Posted on 07/03/2002 9:53:47 AM PDT by Tomalak
‘And has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father’ (Revelation 1:6)
"John echoes Yahweh's words, spoken at the Exodus. He told Israel that they would be a kingdom and a priesthood. The same words are now applied to the church. The community of faith is to be a kingdom in the sense that God will reign in it. But there is a sense in which the power of the kingdom will be shared by its citizenry. Compare Revelation 5:10 ‘They will reign on the earth.’
"John lived in the ancient east where kings were proverbial for their absolute power, and splendid lifestyle. For those who join with Christ, life is full of privileges. The first and primary privilege is the liberation from the deadening burden of sin (1:5). But other brimming satisfactions follow."
"Jesus predicted that those who cast their lot in with him, would discover surprising joys. He pictured a poor ploughman; toiling day and night to make ends meet. One day his plough turned up a casket of treasures. From that day forward life was decked with overflowing benefits. Some of them are listed in the Beatitudes. ‘Blessed are the poor, theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who hunger, for they will be satisfied; blessed are they that... weep---for they will laugh’ (Luke 6:20,21).
Paul adds this thought: ‘We are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ’ (Romans 8:17)
"There is a quality of life that God intends for us. For now, it is principally known in the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ. A day will come when the material world will correspondingly yield a bounty to us."
Human and ape scurvy (and other genetic defects we share) are evidence of so-called macro evolution.
Is it any harder to believe in miracles than punctuated equalibrium?
Yes, it is for me. You see, there's nothing to 'believe in' with science, the way there is with the several revealed and traditional religions. We know science is just human thought trying to make sense of the world; our understanding changes with more knowledge and theory.
Since parts of the Bible (eg the worldwide flood) are known to be false, relying on it for natural history just seems silly to me.
Woahhs: Sure they are...but they start calling them "laws."
Doesn't work like that. Theories don't become laws. Laws and theories are different kinds of things. Laws are descriptive whereas theories are explanatory.
A law says that, under defined conditions, a system of a defined type will behave in such a manner as the law describes. A law, properly speaking, has nothing to say about why the system should behave in that way. A theory, OTOH, seeks to explain why some system behaves as it does, or has the characteristics it does, usually by proposing some causal mechanism.
A theory can never be proven because, even if it were to explain all known and relevant phenomena perfectly, it is always possible that some not-yet-known phenomena are unexplained by the theory, or would even falsify it. In addition, even if a theory is uncontradicted by any known evidence, it is always possible that there is a better theory that has yet to be thought of or proposed that would explain the known data equally as well, and more data besides (a more general theory) or one that would explain the data more elegantly (a less "ad hoc" theory).
Laws cannot be proven because of the fact that they implicitly claim universality (all systems of the defined type must be behave as the law describes) and thus can be falsified by any instance of a "misbehaving" system.
In short, proving either theories or laws would essentially require omnipotence, an exhaustive and complete knowledge of all phenomena to which they are relevant.
The most heroic, uplifting, inspiring scene in the whole of English literature is the construction of Pandaemonium, the capital city of Hell, in Milton's Paradise Lost. After the Fall, Satan and his minions know only agony. They can barely function. Satan rouses them out of their stupor and puts them to work building the city to get their minds refocused. Some of Heaven's greatest artisans have fallen along with him; under these impossible conditions, they do their best work of all.
Of course, Milton has always been accused of painting too noble and sympatheic a portrait of the Prince of Darkness.
Laws are empirical, not necessarily universal. They are rules of thumb based upon observation. Ampere's law, for example, fails for circuits that contain capacitors. It is still called a law, however, because of how it was constructed, and it is still taught because it works well in its region of applicability.
Belief in heaven partially disengages man from proactive endeavors here on earth. It is almost as bad as the "End Days" beliefs.
Here is what I wrote on the matter in another post:
You prefer not to think about cosmic questions such as the meaning of life or the origin of the universe, which necessarily lead to pondering the role of God, religion and so on in how we lead our lives and what our ultimate purpose is.I am not a celestrial mechanic, I am a man. It puzzles me why some claim 'knowlege of God' is neccessary to live a meaningful life, one that is congruent with the idea of 'good'. The way I see it, 'God' gave me the means to do this by providing me with mind, heart and conciousness.
I defy anyone religious to illustrate how thier 'purpose in life', their goals, are fundamentally different than mine... or to be more specific: What can be achieved via religion that cannot be achieved through ethics and compassion?
I see religion as the historical forerunner of philosophy -- that does not mean however that religion is the BASIS of philosophy, but rather the PATH that man had to walk in order to learn.
Once man takes on the more refined philosophical system, does it really make sense to hold onto a crude precursor?
Ethics/philosophy/love is just religion without the epic drama, diminution, and neurotic boogeymen.
Some precepts of religion I consider outright dangerous; for instance, the idea of a promised hereafter and a judge of man seems to me to inculcate a strategy of simple refraining from 'evil' while spawning a reluctance to truly 'fight the good fight' by attacking things that WE-THINK-but-are-not-quite-sure-are-bad. It is an ideology that erodes confidence in ourselves, in our CAPABILITY to JUDGE. To BE, to LEAD and EXEMPLIFY.
It neuters what I consider to be our true soul -- the WAKE we make on the minds of our fellows, on the mind of man, in our lifetime. Instead we sit like passive babies, behaving but not LIVING, waiting to be fed our promised heaven. The pilot light in the breast is cold, and your soul is always 'on the other side' of death.
That light is your soul, ignite it now, let it spark the furnace of passion -- and LIVE!
Well that may be well and good for you and your religion, but where does that leave me, as I am reformed druid, and that is not part of our texts?
Oh one last thing ... if what you call God is the entity that has the eternal hell you speak of ... I would not consult with him as I don't deal with psychopaths
Evolutionary theory is not bound in an ironclad manner to usefulness. It operates under constraints, for instance -- it might be 'useful' for mammals to have wings as well as arms (or 'legs') but the development of those wings involves a massive transition of design, and AT ALL POINTS along that transition the organism has to reap benifits that PAY FOR the transitional biology of the moment relative to competing mutations.
Evolution is not capable of "thinking" 'in the long run', but only in terms of the lifespan of the creature:
Do pre-wings (stubs) really benefit me, or would someone whos mutations gave them bigger arms or better eyes be more successful at life -- more likely to have offspring hence propogating that mutation?
That is the 'test' every variation must pass.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.