not follow that a god exists.
" evidence of humanity’s sinful nature"
Man does not have a sinful nature. Man simply has a free will, there is no inherent bias, or propensity to do either good, or evil.
Christianity=the teachings of Jesus Christ, not what some humans do.
The only times someone was brought to Jesus and described as deserving death, he forgave them and sent them on their way.
When Peter wanted to fight the Temple guards who came to arrest Jesus, Jesus stopped him, and went willingly to His death.
And you expect us to believe that Christianity is about hatred and condemnation?
[Take that, you "blashpher.}
You actually believe that pure energy, like maybe photons, can have intelligence, math, recorded knowledge. etc.? And you accuse US of believing in things for which there is no evidence?
How does one photon talk to another? What journals do they publish in?
If there is a Sun God, and he gets mad at us because we don't worship him, we're pretty much screwed.
An alternative view: The "Dark Age"occurred owing to suppression of new ideas by the Church and Popes, and ended only when Martin Luther challenged the authority of the Vatican. Elements of the Dark Ages are perpetuated by their fellow fundamentalists who refused to accept the Germ Theory of Disease, refused to accept women as equal citizens, refuse to accept women as spirtual in leadership.
The US Constitution derives from the Enlightenment. It is not even a tiny bit Christian. It rejects all the previous church hierarchies and claims to 'truth' in matters of government.
Phobonics?
For me, it's logic.
To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation, but an utterly simple IDEA. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, and so inevitable, so beautiful, we will all say to each other, "How could it have ever been otherwise?"
With increased understanding of nature comes increased control of nature. Technology advances exponentially. See The Law of Accelerating Returns
How much technology advancement is required to create a galaxy or universe? When will we have that technology? Will we seed the new galaxy or universe so it evolves conscious beings or will that be set with the initial conditions for creating the galaxy or universe? How much sooner before that will we have cured human death and saved a replica of each persons conscious mind in case of accidental death so that a new body can house it? Current estimates from research and development in several fields concerning human longevity put it at 2040 to 2100. Will Earthlings be the first to create universes? Can't have too big a customer base to do business with. ;-)
Come to think of it, if there are other immortal conscious beings scattered throughout the Universe they probably have already assured that the implosion half-cycle of the Universe will never occur. Perhaps maintaining the Universe in a state of oscillation.
Matter and energy are but two of three macro components of existence. The third and controlling component is consciousness.
Around about that time we'll say: "How could it have ever been otherwise?"
Achieving much more than any imagined God, immortal Earthlings become God-men and God-woman.
I'm feeling something pointy in my back....
The Founders certainly had personal beliefs, but they were thoughtful about not imposing them on others.
Go, thou, and do likewise.
There is not a single mention in the Constitution about any god or about Christ. Art VI says atheists, pagans, etc. are equal because there "shall be no religious test."
I don't have anything against electrons. Far from it. If they weren't exactly the way they are, none of us would be here posting this stuff. The charge on the electron is one of the most fundamental things in nature. All other charges are just integral multiples of it.
There are other quantities in physics which could not have significantly different values either--or else the universe would be completely inhospitable. Just ask a physicist.
OK. I won't blame you for the sayings of other atheists. It would be nice, though, if those other atheists wouldn't try to tar Christianity with all the bad acts of self-styled Christians.
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